21 July 2005

(Goli Ameri, U.S. delegate to U.N. Rights Commission, holds Internet chat)

By Elizabeth Farabee
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- Improving the human rights situation throughout the world is “extremely important to the United States and to President Bush’s administration,” says Goli Ameri, an Iranian-American who served as a member of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR).

“Freedom, democracy and human rights all go hand in hand,” Ameri told participants during a July 20 Internet chat.   “Free and democratic countries do not abuse the rights of their citizens.”

That is why “the promotion of democracy and freedom is a cornerstone of the foreign policy of the administration,” Goli said.  “And we can already see the results with elections in Iraq, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Ukraine, amongst others.”

Ameri, an Oregon businesswoman, drew on her recent experience as a delegate to the 61st session of the UNCHR in Geneva to discuss ways to advance the human rights agenda, including reforming the human rights commission.

“There are certainly parts of the U.N. that function well,” she said. “But others, like the human rights commission, have completely lost sight of why they are there. Over 30 percent of the commission’s membership are human rights abusers. They band together, derail resolutions and play politics while the lives and the freedom of their people are in jeopardy.  Sometimes they don’t even allow condemnatory resolutions to come up because of absurd bureaucratic technicalities.”

“There is no accountability and little oversight,” she added. “Bad combinations for any large organization.”

On a more positive note, Ameri noted that the United States and the European Union this year tabled a UNCHR resolution condemning the human rights situation in Belarus. (The full text of the resolution is available on the Web site of the U.S. Delegation to the UNCHR.)

Last year, she said, Uzbekistan was singled out for criticism of its human rights abuses after Ambassador Richard Williamson, head of the U.S. delegation, brought to the attention of the media and other delegates reports of torture and unfair trials in Uzbekistan.

U.S. SYSTEM “SELF-QUESTIONING AND SELF-CORRECTIVE”

Asked about recent prisoner abuse scandals involving American soldiers and contractors, Ameri said, “In the U.S. when mistakes happen, everyone responsible tries to ascertain that the system is fixed and that the mistake does not happen again.”

“The mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib [Iraq] was a grave mistake by a handful of soldiers and it was not tolerated,” she said, adding that the perpetrators are being brought to trial.

The United States, she said, “is the most self-questioning and self-corrective system in the world.”

Ameri acknowledged that “in the past, the U.S. might have been more critical of certain regimes and not sufficiently [critical] of others.”  She quoted President Bush, who said, “We will not repeat the mistakes of the past, appeasing or excusing tyranny and sacrificing freedom in the vain pursuit of stability.”

When asked to define what makes a country democratic, Ameri said democracies have certain characteristics in common, including freedom of press, association, speech and religion, women’s rights, and the right to own property.

She contrasted her bid for U.S. Congress in 2004 with recent elections in Iran – her native country - where potential candidates “were vetted before they could even run. When I ran for Congress in Oregon last year, no one asked me a series of questions first to determine if I was eligible to. It was up to the people to decide if they agree with my platform. That’s free and fair elections.”

Ameri also commented on the wave of political and democratic change occurring in the world, such as Georgia’s Rose Revolution and Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. “I get the sense that democracy is on the march everywhere,” she said, “and the United States certainly feels that it is the imperative of our time to rally to this cause.”

To read Ameri’s editorial in the Oregonian newspaper discussing her recent experience as a member of the Human Rights Commission, see related article.