Five persons dedicated to achieving that goal gave testimony June 25, before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission (TLHRC) on Capitol Hill. Three had been subjected to torture in their lives, one endured the psychological trauma of a family member tortured, and the fifth witness has been directly involved with implementing the international treaty, Convention Against Torture.
According to a 2001 Amnesty International report, torture is “widespread” in more than 70 countries; people in 80 countries have died as a result of torture; and AI has documented cases of torture in more than 150 countries, including the U.S. The issue has recently gained notoriety in the United States, over the Bush administration advocating interrogation procedures for prisoners of the “War on Terror” that violated international human rights law.
“As a member of Congress and an American citizen, it is very painful for me that my government over the past few years condoned the use of torture in a cruel, degrading, and inhumane treatment of prisoners,” said Congressman James McGovern (D-Massachusetts) in his opening commentary on the hearing. McGovern said he had “faith” that the “Obama administration is moving the country in the right direction.”
The Lantos Commission held this hearing for consideration of possibly more involvement of the Congress in this issue which in the past has largely been left to the Executive Branch.
Over 500,000 foreign survivors of torture reside in the United States, according to the hearing announcement and an opening statement by Hans Hogrefe, who represented the Co-Chair of TLHRC, Congressman James McGovern, after he left to go vote in the House.
The principle of torture as a universal crime against humanity has been around for some time. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 5, adopted by the General Assembly in 1948 of the United Nations, says: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
The U.N. General Assembly adopted the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), which went into effect on June 26, 1987. It requires the signatories to treat torture as a crime and to prosecute and punish those guilty of it. A decade later, June 26 was designated by the UN General Assembly as the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.
The timing of the day of this hearing, June 25, “is no accident,” noted Felice D. Gaer, member of the U.N. Committee against Torture, who testified at the hearing.
Nun, Tortured Two Decades Ago, Wants to End Torture Forever
The United States is a party to the CAT, and as such, has an obligation to investigate wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed within its territory—a point made with great zeal by Sr. Dianna Oritz, a U.S. born survivor of torture in Guatemala in 1989.
Sister Ortiz, who is a Roman Catholic Ursuline nun, was teaching Mayan children in the Guatemala highlands when she was abducted and gang-raped repeatedly. She also received 111 cigarette burns on her back according to a doctor whom she said examined her afterward. Ortiz says elsewhere that she only survived the ordeal because she was an American and the news of her disappearance was hurting the Guatemala government’s standing.
Ortiz said she doesn’t want the Obama administration to think it has fixed the problems of the Bush era and doesn’t need to do more.
“Good words are not enough to bring torture to an end.”
In an open letter to President Obama that was circulated at the hearing, Sister Ortiz notes, approvingly, that Attorney General Eric Holder admitted that waterboarding, the interrogation technique used by the CIA under the Bush administration, is torture. However, Ortiz stated that waterboarding, which perhaps received the most media attention, was not the only form of torture used, but that “the mock executions, distortions of light and temperature, shaking, the use of dogs, humiliation based on religion, sexuality, sanitation” were each “also a war crime.”
Ortiz is the founder of the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International (TASSC), an organization of torture survivors. Drawing upon her own self as a torture victim, she said, “We who have paid the price of torture call upon the government … to launch a formal investigation during the dark times of the Bush-Cheney years, and determine who may be held accountable...”
Disappearances—Suffering of Family Members of Torture Victims
Another victim of torture of a different kind who testified was Mary Aileen Diez-Bacalso. Ms. Bascalso, whose husband in the Philippines had been tortured, is former chairperson of the Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND).
Bacalso spoke of the impacts on the family members and friends who have a loved one that is among the Desaparecidos, which means ‘Missing’ in Spanish. Bacalso described the suffering from enforced or involuntary disappearances: “the pain of waiting, the uncertainty of a disappeared loved one’s fate, the constant fear … the possibility of death … these make the crime of enforced disappearances a very cruel form of torture.”
Bacalso quoted from a report that gives some idea of the magnitude of the numbers of Desaparecidos and the number of states where this is ongoing. The United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances reported in March 2009 for the period December 1, 2007 to November 30, 2008 that the total number of cases transmitted since its inception is 52,952. The number of cases under active consideration that have not yet been clarified or discontinued stands at 42,393 and concerns 79 countries. Only 1,763 cases have been clarified by the UN “Working Group” over the past five years, she said.
Preventing Torture
The universal principle of eradicating the practice of torture from the planet is one thing, but putting it into action is still another. A person who works on the “nuts and bolts” of achieving this aim is Felice Gaer, who is one of only ten members of the CAT (Committee against Torture) that monitors the implementation by over 140 countries of their obligations under the Convention. Ms. Gaer is the first American elected as an “Independent Expert to the UN Committee against Torture,” according to her bio.
As a representative of the American Jewish Committee and currently Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, Ms. Gaer has a lot of experience as an advocate, investigator and negotiator on behalf of human rights. She sees one of her main objectives as preventing torture.
“State obligations under the Convention against Torture require action—and ‘the obligation to prevent’ torture and ill-treatment engages the State in many ways,” said Gaer. She says it is important to move beyond the concept of outlawing torture to making the global mechanisms in place work.
“The issues that one has to deal with in the Committee Against Torture … are not abstractions, but real practical measures—what state authorities are doing to implement specific law enforcement obligations.” Gaer noted that a certain measure of “candor and transparency” has evolved in U.N. human rights treaty bodies since the end of the Cold War, allowing the CAT to take an honest appraisal of how the countries are doing and implement some practical ways that have an immediate impact to protect people.
“Do things change in the country concerned? Has law enforcement progressed in the area of prevention?,” are practical questions that CAT tries to answer in the short term, said Gaer. Then they try to focus on three to five recommendations from the periodic review that can be accomplished in one year as matters for the country to report back on.
“These follow-up measures are not necessarily the most far-reaching of the recommendations by the Committee, since some, such as changing the laws, might take several years,” but they can bring about constructive engagement and get the process moving.
Gaer’s report to the Commission contained gems of advice on how to monitor torture and degrading treatment.
“There is considerable value in precise information being provided: lists of prisoners; details on deaths in detention and the like. We have seen that there is a need for more vigorous fact-finding and monitoring…the CAT has found there is great protective value in conducting prompt, impartial investigations into allegations of abuse.”
“In country after country, there is a need for police training with clear-cut instructions on the prohibition on torture, as well as information on the conduct of medical examinations, including autopsies. We try to ascertain whether the police are actually required to document signs of torture including sexual violence; whether they are required to preserve evidence,” said Gaer.