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Human Rights in Africa: Toward the Definition of the Problem of a Double Standard

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

Laurie S. Wiseberg
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Extract

In August 1936, 4,069 athletes from forty-nine countries participated in the Olympic Games in Berlin, hosted by the Nazi Fuehrer. It is true that the full bestiality of the Third Reich was not yet manifest in 1936; the gas ovens, the slave labor camps, and the rape of Europe were yet to come. However, by that year, Nazi ideology had already been articulated: blacks, Jews and gypsies had been declared sub-human; Hitler had issed his Nuremburg Laws depriving Jews of their citizenship and civil rights; German rearmament was well underway; and the National Socialists had brutally consolidated a racist despotism.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Issues , Volume 6 , Issue 4 , Winter 1976 , pp. 3 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1976 

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References

Notes

1. These are some of the objectives of the Olympic Games, as stated by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympics.

2. For a more detailed discussion of national attitudes towards the Berlin Olympics, see Mandell, Richard D.,The Nazi Olympics, (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1971)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. All quotations on the Olympics taken from Johnson, William O. Jr., All That Glitters Is Not Gold: The Olympic Games, (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1972), p. 176 Google Scholar.

4. See, for example, de Broglio, Chris, South Africa: Racism in Sport , (London: International Defence and Ald Fund, 1970)Google Scholar.

5. “It Was A Call to Colors,” and “Dark Genius of Dissent,” Sports Illustrated, Vol. 45, No. 2 (July 26, 1976), pp. 14–18 Google Scholar; and Deford, Frank, “More Dark Clouds Over Montreal,” Sports Illustrated, Vol. 45, No. 3 (July 19, 1976), pp. 32–34,36 and 39Google Scholar.

6. “Politics cited as U.S. pulls out of Davis Cup,” Chicago Tribune, July 2,1976, Sect. 4, p. 1.

7. Newsweek, August 4, 1975, p. 36; and The New York Times, July 19,1975.

8. Los Angeles Times, September 15,1972.

9. Amin, , under pressure from the Soviets, reconsidered this decision and decided against erecting the monument. The Times (London), June 28, 1975 Google Scholar.

10. Chicago Sun-Times, November 9, 1973.

11. Low, D.A., “Uganda Unhinged,” International Affairs (London), Vol. 49, No. 2 (April 1973), p. 219 Google Scholar.

12. “Getting Rid of Amin,” The Economist, July 31, 1976.

13. International Commission of Jurists, Violations of Human Rights and the Rule of Law in Uganda, (Geneva/New York: 1974), p. 61 Google Scholar; see also Posner, Michael, “World Opinion Ignores Deepening Ugandan Repression,” Matchbox, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Spring/Summer 1975),pp. 11–12 Google Scholar.

14. Martin, David, General Amin, (London: Faber and Faber, 1974), p. 9 Google Scholar.

15. Uganda has been one of the cases under consideration by the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities (of the UN Human Rights Commission) for gross violations of human rights. Reports of the International Commission of Jurists, Amnesty international, the International League for the Rights of Man, as well as numerous journalistic accounts speak about the reign of terror in Uganda.

16. Humphreys, John, “Amin Promises Liberation, Delivers Exile and Murder.” Matchbox, Vol.1, No. 4, (Spring/Summer, 1975), pp. 7–9 Google Scholar; Weinstein, Warren, “Human Rights in Jeopardy: Burundi and Uganda,” Africa Today, Vol. 22, No. 1 (January-March, 1975), pp. 75–80 Google Scholar; and David Martin, “Four Killer Squads At Idi Amin’s Beck and Call,” Washington Post, July 23, 1976. David Martin, in this most recent article, states that “some Ugandans believe” that the Ugandan death toll has now risen to over 200,000.

17. Patel, Hasu H., “General Amin and the Indian Exodus from Uganda,” Issue, Vol. II, No.4 (Winter 1972), pp. 12–22 Google Scholar; O’Brien, Justin, “General Amin and the Ugandan Asians,” Roundtable, Vol. 63, No. 249 (January 1973), pp. 91–104 Google Scholar; Jack, A. Homer, “Uganda, Human Rights and the U.N. Agenda,” America, Vol. 127, No. 11 (October 14, 1972), pp. 283–285 Google Scholar; Sharma, Vishnu D. and Woolridge, F., “Some Legal Questions Arising from the Expulsion of the Ugandan Asians,” International and Comparative Law Quarterly, Vol. 23, Pt. 2 (April 1974), pp. 397–425 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Plender, Richard, “The Exodus of Asians from East and Central Africa: Some Comparative and International Law Aspects,” American Journal of Comparative Law, Vol. 19 (1971), pp. 287–324 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18. New York Times, August 8, 1976.

19. Africa Research Bulletin, August 1-31, 1975, p. 3719.

20. Ibid; and “Anti-Climax at Kampala,” West Africa, August 4, 1975.

21. Ibid.

22. Financial Times (London), June 27,1975.

23. The Observer (London), June 29, 1975.

24. New York Times, Juty 27, 1975.

25. Legum, Colin, “The Year of Amin,” Africa Report, Vol. 20, No. 4 (July/August 1975), pp. 8–10 Google Scholar.

26. The Economist (London), July 19, 1975.

27. Greenland, Jeremy, “The Two Options Now Facing Burundi,” René Lemarchand, “Ethnic Genocide,” and Warren Weinstein, “Burundi: Alternatives to Violence,” in Issue, Vol. V, No. 2 (Summer 1975), pp. 3–5 and 9-22Google Scholar; Bowen, Michael, Freeman, Gary, Miller, Kay, Passing By: The United States and Genocide in Burundi, 1972 (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Humanitarian Policy Studies, 1973)Google Scholar; Melady, Thomas Patrick, Burundi: The Tragic Years (New York: Orbis, 1974)Google Scholar; Forscher, Romain, “The Burundi Massacres’. Tribalism in Black Africa,” in International Journal of Politics, Vol. 4, No. 4 (1972), pp. 77–87 Google Scholar; Wingert, Norman, No Place to Stop Killing (Chicago: Moody Press, 1974)Google Scholar; Obiozor, George and Butler, William, The Burundi Affair (New York: International League for the Rights of Man, 1973)Google Scholar; and Weinstein, Warren, “Tensions in Burundi,” Issue, Vol. II, No.4 (Winter 1972), pp. 27–29 Google Scholar.

28. Lemarchand, René, Rwanda and Burundi (New York: Praeger, 1970)Google Scholar.

29. Wiseberg, Laurie S., “Humanitarian Intervention: Lessons from the Nigerian Civil War,” Human Rights Journal Vol. VII, No. 1 (1974), pp. 61–98 Google Scholar; and Wiseberg, Laurie, The International Politics of Relief: A Case Study of the Relief Operations Mounted During the Nigerian Civil War, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1973 Google Scholar.

30. The phrasing was that of President Houphouet-Boigny. African Report, Vol. 13, No. 7 (October 1968), p. 40.

31. These groups generally serve as information centers, receiving and gathering data on violations—from the press, victims, and refugees; they often send observers to political trials and frequently conduct on-the-spot investigations. This information is then disseminated through press releases, special reports, and the regular publications of the groups. For further information on such non-governmental organizations, see: Scoble, Harry M. and Wiseberg, Laurie S., “Human Rights NGOs: Notes Toward Comparative Analysis,” Human Rights Journal , (forthcoming, fall 1976)Google Scholar; Scoble, Harry M. and Wiseberg, Laurie S., “Human Rights and Amnesty International,” The Annals, Vol. 413 (May 1974), pp. 11–26 Google Scholar; Weissbrodt, David, “The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations in the Implementation of Human Rights,” paper presented at the International Studies Association annual meeting, February 1976, Toronto Google Scholar; Forsythe, David P., “Political Prisoners: Renewed Interest in an Old Subject,” unpublished paper, 1975 Google Scholar; Hearings Before the Subcommittee on International Organizations and Movements of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, Ninety-Third Congress, First Session, (August/December 1973)—hereinafter cited as Human Rights Hearings; and Archer, Peter, “Action by Unofficial Organizations on Human Rights,” in Luard, Evan, (ed.). The International Protection of Human Rights (New York: Praeger, 1967), pp. 160–182 Google Scholar.

32. Until recently, the human rights field was largely restricted to activists and international lawyers. Increasingly, however, social scientists have become involved in research in the area as evidenced by the formation of the “internet” on human rights in the International Studies Association, after its 1976 meeting.

33. For a review of the state of human rights, see, for example: Amnesty International, Report on Torture (New York: Farrar, , Straus, and Giroux, , 1975)Google Scholar; Human Rights Hearings, op.cit.; Shestack, Jerome J. and Cohen, Roberta, “International Human Rights: A Role for the United States,” Virginia Journal of International Law (Summer 1974)Google Scholar; Styron, Rose, “Torture,” New Republic, December 8, 1973, pp. 17–21 Google Scholar; and Emerson, Rupert, “The Fate of Human Rights in the Third World,” World Politics, Vol. 1, XXVII, No. 2 (January 1975), pp. 201–226 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34. See Friedman, Milton, “South Africa and the Soviet Union,” Newsweek, May 24, 1976, p. 78 Google Scholar, where he writes: “After all, by comparison with the Soviet Union, and with many of the black minority governments of Africa, South Africa is a model of freedom and enlightenment.” And his article, “Rhodesia,” Newsweek, May 3, 1976, p. 77, where he states: “Rhodesia has a freer press, a more democratic form of government, a greater sympathy with Western ideals than most if not all the states of Black Africa.”

35. The Review, International Commission of Jurists, No. 8 (June 1972), pp. 10-13.

36. Low, op. cit., p. 221.

37. Martin, General Amin, op. cit., p. 153; and International Commission of Jurists, Violations of Human Rights... in Uganda, op.cit, pp. 39-42.

38. Dehner, W. Joseph Jr., “Multinational Enterprise and Racial Non-Discrimination: United States Enforcement of an international Human Right,” Harvard International Law Journal, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Winter 1974), pp. 81–82 Google Scholar; and Plender, op.cit.

39. Richard F. Weisfelder, ‘The Decline of Human Rights in Lesotho: An Evaluation of Domestic and External Determinants,” in THIS ISSUE.

40. This theme has been developed at length in Wiseberg, “Humanitarian Intervention ...” op.cit.

41. Bilder, Richard B., “Rethinking International Human Rights: Some Basic Questions,” Human Rights Journal, Vol. 11, No. 4 (1969), pp. 573-4Google Scholar.

42. Address by Ambassador Daniel P. Moynihan to the Third Committee of the UN, November 13, 1975. Moynihan’s introduction of a resolution appealing to all government to proclaim an unconditional amnesty for all political prisoners can be interpreted as an attempt to distract attention from the ongoing discussion of the specific violations in South Africa and Chile. Indeed, it was so viewed by the Socialist and Third World countries.

43. Since the overthrow of Allende, the one occasion on which 1 United States did criticise the junta was in July 1974, when President Pinoche reneged on a promise to permit the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to send an investigative mission to Chile. But, even then, the State Department protest was made privately.

44. For a more extended discussion of the conflict between the principles of domestic jurisdiction and humanitarian intervention, see Wiseberg, Laurie S., The Nigerian Civil War, 1967-1970: A Case Study in ‘ the Efficacy of International Law as a Regulator of Intrastate Violence , (Los Angeles: Arms Control and Foreign Policy Seminar, Southern California, 1968)Google Scholar.

45. Emerson, op.cit., pp. 202-3.

46. Many would dispute the proposition that the First World is morally bankrupt, but the enormous emphasis placed on profit and mass consumption hardly suggests a model to be imitated. In this regard, see Goulet, Denis, The Cruel Choice, (New York: Atheneum, 1973)Google Scholar. With respect to the best that the First World has to offer—i.e., its conceptions of liberty, democracy, equality, etc.—it is disheartening to realize how influential are the views of a Samuel P. Huntington who can assert that the future of democracy is threatened because democracy in the United States, in the 1960s and 1970s, has been working “too well.” See: “Is Democracy Dying? Verdict of 8 Leading World Scholars,” US News and World Report, March 8, 1976, pp. 50-51. See also: Alan Wolfe’s analysis of the position of Huntington, as expressed in the Trilateral Commission’s Task Force Report of May 1975, The Governability of Democracies, in “Capitalism Shows its Face,” The Nation, November 29, 1975.

47. Emerson, op.cit.; Amnesty International, Report on Torture, op.cit.; and Warren Weinstein, “Africa’s Approach to Human Rights at the United Nations,” in THIS ISSUE.

48. For a more detailed treatment of the problem, see: Bilder, op.cit. (his footnote 5, p. 559, provides a good bibliographical guide to earlier discussions of the question); Hill, Christopher R., “Some Philosophical Problems about Rights, (Baltimore: Penguin, 1969), pp. 7–29 Google Scholar; Moskowitz, Moses, The Politics and Dynamics of Human Rights (Dobbs Ferry, New York: Oceana, 1968)Google Scholar; Van Dyke, Vernon, Human Rights, the United States and the World Community (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 9–102 Google Scholar; Newman, Frank C., “Interpreting the Human Rights Clauses of the UN Charter,” Human Rights Journal, Vol.5, No. 2-3 (1972), pp. 283–291 Google Scholar; Robertson, A.H. (ed.). Human Rights in National and International Law (Dobbs Ferry, New York: Oceana, 1968)Google Scholar; and van Boven, Th. C., ‘Some Remarks on Special Problems Relating to Human Rights in Developing Countries,” Human Rights Journal, Vol. III, Bo. 3 (1970), pp. 383–395 Google Scholar.

49. Of course, while there may be a global consensus on human rights defined in broad, sweeping generalities, there is no consensus on the interpretation of these rights in particular contexts.

50. Berlin, Isiah, “Two Concepts of Liberty: An Inaugural Lecture delivered before the University of Oxford on 31 October 1958,” (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958)Google Scholar.

51. Schwab, Peter, “Human Rights in Ethiopia,” paper presented at the 18th Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, San Francisco, 1975 Google Scholar.

52. See, for example, Eddison Zvobgo, “The Abuse of Executive Prerogative: A Purposive Difference Between Detention in Black African and Detention in White Racist Africa,” in THIS ISSUE.

53. Mower, A. Glenn Jr., “Human Rights in Black Africa: A Double Standard,” paper presented at the International Studies Association, Annual Meeting, February 1976, Toronto Google Scholar.

54. M’Baye, Kéba, “Les Réalités du Monde Noir et Les Droits de l’Homme,” Human Rights Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3 (September 1969), p. 386 Google Scholar.

55. Mangin, Gilbert, “Les Droits de l’Homme dans les Pays de l’Afrique Francophone,” Human Rights Journal, Vol. 1, No. 3 (September 1968), p. 454 Google Scholar.

56. Mower, op.cit., p. 9.

57. M’Baye, op.cit., pp. 386-388; and Mangin, op.cit., p. 455.

58. One must remember that African governments, with relatively small diplomatic corps, frequently operate in an information vacuum with respect to events distant from their more pressing concerns.

59. Heilbroner, Robert L., “Counterrevolutionary America,” Commentary, Vol. 43, No. 4 (April 1967), p. 31 Google Scholar.

60. How many lost weir lives in the consolidation of Communist control in China is a highly contentious question. But even if one assumes the worst—many million killed—the argument is not substantially weakened, given the enormous numbers who have died of starvation or malnutrition on the Indian sub-continent.

61. Heilbroner, op.cit., p. 35.

62. I am grateful to Berhanykun Andemichael for raising this point in the the human rights panel at the International Studies Association meeting, February, 1976.

63. This inverse relationship is also obvious with respect to the Burundi massacres, the Chilean repression, and the Iranian despotism.

64. Salzberg, John, “A Report on the Twenty-Second Session of the Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities,” Human Rights Journal, Vol. 3, No. 1 (March 1970), p. 137 Google Scholar.

65. See Warren Weinstein, “Africa’s Response to Human Rights at the United Nations,” in THIS ISSUE.

66. Weis, Paul, “The Convention of the Organization of African Unity Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa,” Human Rights Journal, Vol. 3, No. 3 (September 1970), p. 449 Google Scholar.

67. Ibid., p. 463.

68. Mangin, op.cit., p. 455.

69. Robertson, A.H., “African Legal Process and the Individual,” Human Rights Journal, Vol. 5, Nos. 2-3 (1972), p. 465 Google Scholar.

70. Ibid, p. 471.