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The Argument for Torture
On January 16, 2003, the European Court of Human
Rights agreed - more than two years after the applications
have been filed - to hear six cases filed by Chechens
against Russia. The claimants accuse the Russian military
of torture and indiscriminate killings. The Court has ruled
in the past against the Russian Federation and awarded
assorted plaintiffs thousands of euros per case in
compensation.
As awareness of human rights increased, as their
definition expanded and as new, often authoritarian
polities, resorted to torture and repression - human rights
advocates and non-governmental organizations
proliferated. It has become a business in its own right:
lawyers, consultants, psychologists, therapists, law
enforcement agencies, scholars and pundits tirelessly
peddle books, seminars, conferences, therapy sessions for
victims, court appearances and other services.
Human rights activists target mainly countries and
multinationals.
In June 2001, the International Labor Rights Fund filed a
lawsuit on behalf of 11 villagers against the American oil
behemoth, ExxonMobile, for "abetting" abuses in Aceh,
Indonesia. They alleged that the company provided the
army with equipment for digging mass graves and helped
in the construction of interrogation and torture centers.
In November 2002, the law firm of Cohen, Milstein,
Hausfeld & Toll joined other American and South African
law firms in filing a complaint that "seeks to hold
businesses responsible for aiding and abetting the
apartheid regime in South Africa ... forced labor,
genocide, extrajudicial killing, torture, sexual assault, and
unlawful detention".
Among the accused: "IBM and ICL which provided the
computers that enabled South Africa to ... control the
black South African population. Car manufacturers
provided the armored vehicles that were used to patrol the
townships. Arms manufacturers violated the embargoes
on sales to South Africa, as did the oil companies. The
banks provided the funding that enabled South Africa to
expand its police and security apparatus".
Charges were leveled against Unocal in Myanmar and
dozens of other multinationals. In September 2002, Berger
& Montague filed a class action complaint against Royal
Dutch Petroleum and Shell Transport. The oil giants are
charged with "purchasing ammunition and using ...
helicopters and boats and providing logistical support for
'Operation Restore Order in Ogoniland'" which was
designed, according to the law firm, to "terrorize the
civilian population into ending peaceful protests against
Shell's environmentally unsound oil exploration and
extraction activities".
The defendants in all these court cases strongly deny any
wrongdoing.
But this is merely one facet of the torture business.
Torture implements are produced - mostly in the West -
and sold openly, frequently to nasty regimes in developing
countries and even through the Internet. Hi-tech devices
abound: sophisticated electroconvulsive stun guns, painful
restraints, truth serums, chemicals such as pepper gas.
Export licensing is universally minimal and non-intrusive
and completely ignores the technical specifications of the
goods (for instance, whether they could be lethal, or
merely inflict pain).
Amnesty International and the UK-based Omega
Foundation, found more than 150 manufacturers of stun
guns in the USA alone. They face tough competition from
Germany (30 companies), Taiwan (19), France (14),
South Korea (13), China (12), South Africa (nine), Israel
(eight), Mexico (six), Poland (four), Russia (four), Brazil
(three), Spain (three) and the Czech Republic (two).
Many torture implements pass through "off-shore" supply
networks in Austria, Canada, Indonesia, Kuwait, Lebanon,
Lithuania, Macedonia, Albania, Russia, Israel, the
Philippines, Romania and Turkey. This helps European
Union based companies circumvent legal bans at home.
The US government has traditionally turned a blind eye to
the international trading of such gadgets.
American high-voltage electro-shock stun shields turned
up in Turkey, stun guns in Indonesia, and electro-shock
batons and shields, and dart-firing taser guns in torture-
prone Saudi Arabia. American firms are the dominant
manufacturers of stun belts. Explains Dennis Kaufman,
President of Stun Tech Inc, a US manufacturer of this
innovation: ''Electricity speaks every language known to
man. No translation necessary. Everybody is afraid of
electricity, and rightfully so.'' (Quoted by Amnesty
International).
The Omega Foundation and Amnesty claim that 49 US
companies are also major suppliers of mechanical
restraints, including leg-irons and thumbcuffs. But they
are not alone. Other suppliers are found in Germany (8),
France (5), China (3), Taiwan (3), South Africa (2), Spain
(2), the UK (2) and South Korea (1).
Not surprisingly, the Commerce Department doesn't keep
tab on this category of exports.
Nor is the money sloshing around negligible. Records
kept under the export control commodity number A985
show that Saudi Arabia alone spent in the United States
more than $1 million a year between 1997-2000 merely
on stun guns. Venezuela's bill for shock batons and such
reached $3.7 million in the same period. Other clients
included Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mexico and - surprisingly -
Bulgaria. Egypt's notoriously brutal services - already
well-equipped - spent a mere $40,000.
The United States is not the only culprit. The European
Commission, according to an Amnesty International
report titled "Stopping the Torture Trade" and published
in 2001:
"Gave a quality award to a Taiwanese electro-shock
baton, but when challenged could not cite evidence as to
independent safety tests for such a baton or whether
member states of the European Union (EU) had been
consulted. Most EU states have banned the use of such
weapons at home, but French and German companies are
still allowed to supply them to other countries".
Torture expertise is widely proffered by former soldiers,
agents of the security services made redundant, retired
policemen and even rogue medical doctors. China, Israel,
South Africa, France, Russia, the United kingdom and the
United States are founts of such useful knowledge and its
propagators.
How rooted torture is was revealed in September 1996
when the US Department of Defense admitted that
''intelligence training manuals'' were used in the Federally
sponsored School of the Americas - one of 150 such
facilities - between 1982 and 1991.The manuals, written
in Spanish and used to train thousands of Latin American
security agents, "advocated execution, torture, beatings
and blackmail", says Amnesty International.
Where there is demand there is supply. Rather than ignore
the discomfiting subject, governments would do well to
legalize and supervise it. Alan Dershowitz, a prominent
American criminal defense attorney, proposed, in an op-
ed article in the Los Angeles Times, published November
8, 2001, to legalize torture in extreme cases and to have
judges issue "torture warrants". This may be a radical
departure from the human rights tradition of the civilized
world. But dispensing export carefully reviewed licenses
for dual-use implements is a different matter altogether -
and long overdue.