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US Doesn't Sign Ban on Disappearances
ANCOSO Development GmbH | Press Release
Wednesday 07 February 2007
Nearly 60 countries signed a treaty on Tuesday that bans governments from holding
people in secret detention, but the United States and some of its key European
allies were not among them.
The signing capped a quarter-century of efforts by families of people who have
vanished at the hands of governments.
"Our American friends were naturally invited to this ceremony; unfortunately,
they weren't able to join us," French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy
told reporters after 57 nations signed the treaty at his ministry in Paris.
"That won't prevent them from one day signing on in New York at U.N. headquarters
_ and I hope they will."
The U.S. Embassy in Paris declined immediate comment. President Bush acknowledged
in September that terrorism suspects have been held in CIA-run prisons overseas,
but did not specify where.
Many other Western nations, including Germany, Spain, Britain and Italy, also
did not sign the treaty. France introduced the convention at the U.N. General
Assembly in November and it was adopted in December.
Many delegates expressed hope that other nations will sign by year-end. Some
European nations have expressed support for the treaty, but face constitutional
hurdles or require a full Cabinet debate before signing, French and U.N. officials
said.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour called the treaty an
important step both in preventing injustices common years ago and barring newer
abuses that often fall through regulatory loopholes.
Arbour said the United States had expressed "reservations" about
parts of the text, but declined to elaborate, and she urged U.S. officials to
sign and ratify it. She noted that America often backs activities of the UNHCR
without formally signing on to them.
She called the treaty "a message to all modern-day authorities committed
to the fight against terrorism" that some past tactics are now "not
acceptable, in a very explicit way."
The convention defines forced disappearances as the arrest, detention, kidnapping
or "any other form of deprivation of freedom" by state agents or affiliates,
followed by denials or cover-ups about the detention and location of the person
gone missing.
Nations that eventually ratify the text would enshrine victims' rights, and
would require states to penalize any forced disappearances in their countries
and enact preventative and monitoring measures.
French officials, who led the effort, counted more than 51,000 people who were
disappeared by their governments in over 90 countries since 1980, Douste-Blazy
said. Some 41,000 of those cases remain unsolved.
"Men and women disappear every day on every continent, for defending human
rights, for just opposing their governments' policies or simply because they
want justice," Douste-Blazy said. "The situation could not continue
to go unpunished. It required a strong response from the international community."
Latin American states like Argentina, once plagued by disappearances, are now
owning up to much of the violence that left hundreds of thousands dead or disappeared
in the 1970s and 1980s. Disappearances were also a common Nazi tactic in World
War II.
Argentina's first lady, lawmaker Cristina Kirchner, took part in the signing.
She was in Paris in an effort to raise her profile before a potential presidential
bid.
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