May 30, 2001
LONDON - Globalization has brought economic prosperity to some, but it has left too many others mired in debt, poverty and oppression, Amnesty International said Wednesday as it marked its 40th anniversary.
Grim tallies of torture and extrajudicial killings in Amnesty's 2001 report were accompanied by a little soul-searching as the group examined the past and charted the future of its struggle for universal respect for human rights. ``The human rights movement has grown in strength and numbers, and consciousness of human rights is undoubtedly greater than ever. Yet repression, poverty and war devastate the lives of much of humanity,'' Amnesty Secretary-General Pierre Sane wrote in the report. The London-based group said governments must not back away from protecting rights even as globalization puts more power in the hands of others, such as international corporations and financial institutions. ``States have to confront their cowardice, their cover-ups and their efforts to shirk responsibilities,'' the group said in a statement. ``They have the power, despite external constraints, to deliver human rights if they have the political will.''
Amnesty International was born on May 28, 1961, when The Observer newspaper in London published a piece by London lawyer Peter Benenson calling for the release of ``prisoners of conscience'' incarcerated because of their beliefs or origins. Forty years later, Amnesty employs more than 350 staff and has an annual budget of almost $28 million. It says it has so far dealt with the cases of 47,000 prisoners of conscience.
This year's annual report documents extrajudicial executions in 61 countries; prisoners of conscience in at least 63 countries; and cases of torture and ill-treatment in 125 countries. The cases occurred against a backdrop of post-Cold War globalization that once promised ``a new world order that would bring freedom and prosperity for all,'' Sane said. Instead, globalization has brought worker exploitation and economic instability to many countries, Amnesty said, noting that more than 80 nations had a lower per capita income in 2000 than they had in 1999. But the effects of globalization haven't been all bad, Amnesty said. The group applauded the birth of a new network of protest movements that use the Internet and other new technologies.
``The forces against human rights may be formidable,'' the group said, ``but the outrage at injustice that led to the founding of Amnesty International 40 years ago continues to motivate millions of people to tackle governments with a determination to build a better world.''
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