On January 16, 2003, more than two years after the cases were filed, the European Court of Human Rights agreed to hear six cases brought by Chechens against Russia. The claimants say that the Russian military tortured them and killed people without reason. In the past, the Court has ruled against the Russian Federation and given different plaintiffs thousands of euros for each case.
As people became more aware of human rights and their meaning grew, and as new governments, which were often authoritarian, used torture and repression, human rights advocates and non-governmental organisations grew in number. It has become its own business, with lawyers, consultants, psychologists, therapists, law enforcement agencies, scholars, and pundits constantly selling books, seminars, conferences, therapy sessions for victims, court appearances, and other services.
Most human rights activists go after countries and big companies.
In June 2001, the International Labor Rights Fund sued the American oil giant ExxonMobile on behalf of 11 villagers in Aceh, Indonesia, for "helping" abuses to happen there. They said that the company gave the army tools to dig mass graves and helped build places where people were interrogated and tortured.
Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll, along with other American and South African law firms, filed a complaint in November 2002 that "seeks to hold businesses responsible for aiding and abetting the apartheid regime in South Africa... forced labour, genocide, extrajudicial killing, torture, sexual assault, and unlawful detention."
Among those charged are: "IBM and ICL made it possible for South Africa to control the black South Africans by giving them computers. The armoured cars that were used to patrol the townships were made by car companies. Oil companies and companies that made weapons broke the bans on selling to South Africa. The banks gave South Africa the money it needed to build up its police and security forces."
In Myanmar, Unocal and dozens of other multinational companies were all accused of wrongdoing. In September 2002, Berger & Montague took Royal Dutch Petroleum and Shell Transport to court as a group. The oil companies are accused of "buying ammunition, using helicopters and boats, and providing logistical support for Operation Restore Order in Ogoniland," which, according to the law firm, was meant to "terrify the civilian population into stopping peaceful protests against Shell's environmentally unsound oil exploration and extraction activities."
In all of these court cases, the people who are accused of wrongdoing strongly deny it.
But this is just one part of the business of torturing people.
Most torture tools are made in the West and sold openly, often to bad governments in developing countries and sometimes even over the Internet. There are many high-tech tools, like stun guns that use electricity to make the person fall over, painful restraints, truth serums, and chemicals like pepper gas. Export licences are always minimal and easy to get, and they have nothing to do with how the goods work (for instance, whether they could be lethal, or merely inflict pain).
Amnesty International and the Omega Foundation in the UK found more than 150 companies in the US that make stun guns. Germany has 30 companies, Taiwan has 19, France has 14, South Korea has 13, China has 12, South Africa has 9, Israel has 8, Mexico has 6, Poland has 4, Russia has 4, Brazil has 3, Spain has 3, and the Czech Republic has 3. (two).
There are "off-shore" supply networks for torture tools in Austria, Canada, Indonesia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lithuania, Macedonia, Albania, Russia, Israel, the Philippines, Romania, and Turkey. This is where many torture tools come from. This lets companies in the European Union get around laws that are against them at home. In the past, the US government has turned a blind eye to the international trade of these kinds of gadgets.
American high-voltage electro-shock stun shields were found in Turkey, stun guns were found in Indonesia, and torture-prone Saudi Arabia was found to have electro-shock batons, shields, and taser guns that shoot darts. Most stun belts are made by companies in the United States. "Electricity speaks every language known to man," says Dennis Kaufman, President of Stun Tech Inc, a US company that makes this invention. No need for a translation. Everyone has a good reason to be afraid of electricity. Amnesty International said this.
The Omega Foundation and Amnesty say that 49 US companies are also major suppliers of mechanical restraints like leg-irons and thumbcuffs. But they're not on their own. Germany has eight suppliers, France has five, China has three, Taiwan has three, South Africa has two, Spain has two, the UK has two, and South Korea has two (1).
It's not surprising that the Commerce Department doesn't keep track of exports in this category.
Money moving around is also not a small amount. The export control commodity number A985 shows that between 1997 and 2000, Saudi Arabia spent more than $1 million a year in the United States just on stun guns. In the same time period, Venezuela spent $3.7 million on things like stun batons. Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mexico, and, to my surprise, Bulgaria were also clients. Egypt's services, which are known for being harsh, were already well-equipped, so they only spent $40,000.
The US is not the only one to blame. A 2001 Amnesty International report called "Stopping the Torture Trade" said the following about the European Commission:
"Gave a quality award to a Taiwanese electro-shock baton, but when questioned, they couldn't say if the baton had been put through independent safety tests or if EU member states had been consulted. Most EU countries have made it illegal to use these kinds of weapons on their own soil, but French and German companies can still sell them to other countries."
Ex-soldiers, former security service agents who lost their jobs, retired police officers, and even rogue doctors have a lot of experience with torture. China, Israel, South Africa, France, Russia, the UK, and the US are all places where this kind of useful knowledge comes from and is spread.
In September 1996, the US Department of Defense admitted that "intelligence training manuals" were used between 1982 and 1991 at the Federally funded School of the Americas, which was one of 150 such facilities. This showed how deeply torture is rooted.
Amnesty International says that the manuals, which were written in Spanish and used to train tens of thousands of security agents in Latin America, "called for killing, torture, beatings, and blackmail."
When there is a need, there is a way to meet it. Instead of ignoring the uncomfortable subject, governments would do well to make it legal and keep an eye on it. In an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times on November 8, 2001, Alan Dershowitz, a well-known American lawyer who defends people accused of crimes, said that torture should be legal in extreme cases and that judges should sign "torture warrants." This could be a big break from the way the civilised world has always treated human rights. But giving export licences for tools that can be used for more than one thing is a whole different thing, and it's about time.
