Case Not Made for Human Rights Violations

LECTURE l On the eve of the United States’ first bombing raids in Iraq, Bernard Kouchner of Medicins Sans Frontieres (Physicians Without Borders) declared that activists had failed to make the case to Europeans that serious human rights violations have occurred in Iraq. Kouchner, who spoke at a lecture sponsored by the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, said he believes that if activists had succeeded in convincing Europe of the atrocities committed under Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, Europe would be working alongside the United States and Britain in removing him.

But instead of considering the intolerable condition of the Iraqi people, said the former French minister of health, the focus is now on the United States, which many Europeans believe has no right to unilaterally police the world. “It is easier to say Bush is a bad guy and not consider the Iraqi people,” said Kouchner. It has become a “boxing match,” he said. “This is not the way to begin the 21st century.”