|
|
|
Do You Have an Exclusive Market Segment?
You do if you’re a business, non-profit or association manager with important external stakeholders whose behaviors affect your department, division or subsidiary the most.
In your own best interests, here’s what you’d better be doing about...
Embrace Diversity to Build Effective Teams
Embrace Diversity to Build Effective Teams: one of the biggest challenges faced by companies today is how to turn a group into a highly efficient global team. (reprinted from Semiconductor Magazine, May, 2000) Turning a group into a team is one of...
Printing Press Development
There are a lot of new technologies used in the printing press industry. Make it from simple to very complicated machines that for sure will lead to the transformation of printing services. And even more, latest technologies are still innovating for...
Stop Debt Collectors
Can you stop debt collectors ? . . .You better know you can
You can stop debt collectors under the law provided by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. If you use credit cards, owe money on a personal loan, or are paying on a home...
The 10-Step Resume Critique
Your resume will generally receive a 15- to 30-second scan upon first review by an employer. With that in mind, it is critical that your resume -- your "paper handshake" -- makes a positive first impression and compels the reader to put your...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Business of Torture
The European Court of Human Rights agreed yesterday - 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.
This past November, 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. Berger & Montague filed, last September, 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.
About the Author
Sam Vaknin ( http://samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Central Europe Review, PopMatters, and eBookWeb , and Bellaonline, and as a United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent. He is the the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and Suite101.
|
|
|
|
|
| Language Tools |
| Translation of text and web pages between English and several European languages. |
| www.google.com |
|
| Language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| Gestures are a part of human language too. Some invented human languages have ... In human languages, the symbols are sometimes known as lexemes and the ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
|
| English language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| Estimates about second language speakers of English vary greatly between 150 million ... Distribution of first-language native English speakers by country ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
|
| Free Translation and Professional Translation Services from SDL ... |
| SDL International is the world's number 1 provider of free and professional language translation services for websites and documents. |
| www.freetranslation.com |
|
| AltaVista - Babel Fish Translation |
| Select from and to languages, Chinese-simp to English, Chinese-trad to English, English to Chinese-simp, English to Chinese-trad, English to Dutch ... |
| babelfish.altavista.com |
|
| yourDictionary.com • Comprehensive and Authoritative Language Portal |
| Comprehensive index of on-line dictionaries in more than 200 different languages. Includes an index of on-line grammars, word of the day by email, ... |
| www.yourdictionary.com |
|
| iLoveLanguages - Your Guide to Languages on the Web |
| The Human-Languages Page is a comprehensive catalog of language-related Internet resources. The over 1900 links in the HLP database have been hand-reviewed ... |
| www.ilovelanguages.com |
|
| AltaVista - Babel Fish Translation |
| AltaVista Babel Fish provides the online text and web page language translation! ... Select from and to languages, Chinese-simp to English, Chinese-trad to ... |
| world.altavista.com |
|
| BBC - Languages - Homepage |
| Learn French, Spanish, German, Italian and other languages with the BBC. Start up with our courses or brush up with our audio magazines. |
| www.bbc.co.uk |
|
| Online Dictionaries and Translators |
| online dictionaries that assist in the conversion from one language to ... If the dictionary only translates from one language to another you will see this ... |
| www.word2word.com |
|
| The Klingon Language Institute |
| Nonprofit organization offers language tutorials, related merchandise, mailing list and membership information. |
| www.kli.org |
|
| MARC Code List for Languages |
| MARC Code List for Languages prepared by the Library of Congress Network Development and MARC Standards Office. |
| www.loc.gov |
|
| Python Programming Language -- Official Website |
| Home page for Python, an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented, extensible programming language. It provides an extraordinary combination of clarity and ... |
| www.python.org |
|
| SYSTRAN Language Translation Technology |
| Machine translation products. Free online translation available (the engine used by Altavista's Web translator) - English to French, German, Italian, ... |
| www.systransoft.com |
|
| Project MUSE - Language |
| Language, the official journal for the Linguistic Society of America, ... Edited by Brian Joseph , Language serves a readership of over 7000 and has been ... |
| muse.jhu.edu |
|
| Learn a Language :: English, Spanish, German, Italian, French ... |
| English language courses online: e-learning, learn English online, ... English language learning events,news, conferences, workshops and seminars ... |
| www.edufind.com |
|
| Parlo - Welcome to Parlo - learn to speak a new language. |
| Parlo helps you learn English, French, Spanish and other languages with free online courses, music, a magazine, flash cards, chat rooms, message boards and ... |
| www.parlo.com |
|
| PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor |
| PHP is a server-side HTML embedded scripting language. It provides web developers with a full suite of tools for building dynamic websites: native APIs to ... |
| www.php.net |
|
| Ethnologue, Languages of the World |
| Home page of ethnologue.com, a searchable database of language resources. |
| www.ethnologue.com |
|
| Language Log |
| Weblog run by University of Pennsylvania phonetician Mark Liberman, with multiple guest linguists. |
| itre.cis.upenn.edu |
|
|