Interview with Francis Boyle: Amnesty on Jenin

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Article/book #: 4573
Title: Interview with Francis Boyle: Amnesty on Jenin
By: Francis A. Boyle   Dennis Bernstein  
Published in: CovertAction Quarterly, issue 73, pages 9 to 12
Date of issue: Summer 2002
Topic(s) addressed: People/entities mentioned in this item: Add a rogue or hero Timeline event(s) mentioned in this item:
   28 Mar 2002
to 24 Apr 2002
:
Israeli attack on Jenin

Cross-reference(s):
  1. It is worth comparing Boyle's account of Amnesty International with Sara Flounders' account of Human Rights Watch
  2. Amnesty yielded to pressure and this article it indicated that it withdrew from assisting whitewash the Leonard Cohen concert in Tel Aviv.
  3. See this article about Irene Kahn where she postures about AI... just the type of thing Boyle criticizes
Other related article(s)
Commentary (by a person who is not a member of the UCC Palestine Solidarity Campaign ):

This is simply a "must read" interview.
Abstract:

»Francis Boyle: Amnesty International is primarily motivated not by human rights but by publicity. Second comes money. Third comes getting more members. Fourth, internal turf battles. And then finally, human rights, genuine human rights concerns. To be sure, if you are dealing with a human rights situation in a country that is at odds with the United States or Britain, it gets an awful lot of attention, resources, man and womanpower, publicity, you name it, they can throw whatever they want at that. But if it's dealing with violations of human rights by the United States, Britain, Israel, then it's like pulling teeth to get them to really do something on the situation. They might, very reluctantly and after an enormous amount of internal fightings and battles and pressures, you name it. But you know, it's not like the official enemies list. «

»DB-6: Now, having said that about these connections between the U.S., British and Amnesty International foreign policy…
FB: Sure, you'll see a pretty good coincidence of the enemies that Amnesty International goes after and the interests of both the United States and British governments. Let's take an older example -- apartheid in South Africa under the former criminal regime in South Africa. Amnesty International refused adamantly to condemn apartheid in South Africa. Despite my best efforts while I was on the board, and other board members, they would not do it. They are the only human rights organization in the entire world to have refused to condemn apartheid in South Africa. Now they can give you some cock-and-bull theory about why they wouldn't do this. But the bottom line was that the biggest supporter, economic and political supporter of the criminal apartheid regime in South Africa was the British government, followed by the United States government. And so no matter how hard we tried, no matter what we did, they would not condemn apartheid in South Africa. Now I just mention that as one among many examples.«

»DB-9: How does the leadership reconcile its stated objectives with its actual practice? How do they go about rationalizing their actions?
FB: They don't care. They're completely and totally arrogant. “We are Amnesty International. We are the world's largest and most powerful human rights organization. We won the Nobel Peace Prize for our work. So we do whatever we want.” And again, if you don't believe me, go search your Lexis-Nexis database and see if there has ever been an apology by Amnesty International for the Kuwaiti dead babies report. To the best of my knowledge, there was no official apology or investigation or explanation. They just toughed it out.«



Quotations from this item:
Francis A. Boyle:  "[Y]ou have here in the United States the very powerful role played by the Israel ... "
 
Francis A. Boyle:  "Amnesty International is primarily motivated not by human rights but by publicit ... "
 






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