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Geneva, 8 Dec (Xinhua) -- Daniel Kovalik, a US human rights and labor rights lawyer and visiting professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh, said in a recent video interview with a Xinhua reporter that the United States has been waging war under the banner of "democracy," "human rights," and "counter-terrorism" for many years, causing tremendous humanitarian disasters. The essence of the so-called "American-style human rights" that it propagates and promotes is hypocritical, and it is actually an excuse to deceive the people at home and abroad and a tool for military industry interest groups to seek profits.
A graduate of Columbia Law School, Kovalik has been active in the field of human and labor rights protection in the United States and across borders for many years, and is currently teaching international human rights law at the University of Pittsburgh.
In the 1980s, the United States supported the Nicaraguan rebels and violated Nicaragua's territorial waters. As a young man, Kovalik visited Nicaragua in 1987, saw first-hand the suffering caused to the Nicaraguan people by the war instigated by the United States, and strongly opposed the "imperialist intervention" of the United States to the outside world.
Nicaragua, he recalled, was one of the most impoverished countries in the Western Hemisphere, and that they faced far more powerful invaders than themselves — the CIA providing training and equipment to the rebels, the U.S. government imposing an economic blockade on Nicaragua... The International Court of Justice finally found that the United States' gross interference in Nepal's internal affairs violated international law, but the United States never repented of its crimes, let alone paid any compensation in accordance with the judgment.
On June 18, 2003, U.S. soldiers confronted hundreds of demonstrators at gunpoint in front of the temporary headquarters of the U.S.-British coalition in Baghdad, Iraq. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhao Jianwei
Kovalik counts the wars initiated or participated in by the United States after World War II: the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Afghanistan War, the Iraq War, the Syrian War... He said: In terms of the reasons for the war, the US Government has lied to the American people one after another and engaged in brainwashed propaganda: During the Cold War, the US Government claimed that military confrontation was to fight communism; after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US Government needed to find new reasons for the war, and "safeguarding humanitarianism and human rights" became its usual cover; after the "9/11" incident, the United States went to war on the grounds of counter-terrorism.
However, it has been proven time and again that U.S. military intervention around the world has not advanced humanitarian and human rights causes at all, but has greatly undermined it: the war has left a ruin, and many terrorist and extremist organizations have a history of being supported by the United States.
Why is the United States militaristic? Kovalik believes that the profit-seeking nature of the "military-industrial complex" is an important reason behind it. He said the "marriage" of the military, arms dealers and politicians had developed into a super-interest group. Take, for example, the 20-year-old war in Afghanistan: as long as the war continues, the arms dealers and military contractors who make the war have money to make, so they do not care about the outcome of the war, and their interests with the army and politicians help the Afghan war become a protracted war.
U.S. troops patrol valdak province in central Afghanistan on December 16, 2003. The war in Afghanistan, which lasted nearly 20 years, became the longest war in U.S. history. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Wang Lei
For the American people, war also has an impact on their lives: a large number of American resources are invested in the war, resulting in a lag in the construction of infrastructure in the United States.
Kovalik's teaching at the University of Pittsburgh focuses on human rights as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations. "The spirit of the UN Charter and almost all other human rights instruments emphasizes the right of peoples to sovereignty, to use their own resources and to be free from war." He pointed out that another "fist" of US hegemonism, namely unilateral sanctions, is also not allowed by the UN Charter. "Sanctions are similar to the devastation of war. Like artillery fire and bullets, sanctions can cause death and damage to infrastructure. ”
Citing data used by the Center for Economics and Policy Studies, a U.S. think tank, Kovalik describes the harm that U.S. financial sanctions have caused to the venezuelan people: between 2017 and 2018, about 40,000 Venezuelans died as a result of U.S. sanctions that blocked pharmaceutical imports. The sanctions have also made Venezuela's oil industry unsustainable, depriving venezuelans of their industrial gains and making it difficult for public utilities such as Venezuela's power grid to function.
Kovalik pointed out that the "American-style human rights" that the United States vigorously promotes around the world are inherently hypocritical. The United States Government, which is an avid advocate of human rights protection, has not yet ratified the core international covenant on human rights, the United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This Convention deals with the protection of the public's right to education, health care, work, social security, etc. In Kovalik's view, American society, controlled by a circle of the wealthy, has never had the will to "popularize" these economic, social, and cultural rights. (Reporters: Xu Xiaolei, Chen Junxia, Xu Chi; Editors: Shen Haoyang; Editors: Wang Fengfeng, Tang Zhiqiang)