BY ROSE ANA DUEÑAS — Special for Granma International —

THE U.S. State Department released its "Country Reports on Human Rights" in Washington D.C. on March 6 with a flurry of press conferences and photo ops starring Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"We are recommitting ourselves to help new democracies deliver on their people's aspirations for a better life....We are recommitting ourselves to call every government to account that still treats the basic rights of its citizens as options rather than, in President Bush's words, the non-negotiable demands of human dignity," Rice intoned.

In this annual ritual, the United States accuses countries all over the world of human rights violations, particularly in the Third World. The well-paid paper-pushers of the George W. Bush government propaganda machine churn out lie after lie, hoping to convince – who? – that the imperialist power that has invaded, occupied and bombed other nations, kidnapped and tortured foreign citizens, taken away the rights of its own citizens and is driving toward more war, racism and fascism, somehow has the moral authority to present itself as a champion of human rights.

This year, the State Department "experts" singled out Cuba and Venezuela for special vilification. In Cuba, a videoconference was held at the U.S. Interests Section for foreign and so-called "independent" journalists to hear about the report on Cuba, some 34 pages long, claiming that the island’s "human rights record remained poor, and the government continued to commit numerous, serious abuses." Baseless claims, in line with the U.S.’s relentless anti-Cuba campaign in the United Nations and the media since the triumph of the Revolution in 1959.

One of the shining examples of Cuban human rights "activists" held up by the U.S. State Department was a so-called dissident journalist who, in the name of unrestricted Internet access, waged a hunger strike for six months (!) — all the while in a hospital, receiving free medical care.

Of course, these reports say nothing about the U.S. "record" on human rights.

Coincidentally, two days earlier, on March 4, The New York Times ran an editorial titled: "The Must-do List," listing some of the "forceful steps" that need to be taken "to undo the damage" and pretty up the "global reputation" of the United States (as if the government’s pre-Bush "reputation" was something to be admired). They include:

* Restoring habeas corpus, the right of prisoners to challenge their imprisonment in court, a civil right taken away from both citizens and non-citizens as part of the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

* Stopping illegal spying and forcing the government to adhere to its own laws against spying on its own citizens.

* Banning torture.

The U.S. government is responsible for sponsoring countless dictators and training their henchmen in methods of torture all over the world; moreover, torture has always been a common practice in the U.S. prison system. This is the first time, however, that government officials have openly, officially defended the use of torture, as opposed to de facto impunity. As the Times commented, "The law absolves American intelligence agents and their bosses of any acts of torture and abuse they have already committed." Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and who knows how many secret prisons...where human beings who have been kidnapped by U.S. forces or their mercenaries are secretly held, abused and disappeared.

The "anti-terrorism" laws currently being used by the United States to "legally" violate the rights of citizens and non-citizens are the Patriot Act, passed overwhelmingly by Republicans and Democrats in 2001, and the Military Commissions Act of 2006, also passed by members of both parties before being signed into law by George W. Bush. The first gives much wider latitude to the FBI and other political police agencies to conduct espionage and disruption operations against individuals and voluntary associations; carry out arbitrary searches and seizures in private homes and businesses, and jail immigrants virtually indefinitely with no charges. The second allows for the permanent detention and torture (as defined by the Geneva Conventions) of anyone — including American citizens — based solely on the decision of the President, doing away with the right to habeas corpus: if the President says you are an "enemy combatant," then you effectively are one.

Actually, these laws are based on legislation passed under the Democratic administration of William Clinton: The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act and the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, both of which Clinton signed into law in 1996. They expanded the powers of immigration authorities to seize and deport undocumented immigrants without the right to judicial review or appeal, and to jail non-citizens based on "secret evidence" without bail in detention centers, and restricted the right to habeas corpus. Not surprisingly, the number of U.S. prisoners doubled under Clinton’s administration to 2 million, and immigrants became the fastest-growing segment of that exploding prison population.