Billionaire-backed Human Rights Watch lobbies for lethal US sanctions on leftist governments as COVID-19 crisis rages
Regime change-hungry HRW is proudly taking credit for crushing new US sanctions on Nicaragua while pushing to escalate Washington’s economic war on Venezuela. The Grayzone presents a deep dive into the “human rights” arm of US empire.
by Ben Norton
Part 3 - Wall Street’s favorite human rights group speaks for its billionaire patrons
Thanks to the generous patronage of billionaire oligarchs like Soros, HRW operatives hobnob with fellow elites in the organization’s opulent office space in New York City’s Empire State Building. From these lavish headquarters, HRW operatives look down from their three entire floors as they plot ways to turn up the heat on foreign governments they consider “authoritarian.”
The Empire State Building in fact honored these tenants in 2013 by turning “a bright blue to honor Human Rights Watch.” Four years earlier, HRW officials sent an indignant open letter to the building’s management condemning its decision to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
HRW’s neoliberal political orientation reflects the ideology of its billionaire sponsors. The group has a very limited understanding of human rights that excludes the right of colonized peoples to resist their occupiers with force or the right of workers to organize and form a union.
HRW is muted in its concern for inhabitants of the Global North, saying far less about Black Americans brutalized and murdered by US police than it does about the repression of participants in NATO-backed color revolutions in Eastern Europe.
While it actively undermines socialist governments and their worker-based constituencies, HRW has collaborated closely with corporate America. In fact, it celebrated its 40th anniversary on Wall Street in March 2018, ringing the bell that opens the NASDAQ stock exchange.
“At Human Rights Watch we know business prospers where human rights & the rule of law are protected,” tweeted Minky Worden, its director of global initiatives, without a hint of irony.
Soros is not the only billionaire signing checks for HRW. The group has also come under fire for taking huge sums from a Saudi oligarch as apparent hush-money after documenting the abuse of his employees. Ken Roth personally oversaw the $470,000 grant from the Saudi billionaire, and accepted responsibility for the highly questionable decision only after it was publicly exposed.
While conservatives have on occasion attacked Human Rights Watch because of its links to liberal organizations and its criticisms of Israel’s atrocities in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories, HRW has paid tribute to one of the most militaristic senators to serve in Congress.
When Sen. John McCain died in 2018, HRW lionized the Republican politician, a stalwart champion of American wars of aggression, as a “compassionate voice” whose legacy was defined by his supposed “defense of human rights.”
In the same vein, HRW refused to oppose the US invasion of Iraq, which was blatantly illegal under international law. (Only after the start of the Iraq War did the NGO finally speak out, when it was safe — and guaranteed to not have a tangible impact.)
Similarly, HRW has repeatedly declined to call for an end to the US-backed Saudi war on Yemen, even while it has documented the Washington-backed Saudi forces’ horrendous atrocities in the country.
As it shrinks from vocal opposition to Washington’s regime-change wars, HRW actively lobbies the US and other Western governments to impose sanctions on nations it claims are rights violators.
HRW insists the sanctions it lobbies for do not hurt civilians because they are “targeted” against government officials and institutions. The best evidence debunking this claim is the reality for inhabitants of Venezuela and Iran, where US sanctions have made lives hell for much of the population, particularly the poor, by locking these countries out of the international financial system, depriving them of the assets they need to import food, medicine, and medical equipment.
And even when HRW has, in very rare cases, acknowledged the destructive impact on US sanctions, as it did in a one-time report on Iran, it has expressly refrained from calling for an end to them. Instead of opposing sanctions on principle, it has simply criticized the way they are implemented, calling for “clarifications” on the measures that already exist.
Meanwhile, as Human Rights Watch lobbies for even more aggressive sanctions on Washington’s Official Enemies, it has not demonstrated a fraction of the same concern for repressive right-wing regimes backed by the US. HRW does sporadically report on these countries’ abuses, but not nearly as consistently.
The Empire State Building in fact honored these tenants in 2013 by turning “a bright blue to honor Human Rights Watch.” Four years earlier, HRW officials sent an indignant open letter to the building’s management condemning its decision to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
HRW’s neoliberal political orientation reflects the ideology of its billionaire sponsors. The group has a very limited understanding of human rights that excludes the right of colonized peoples to resist their occupiers with force or the right of workers to organize and form a union.
HRW is muted in its concern for inhabitants of the Global North, saying far less about Black Americans brutalized and murdered by US police than it does about the repression of participants in NATO-backed color revolutions in Eastern Europe.
While it actively undermines socialist governments and their worker-based constituencies, HRW has collaborated closely with corporate America. In fact, it celebrated its 40th anniversary on Wall Street in March 2018, ringing the bell that opens the NASDAQ stock exchange.
“At Human Rights Watch we know business prospers where human rights & the rule of law are protected,” tweeted Minky Worden, its director of global initiatives, without a hint of irony.
Soros is not the only billionaire signing checks for HRW. The group has also come under fire for taking huge sums from a Saudi oligarch as apparent hush-money after documenting the abuse of his employees. Ken Roth personally oversaw the $470,000 grant from the Saudi billionaire, and accepted responsibility for the highly questionable decision only after it was publicly exposed.
While conservatives have on occasion attacked Human Rights Watch because of its links to liberal organizations and its criticisms of Israel’s atrocities in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories, HRW has paid tribute to one of the most militaristic senators to serve in Congress.
When Sen. John McCain died in 2018, HRW lionized the Republican politician, a stalwart champion of American wars of aggression, as a “compassionate voice” whose legacy was defined by his supposed “defense of human rights.”
In the same vein, HRW refused to oppose the US invasion of Iraq, which was blatantly illegal under international law. (Only after the start of the Iraq War did the NGO finally speak out, when it was safe — and guaranteed to not have a tangible impact.)
Similarly, HRW has repeatedly declined to call for an end to the US-backed Saudi war on Yemen, even while it has documented the Washington-backed Saudi forces’ horrendous atrocities in the country.
As it shrinks from vocal opposition to Washington’s regime-change wars, HRW actively lobbies the US and other Western governments to impose sanctions on nations it claims are rights violators.
HRW insists the sanctions it lobbies for do not hurt civilians because they are “targeted” against government officials and institutions. The best evidence debunking this claim is the reality for inhabitants of Venezuela and Iran, where US sanctions have made lives hell for much of the population, particularly the poor, by locking these countries out of the international financial system, depriving them of the assets they need to import food, medicine, and medical equipment.
And even when HRW has, in very rare cases, acknowledged the destructive impact on US sanctions, as it did in a one-time report on Iran, it has expressly refrained from calling for an end to them. Instead of opposing sanctions on principle, it has simply criticized the way they are implemented, calling for “clarifications” on the measures that already exist.
Meanwhile, as Human Rights Watch lobbies for even more aggressive sanctions on Washington’s Official Enemies, it has not demonstrated a fraction of the same concern for repressive right-wing regimes backed by the US. HRW does sporadically report on these countries’ abuses, but not nearly as consistently.
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