US Congresswoman Presents US Human Rights Abuses at WCAR

DURBAN, South Africa, 03Sept01 - US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney met with a high United Nations official to present evidence of US government human right violations.
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In a meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, McKinney presented two documents as evidence of the US government's violations of both US and international law. She documented violation of the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
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The first document given to Robinson was "Confidential Memorandum 46", written by former US National Security Advisor to the President, Zbigniew Brzezinski, on March 17, 1978. It details the federal government's plan to destroy functioning black leadership in the United States.
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This document provides a critical insight into the federal government's concern at the growing influence of the African American political movement. The second document is a report entitled "Human Rights in the United States [The Unfinished Story- Current Political Prisoners- Victims of COINTELPRO]" and it was compiled by the Human Rights Research Fund, headed by Kathleen Cleaver.
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This document provides an overview of the U.S. government's own "counterintelligence program" against its own citizens.
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From the 1950s to the 1980s, the program was run in the United States against political activists and their organizations. The excesses of the counterintelligence program were first exposed in 1975 by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, known as the Church Committee.
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"From as early as the 1950's and right up until the 1980's," stated McKinney, "the US government directed the machinery of state against the African American political movement and, in so doing, effectively put an end to the civil rights movement inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King.
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"COINTELPRO was in clear violation of the U.S. Constitution and a wide range of US laws, as well as, in clear breach of internationally accepted standards for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
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"That our government would turn its full resources against its own law abiding citizens is unforgivable and ranks us among those rogue nations of the world who have chosen to kill hope and sow misery in its place".
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