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Human Rights and Responsibilties
by Monami Chakrabarti

“I wished I could lose myself in the details of the exhumation, but the survivors’ stories still echoed in my mind,” wrote Julie Schwab, as she unearthed the tortured history of Guatemala at an excavation site. “A body cut into pieces while her mother screamed in horror. Children burned alive in their houses. People decapitated and left for dogs.”

As she sifted through the remains of more than 100 men, women, and children who were massacred by guerrilla forces in 1982, she reflected, “The living who hovered above me were a painful reminder that a person once breathed through this mouth, chewed food with these teeth, saw beauty through these eyes, thought thoughts, and dreamed dreams.”

The Guatemalan massacre which claimed the lives of over 140,000 human beings proves to be one of the greatest violations of human rights in recent history, and shockingly enough took place years after the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Although the United Nations General Assembly will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Declaration this year, the “equal and inalienable rights” that were so explicitly expressed in the declaration’s preamble, for all members of the human family, are far from a reality.

The belief that every person by virtue of his humanity is entitled to certain natural rights is a recurring theme throughout human history. The roots of the UDHR can be traced back thousands of years from the Hindu Vedas to the Hammurabi Code to the Magna Carta, the French Declaration of Human Rights, and the American Bill of Rights. Time and time again, history shows that the existence of human rights is absolutely necessary to the well-being of a civilization; without sufficient human rights, a civilization will eventually collapse. It was with this realization that the United Nations created the UDHR in 1948 to provide “all members of the human family” withdignity and individual rights for the “foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world.” (Preamble of the UDHR).

However, fifty years after the creation of the revolutionary document, most people still remain unaware of it. According to a recent poll conducted by Amnesty International, the largest human rights organization in the world, only 8% of adults and 4% of young people in the U.S. are aware of this “foundation stone for human rights.”

This ignorance can no longer be tolerated. 1998 is the year of the UDHR, and the time for human rights is now! As we approach the 21st century, we, as a world, must reaffirm the importance of human rights, and we must take the initiative to learn what our rights are and to spread this knowledge to fellow members of the human family. The importance of human rights must never be diminished — these rights empower people to speak out when they are stripped of their dignity in all situations, everywhere in the world.

With rights come responsibilities. As we approach the next century, we must be responsible for demanding that the inherent dignity of all human beings is respected, and we must confront corrupt governments that commit daily atrocities against people. For far too long, the governments of the world have failed to prevent large-scale human catastrophes by refusing to provide asylum to the world’s refugees. Although refugees are entitled to international protection, governments have consistently evaded their responsibility to help these human beings.

According to Amnesty International’s 1997 Annual Report, the number of refugees in the world has nearly doubled from about eight million to over 15 million. Corrupt governments have precipitated the outbreak of genocidal violence in Rwanda in 1994 by failing to heed warnings of human rights experts. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, more than two million people fled their homes, friends, and loved ones as systematic murder, rape, and “disappearances” by the Serbia government became commonplace. Mass human rights violations in the Middle East are also carried out by the Iraqi government, which has forced countless people to flee their homelands.

As we approach the next century, we must urge governments to take the responsibility to protect refugees in crisis, and urge them to play a crucial role in educating their citizens about human rights. Knowledge is a very powerful tool and a very basic right with which one can wear down oppression, injustice and indifference.

In the words of Nobel Peace Prize Winner Martin Luther King, Jr., “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” In order to stop the abuse of human rights, we must take personally injustices committed against human beings thousands of miles away. We must also urge the United Nations to create an International Criminal Court to hold torturers who have committed crimes against humanity accountable for gross human rights violations. These tasks will be difficult, but change must occur.

A former torturer in El Salvador once said, “If there’s a lot of pressure, like from Amnesty International, then we might pass [the political prisoners] on to a judge. If there’s no pressure, they’re dead.” (Amnesty International Website). This statementproves change is possible. It is very likely that a corrupt government will not listen to one individual’s cries against injustice, but if enough people around the world mobilize and cry out against moral outrage, a corrupt government will be forced to act. If every human being speaks out against torture, rape, killing, and other human rights violations, they will eventually be eradicated.

Although we have made some great strides in human rights, our finest day is yet to come — a day when every man, woman, and child, regardless of race, color, or creed, will be able to live with dignity, without fear of oppression and injustice.

Monami Chakrabarti, age 16, of Newbury Park High School in Thousand Oaks, California, is the first place winner of the Foundation’s 1998 Swackhamer Peace Essay Contest. The theme of the 1998 Swackhamer Peace Essay Contest was: “On December 10, 1998 the world will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations General Assembly. In your essay discuss the importance of human rights and responsibilities as we approach the 21st Century.”

Bibliography

Amnesty International. Amnesty International Report 1997. London: Amnesty International Publications, 1997.

Amnesty International. Refugees: Human Rights Have No Borders. London, Amnesty International Publications, 1997.Schwab, Julie.

“Finding the Way Forward: A Letter from Guatemala,” Amnesty Action, Spring 1998, pp. 6-7.Amnesty International Website: www.amnesty.org