Senator
Patrick Leahy
Remarks For Presentation Of
The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
Award To
Aminatou Haidar
November 13, 2008
Thank you for that
kind introduction.
I also want to
thank Ethel, Kerry and the
Robert
F. Kennedy
Center for Justice and
Human Rights for inviting me to speak here today. It is an
honor to stand in for my good friend Senator Ted Kennedy, who has
been, and continues to be, such an eloquent force for human rights
in this country and around the world.
Whether he is
reminding us of our moral obligation to provide a safe haven for
Iraqi refugees, leading the fight in Congress against apartheid in
South Africa, or championing the rights of
political prisoners in
China, Senator Kennedy has led the
way on the most important human rights issues of our time.
It is a remarkable record that the
rest of us in Congress should strive to emulate.
This is especially important today,
after the scandals of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, which have so
sullied our international reputation.
As the new Obama Administration and the Congress work
together to reintroduce America to the world, we must
reaffirm our unequivocal denunciation of the use of torture and our
commitment to human rights.
This is as
necessary here at home as it is abroad.
The Robert F. Kennedy Center
for Justice and Human Rights is a living reminder of a time when
Robert Kennedy, at such a young age, showed this country what the
role of the Attorney General of the
United States
could and should be.
He was not just the
Attorney General for the President or his Administration. Not
just the Attorney General for those of privilege and power.
No. He was the Attorney General for upholding the law for all
Americans.
That principle was
trampled on shamelessly during the past eight years. It must
never happen again.
The Robert F.
Kennedy Human Rights Award not only informs us of a laureate’s cause
and courage, it also provides the recognition and support to enable
him or her to continue working, often at great personal risk, for
the principles we cherish.
This year’s
laureate, Ms. Aminatou Haidar, has been called the “Sahrawi Gandhi.”
She is one of the best-known human rights activists of her homeland,
Western Sahara.
Aminatou Haidar’s
personal story is both tragic and inspirational. Tragic for
the suffering she has endured in seeking to promote respect for
universal freedoms. Inspirational for her courage, her
devotion to her people and to human rights, and for what her life
says about the resilience of the human spirit.
Her commitment to
non-violence began as a young university student, witnessing the
abuses of the Moroccan security forces.
As Kerry just described, in 1987 Ms. Haidar was imprisoned
and tortured because she dared to speak out.
For four years she was “disappeared,” and during that entire
time she was blindfolded, totally cut off from her family and the
outside world. Her health was permanently damaged by the
abuses she suffered.
After her release
in 1991, Ms. Haidar described herself as “a ghost, a living dead, a
young woman back from a kind of hell that bears no name.”
As the Sahrawi
poet, Mohamed Ebnu wrote, “And we still wait for a new dawn.
We still wait to begin again,” Ms. Haidar resumed her work to call
attention to the denial of human rights in
Western Sahara.
In June 2005, when
Ms. Haidar was again arrested, again beaten and injured, and again
arbitrarily detained, she did not give in to anger or despair.
Instead, she and a group of 37 other Sahrawi political
prisoners held a 51-day hunger strike in an effort to obtain more
humane prison conditions, investigations into allegations of
torture, and the release of political prisoners.
For seven months
she was separated from her two children, knowing nothing of their
fate. Those of you who
are parents and grandparents, as I am, can only imagine how
agonizing that would be, and for her children as well.
During her
detention, Ms. Haidar gained international renown as a dedicated and
determined human rights defender. She was adopted by Amnesty
International as a prisoner of conscience, and she gained the
support of other human rights organizations and the European
Parliament.
The United Nations
High Commissioner for Human Rights conducted an assessment in the
Western Sahara, finding serious human rights abuses and concluding
that “the right to self-determination for the people of
Western Sahara
must be ensured and implemented without further delay.”
Since her release
in 2006, Aminatou Haidar has continued her non-violent struggle
tirelessly. She is President of the Sahrawi Collective of
Human Rights Defenders – CODESA – which Moroccan authorities have
denied the right to legally register in Western Sahara.
Her courage to
speak out has also provided other Sahrawi women the strength to talk
publicly about their own suffering, including those who have been
victims of the previously unspeakable crime of rape.
Her humility,
despite her importance in the human rights movement in
Western Sahara, may be one reason that she is so
revered. Another, undoubtedly, is her unwavering commitment –
with grace and honesty, with bravery as her strongest tool – to end
the abuse suffered by her people and to demand their legal and
inalienable right to self-determination.
A colleague of hers
perhaps said it best: “She is neither a polemicist nor an
ideologue, but simply a woman who has seen and experienced too many
abuses to remain quiet anymore.”
Over the years,
following Senator Kennedy’s lead, I and other Members of Congress
have called for a referendum on the future of
Western Sahara. The right to self-determination is
one that the founding fathers of our own country recognized as both
just and necessary.
The United Nations
has adopted numerous resolutions reaffirming the Sahrawi people’s
right to self-determination.
It is important to recognize and
commend the Government of Morocco for its recent efforts to protect
human rights. Morocco has become a party to most
of the major human rights treaties.
It is also a valued friend and ally of the United States.
It is now time for Morocco to fulfill its treaty
obligations to uphold the civil and political rights of the Sahrawi
people.
I cannot help
wondering where Ms. Haidar finds the strength – despite provocations
and abuse, despite the threat of being returned to prison knowing
she might not survive.
As Robert Kennedy
said in Capetown,
South Africa, “Moral courage is a
rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence.
Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to
change a world which yields most painfully to change.”
Perhaps, when Ms.
Haidar speaks today, she will tell us. But I do know that her
example inspires each of us, not only to continue to support her and
the Sahrawi people, but to defend the rights of so many others who
struggle as she does, often in obscurity, against forces far
stronger.
That is the mission
of the Robert
F.
Kennedy
Center
for Justice and Human Rights, and we embrace it again here today.
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