security agents. Access to the Internet remains tightly restricted, and it is difficult for most Cubans to connect in their homes.”32
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo is the longest-serving ruler in sub-Saharan Africa. He has been the dictator of this impoverished but oil-rich country for thirty years. CBS News reports that he has been accused “of cannibalism, specifically eating parts of his opponents to gain power.”33 He stays in power by rigging the elections. Freedom House reports that Equatorial Guinea, a country of just seven hundred thousand people, “has never held credible elections [and] is considered one of the most corrupt countries in the world…. Obiang and members of his inner circle continue to amass huge personal profits from the country’s oil windfall. The state holds a near-monopoly on broadcast media, and the only Internet service provider is state affiliated, with the government reportedly monitoring Internet communications. The authorities have been accused of widespread human rights abuses, including torture, detention of political opponents, and extrajudicial killings.”34
On Africa’s eastern horn, Eritrea has a form of conscription that binds people to work for the state for much of their lives. Recently, Freedom House reports, it has “intensified its suppression of human rights… using arbitrary arrests and [its] onerous conscription system to control the population.” Political prisoners languish in prison indefinitely. Privately owned newspapers are banned and “torture, arbitrary detentions, and political arrests are common.”35
The scene of some of the most brutal fighting during the Vietnam War, Laos has mimicked Vietnam in trying to encourage foreign investment. But, as Freedom House reports, it is still a one-party dictatorship and “corruption and abuses by government officials are widespread. Official announcements and new laws aimed at curbing corruption are rarely enforced. Government regulation of virtually every facet of life provides corrupt officials with many opportunities to demand bribes.”36
“Religious freedom is tightly constrained. The government forces Christians to renounce their faith, confiscates their property, and bars them from celebrating Christian holidays. The religious practice of the majority Buddhist population is [also] restricted. Gender-based discrimination and abuse are widespread. Poverty puts many women at greater risk of exploitation and abuse by the state and society at large, and an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 Laotian women and girls are trafficked each year for prostitution.”37
The least free nation on earth, North Korea is tightening even further its control and repression of its citizens, according to Freedom House. Armed with nuclear weapons, North Korea is as isolated as ever. An hereditary dictatorship, power is handed down within to the progeny of founder Kim Il-sung. Freedom House reports that “protection of human rights remains nonexistent in practice. Corruption is believed to be endemic at all levels of the state and economy.” The media is tightly censored and controlled and “nearly all forms of private communication are monitored by a huge network of informers.” Things are so bad that even the UN General Assembly has recognized and condemned severe human rights violations, including the use of torture, public executions, extrajudicial and arbitrary detention, and forced labor; the absence of due process and the rule of law; death sentences for political offenses; and a large number of prison camps. The regime subjects thousands of political prisoners to brutal conditions, and collective or familial punishment for suspected dissent by an individual is a common practice.38
Uniquely among the “worst of the worst” human rights abusers, Saudi Arabia is an American ally whose monarchy is sustained and kept in power by the US military. We import one million of the nine million barrels of oil the Saudis produce annually and Europe is even more dependent on the flow of fuel.
In our book
Strategically located on Africa’s eastern horn, Somalia has become a center for al Qaeda terrorists second only to the Afghan-Pakistan border.
Freedom House reports that “the political process is driven largely by clan loyalty. Due to mounting civil unrest and the breakdown of the state, corruption in Somalia is rampant. The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that there were 1.5 million internally displaced people… most of them living in appalling conditions.”40
This tormented nation is ruled by President Omar al-Bashir, for whom an arrest warrant was issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in March 2009, citing evidence of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur. Meanwhile, the country is torn apart by tensions and war between Islamic Sudan and Southern Sudan, a new nation carved out from Sudan to protect the black minority from Arab terror. Behind the conflict is the oil-rich region of Abyei, mostly part of the north.
Freedom House reports that “the police and security forces practice arbitrary arrest, holding people at secret locations without access to lawyers or their relatives. Torture is prevalent. It is widely accepted that the government has directed and assisted the systematic killing of tens or even hundreds of thousands of people in Darfur since 2003, including through its support for militia groups that have terrorized civilians. Human rights groups have documented the widespread use of rape, the organized burning of villages, and the forced displacement of entire communities. Islamic law denies women equitable rights in marriage, inheritance, and divorce. Female genital mutilation is practiced throughout the country. The restrictions faced by women in Sudan were brought to international attention in 2009 by the case of journalist Lubna Hussein, who was arrested along with several other women for wearing trousers in public. They faced up to 40 lashes under the penal code for dressing indecently.”41
Freedom House also lists Libya and Syria as among the “worst of the worst” but conditions in both nations are too unsettled to report reliably on their futures.
This litany of human rights abuses, governmental corruption, and suppression of democracy underscores our fundamental point: The United States should not surrender its sovereignty or decision-making power to a global body where these international miscreants are given full and equal voting power.
The world we face today is neither democratic nor honest. Neither respectful of human rights nor a guardian of individual liberty. It is dominated by corrupt dictators and one-party governments that do not speak for their people and keep power only by coercion, censorship, and repression.
We dare not trust our liberties to them.
CONCLUSION
So What Do We Do About It?
The treaties on gun control and the Law of the Sea are coming up for Senate ratification by the end of the year. President Obama and Hillary hope to ram them through the lame-duck session of the Senate after the elections have been held. In theory, they say they want to consider these documents without the pressures of election-year campaigning. But, in reality, they hope that defeated Democrats and retiring Republicans will give them the votes they need for ratification.
We must stop them!
Fortunately, the decision is in our hands. Democrats control only 53 votes in the Senate and 67 are needed to ratify a treaty. While the House doesn’t get to vote on treaties, the two-thirds requirement in the Senate means that 14 of the 47 Republicans have to join with all the Democrats to get these treaties approved.
That’s where we need to work. In our chapter on the Law of the Sea Treaty, we explain who are the swing
