Outposts of tyranny

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World map indicating (in green) the countries of Rice's "outposts of tyranny".

Outposts of Tyranny:

Outposts of tyranny was a term used by United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a 2005 written submission to the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to describe certain countries where, in her opinion, the government is oppressive and shows contempt for democracy and human rights.

1 Usage
2 Reactions
3 Comparison to other state classifications and political neologisms
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Usage

In her prepared remarks before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 18, 2005, Rice elaborated on the concept:

The world should apply what Natan Sharansky calls the "town square test": if a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society. We cannot rest until every person living in a "fear society" has finally won their freedom." [1]

Rice did not say whether there was special criteria to be considered an "outpost of tyranny", though she identified Belarus, Myanmar, Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Zimbabwe as examples. These countries and others are routinely criticized by the U.S. State Department in its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices and the International Religious Freedom Report. Other governments were implicitly criticized in her remarks:

In the Middle East, President Bush has broken with six decades of excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the hope of purchasing stability at the price of liberty. The stakes could not be higher. As long as the broader Middle East remains a region of tyranny and despair and anger, it will produce extremists and movements that threaten the safety of Americans and our friends.

[edit] Reactions

Some commentators have accused the U.S. of double standards in relation to the application of the "outposts of tyranny" tag. For example, Amitabh Pal of The Progressive wrote that as Rice specifically refrained from applying the term to such states as Saudi Arabia, Equatorial Guinea, and Azerbaijan, it suggested that the administration had ulterior motives for its human rights pronouncements, which are "heavily subordinate to U.S. strategic and economic interests." [2]

The North Korean government took strong exception to the label, declaring that it would not return to six-party talks on the Korean nuclear weapons crisis until the United States apologized. On June 21, 2005, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky used the term during a speech for the Hudson Institute: "North Korea, Myanmar, Zimbabwe and Cuba are outposts of tyranny." In response, the North Korean deputy ambassador to the United Nations Han Song Ryol stated, "Resuming the six-party talks would be possible if there is restraint on the part of the U.S. from using the words ‘outpost of tyranny’ for one month." South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon was concerned over the implications for intra-Korean relations: "It is regrettable for a high U.S. official to call North Korea an 'outpost of tyranny,' which is not good for the two Koreas' efforts to have a reconciliatory atmosphere." [3] Even though North Korea threatened not to return to the talks, they did anyway.

Similarly, South African President Thabo Mbeki, who has attempted to effect a conciliatory attitude to neighboring Zimbabwe by avoiding public criticism of the record of Robert Mugabe, was displeased. "It's an exaggeration and whatever the US government wants to do with that list of six countries, or however many, it's really somewhat discredited." [4]

The Washington Post has published a series of forums and interviews pertaining to the countries which Rice chose as being examples of outposts of tyranny. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]

[edit] Comparison to other state classifications and political neologisms

The term has often been compared to President George W. Bush's phrase, "axis of evil," but the concepts are not identical. "Axis of evil" refers to countries alleged to be developing weapons of mass destruction as well as sponsoring terrorism, while "outposts of tyranny" refers to a country's internal political system. The State Department has not used the term "outposts of tyranny" officially.

There is an overlap with the given examples of "outposts of tyranny" and the State Dept. list of state sponsors of terrorism, which also includes Cuba, Iran, and North Korea but in which Syria and Sudan appear rather than Myanmar, Belarus, and Zimbabwe. All of these countries are criticized in the annual U.S. human rights reports.