The United States, assuming an air of self-importance and practicing power politics in the world, has done a great deal of damage by encroaching on human rights in other countries.

The United States has, over a long period of time, built many military bases over the world. Hundreds of thousands of US troops stationed in these bases have committed a series of crimes that violated the human rights of local residents. Such acts by the US troops have occurred frequently since 2000 and numerous scandals have been exposed.

In 1995 a Japanese schoolgirl was raped by three American soldiers stationed at Okinawa, sparking a massive protest by the Japanese people. Following this incident, a serviceman with the U. S. Marine Aircraft Group at Futemma Air Station was imprisoned for allegedly attempting to rape a Japanese woman in the city of Okinawa on January 14, 2000. That same month, three servicemen of the US Navy in southern Nagasaki sexually harassed two 15-year-old Japanese girls; on January 9 this year, a seaman of the US Navy sexually assaulted a 16-year-old Japanese girl in Okinawa.

On January 13, 2000, a US soldier on peacekeeping duty in Kosovo raped and killed an Albanian girl. The incident aroused strong indignation from Albanians in Kosovo. In July last year, Green Korea United, an environmental protection group of the Republic of Korea (ROK), revealed that the American military base in Seoul discharged embalming fluid used for its servicemen into the Han River. The group reported that since 1991 another US military base in ROK has discharged waste oil into a local river, which is the source of drinking water for 210,000 local people. The actions of the American troops seriously polluted the local environment and endangered the health of local people.

A Cuban newspaper reported on November 6, 2000, that an environmental group found more than 50 areas in some island countries such as Fiji and Kiribati that had been seriously polluted by dangerous refuse. All of the material has been traced back to US military interests or other interests of the US

The acting vice-minister of foreign affairs of Panama revealed on July 24, 2000, that during its nearly 100-year occupation of the Panama Canal, the US has stationed troops in the area, and numerous Panamanian women were used and cast away by American soldiers, leaving hundreds of thousands of fatherless children. When the US troops withdrew from the Panama Canal area at the end of 1999, they left behind 700 pregnant women in Panama and Colon provinces alone.

The United States butts into the internal affairs of other countries and cultivates its influence in secrecy, infringing upon human rights in other countries. The US Department of Defense launched a research institute for safety cooperation in the western hemisphere, while the predecessor of the institution is Escola Das Americas affiliated with the US Army Forces, which is famous for training Latin American and Caribbean troops to torture suspects, carry out secret executions and mail threatening letters to political dissidents. The school, described by international human rights organizations as a training base for "dictators, hangmen and assassins," trained 56,000 people during the period between 1946 when it was first established, and December of 2000 when it was closed.

The school also trained numerous personnel for various purposes. Many notorious human rights violators and ringleaders of criminal gangs are graduates of this school, and nearly all of the major massacre cases in the Latin America and Caribbean areas have connections with these graduates.

A terrorist organization formed by graduates of the Escola Das Americas slaughtered 767 innocent villagers in a remote area of Columbia in 1981. Among those murdered were people over age 90 and less than two months old.

Nearly 10 years have passed since the end of the Cold War. Peace and development are now the common aspirations of people the world over.

However, the United States, as the only remaining superpower, has yet to relinquish its Cold War mentality. It stations troops abroad, boosts military spending, sells ammunition to other countries and regions, and rattles its sabers around the world. The US has become a major threat to world peace and stability, and infringes upon the sovereignty and human rights of other countries.

A report released by the US Department of State and the US Congressional Research and Service Bureau said that the US military spending and ammunition exports rank first in the world: Its military expenses account for one-third of the world's total and exports of ammunitions amount to 36 percent of the global total. Its military spending budget for 2001 increased by US$12.6 billion compared with the US$200 billion for 2000.

Incomplete statistics show that the United States has waged wars in foreign countries and regions more than 40 times in the 1990s. The country uses cluster bombs and depleted uranium shells, which are banned by international law, and new weapons of mass destruction in foreign countries, killing and injuring local people and also wreaking havoc on the eco-environment in these places.

Reports say that US troops tested depleted uranium (DU) weapons in shooting ranges in Panama 30 years ago. The US army dropped 940,000 DU bombs in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. About 10,000 DU bombs were dropped by the US army during the 1994-1995 Bosnia-Herzegovina war. The US army also tested DU weapons in military maneuvers in Japan's Okinawa in 1995 and 1996. In 1999, the US army used more than 31,000 DU bombs in 112 locations in Yugoslavia. The number of cancer patients has increased by 30 percent in Yugoslavia due to DU radiation, and at least 10,000 civilians have died of radiation. About 40 out of some 80 babies born in two months in a Bulgarian town adjacent to Yugoslavia have suffered from physical deformities. A number of European soldiers and civilians once served in Bosnia, Croatia and Yugoslavia including Kosovo have contracted "Balkan Syndrome," and at least 27 of them have died.

The UN Environmental Program has analyzed samples collected in Yugoslavia and confirmed that they contain radioactive substances, according to a spokesman for the UN secretary-general. Although it is well known that uranium is a sort of radioactive heavy metal, the United States refuses to admit that DU is harmful to human health, and prevents other countries and international organizations from investigating the matter. It even refuses to stop using DU bombs. Currently, the US troops stationed in Kosovo are still equipped with DU weapons.

In fact, the United States has long since had full knowledge of the harm brought by DU weapons. Before the breakout of the Gulf War in July 1990, a test panel affiliated with the US army pointed out in a report that the explosion of DU bombs would produce strong Alfa radiation that is cancer-inducing, and soldiers carrying out tasks in DU weapon-stricken areas must take preventive measures. However, in the same area, the local residents had not received any notice from the US army and they thus became victims of DU bombs.

The United States has always adopted a passive attitude towards international human rights conventions. Although the United States was a founding member of the UN, it did not accede to any key international human rights convention until 1988 when it joined the convention the Convention on The Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. That is to say, the United States did not ratify the treaty until 40 years after it was signed. In addition, it did not ratified the International Covenant on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights for 28 years and 15 years respectively after it signed them. The United States still has not ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, although it signed it 24 years ago. The United States is one of the only two countries in the world that have not acceded to the International Convention on Children's Rights, and one of several countries that have not joined the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

The United States has always opposed the right to development as a human right, and it is the only western country that has voted against the Declaration on the Right to Development. Although it is a founding member of the Organization of American States, it refuses to accede to the Human Rights Convention of America and other human rights conventions approved by the organization. As for the international conventions it has already signed, the United States has always ensured that the enforcement of the conventions is strictly limited to within the scope of the US constitution and laws, or let them only apply to the federation instead of states, by making reservations, declarations and allowances for them. In this way, the United States has reduced the international conventions into nothing but empty rhetoric.

Actions speak louder than words, and the public champions justice. The promotion of human rights is the common task of all nations in the world. The United States not only closes its eyes to its own serious human rights problems, but also releases the "Human Rights Report" annually to condemn other countries' human rights records. All these realities have exposed the true face of the United States, showing it to be a defender of power politics rather than human rights.

China would like to offer this advice to the US government: abandon your old ways and make a new start, take effective measures to improve the human rights record in your own country, take steps to promote international cooperation in human rights, and stop ordering other countries on the pretext of safeguarding human rights.