Odyssey

1 2 9 1 3 2048. Support for programming on WBEZ is provided by mostly music presenting electroacoustic muses including a workshop demonstration Thursday afternoon at 1:40 p.m. featuring compositions for flute and electronics and a concert Friday evening at 7:30 for acoustic instruments and electronic media. Both events take place in the auditorium of northeastern Illinois University. Well program details and ticket information are available for mostly music 7 7 3 6 6 7 1 6 1 8. I'm Ray Suarez and so on you'll be already goes to Speaker of the California State Assembly with President Clinton this week to talk about his state's primary concerns bilingual education disaster relief for victims of El Ninos wrath and California's transportation infrastructure joins us to talk about his meeting with the president and other West Coast News on the next TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. Wednesday at 1:00 on WBEZ Chicago. Protecting human rights is a difficult task. People need to be involved.

Today I talk with Dr. Robert KURTZ A pathologist with Physicians for Human Rights. His forensic human rights work has taken him from El Salvador to Bosnia where he's led investigations into mass killings and other violence. We'll talk with him about his work internationally and also his efforts against child abuse here in Cook County and around the country. That's today on next after the news from NPR. News. From National Public Radio News in Washington I'm CORBA Coleman a military jury is considering the fate of the Army's former top enlisted man Sergeant Major Jean McKinney is accused of 19 counts of sexual misconduct against six military women. The charges range from adultery a military crime to obstruction of justice

for allegedly trying to persuade want to accuse or to lie about the matter. NPR's Barbara Bradley is at the proceedings in Fort Belvoir Virginia. She says if McKinney is convicted his punishment could be severe. He could get 55 and a half years of jail he could be he could get a dishonorable discharge and that would be that would be kind of catastrophic not only for him but his wife. A lot of people think that they won't give him the maximum either the maximum sentence or a dishonorable discharge simply because they feel ex-wife has already paid enough. And and if he gets a dishonorable discharge then he'll lose his retirement benefits. McKinney maintains his innocence. The death toll from the fierce winter storm that ice to the Midwest is now 15. The cleanup effort continues and bone chilling temperatures have put the area into a deep freeze. Mark Moran of member station WRNI reports the storm has diminished to snow showers in the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes region. But the impact of the Ft. That buried the Midwest and snow is still being felt. Scores of schools remain closed as crews

work to clear roads covered with a thick layer of ice. Arctic air is making the job more difficult. Wind chills are nearly 40 below across a wide swath of the region even colder close to the Canadian border. Andy Cooley is with the National Weather Service. It's a bit nippy out there right now and winds have died off over the northern plains and they're picking up over the far western high plains of there but they're seeing warmer air trying to work it out there. Four hundred forty thousand homes and businesses are without power in Illinois Indiana and Wisconsin. For NPR News I'm Mark Moran of Des Moines. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is visiting Washington today discussing several issues like Iraq Kosovo in the unpaid dues the U.S. owes the United Nations. Republicans say those dues are not likely to be dealt with until May at the earliest. NPR's Peter Kenyon reports. The 1.3 billion dollars in U.N. dues is one of several early spending items under consideration along with an 18 billion dollar request for the International Monetary Fund and money for disaster relief and U.S. military costs. House Republicans today will discuss

whether they want to move first on the disaster in military money leaving the U.N. dues and IMF funding for a later battle. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle says that would be a disappointment. Well the consequence is the United Nations once again gets the wrong message about the United States commitment. To making sure that they play the valuable role that they do all over the world. Conservatives are pushing for a ban on the use of tax dollars for overseas groups that lobby to change abortion laws. Peter Kenyon NPR News the Capitol. On Wall Street the Dow's up forty five points. This is NPR in NPR's business update the stock market is extending yesterday's record. Bloomberg's Doug Krisna reports the market's advance is being led by high technology stocks which are up after a leading computer network maker Cisco Systems was reiterated by Klauer Mattison computer related issues are also benefiting from yesterday's news that Sun Microsystems has no plan to issue a profit warning. At the same time today investors are applauding a merger in the waste disposal

industry. USA Waste Services is buying Waste Management for more than 20 billion dollars in stock and assume debt. I'm Doug prisoner. A federal judge has ordered Iran to pay more than two hundred forty seven million dollars to the family of an American woman who died in a terror bombing three years ago in Gaza. U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth wrote that the court wants to deter more terrorist actions by imposing the large fine 20 year old Alyssa FLATOW was a seminary student in Jerusalem. She died with seven Israeli soldiers when a suicide bomber drove a van into their bus and blew it up. City Court has hired AT&T to upgrade the bank's computer networks over the next five years. The contract is worth three quarters of a billion dollars. AT&T will install data networks and high speed transmission lines for city court in 90 countries. AT&T will also take over supervision of 300 city core employees. Citi Corps says this is part of a restructuring that will be

implemented over the next 12 to 15 months again on Wall Street the Dow is up more than forty five points at eighty six hundred eighty eight in heavy trading. The Nasdaq is up 13 at seven hundred sixty one. I'm CORBA Coleman NPR in Washington. Support for NPR comes from Borders Books and Music in more than 200 neighborhoods across the United States where browsing is a fine art. 800 6 4 4 7 7 3 3. Good morning and welcome to Odyssey W.B. Chicago I'm Gretchen how French Dr. Robert church used to be the deputy chief medical examiner for Cook County in 1905 he left that job and became the director of the International Forensic Program of Physicians for Human Rights under the auspices of that group and before 1995 under other groups he's conducted investigations into mass killings in Bosnia

Rwanda Argentina and El Salvador and use the techniques of forensic medicine to address problems of human rights violations around the globe. Dr. Kirshner is my guest today to talk about his interesting and varied career. Dr. Kirshner thanks very much for coming in. You're welcome. It's a pleasure to be here today. Why don't we start in about 1985 when you first became involved in international human rights issues that was involved in exhumation in Argentina. That's correct. And I think that year was sort of a turning point because it beat it indicated the beginning of an era of the use of forensic and medical documentation of human rights abuses. And what happened in Argentina prior to 1905 was that there had been a military junta controlling the country for more than a decade and during this period of time anywhere from 20000 to 30000 people disappeared and the Spanish word disappeared or sado actually came

into the English language because of the conditions in Argentina and the awareness of what was going on there. The military junta was overthrown in 1983 not so much because of their human rights violations but basically because they lost the Falklands War of Britain and a democratically elected government was put into place. The presidents of the country are often seen recognizing that there were mass graves scattered throughout the entire country approach the American Association for the Advancement of Science and asked for some help in. Examine these graves and identifying the people who are in them during the time that the junta was in power there are more than three hundred fifty secret detention centers throughout the country where people were tortured and then taken out and killed. The Tripoli Yes is the largest scientific organization in the United States.

It's an organization that represents approximately 200 scientific societies as well as scientists and physicians throughout the country. It publishes Science magazine which is one of the leading scientific journals in the in the world. And the triple Yes went to Clyde Snow a friend of mine was a frantic anthropologist and asked for his assistance in going ask him to go down there and survey the situation. Subsequently we put together a team of pathologists anthropologists and others to go down to Argentina and to perform some examinations of mass graves and to train some young ather apology in archaeology students in Argentina in the methods of of examination and examination of skeletal remains for the purpose of not only identification but documenting injuries that occurred and cause of death the. Evidence that was gathered that we used the forensic evidence that we gathered was used in the prosecution of the junta members in a

trial that included more than 700 prosecution witnesses claiming that they had either survived the detention survived torture or had witnessed people being taken away who had never been seen again. No country ever admits that it tortures its citizens or that it kills its citizens. And the in the past what has always come down to is a your word against mine sort of situation the Citizen says I was tortured the government says no you weren't served. So and so was the Sapir they say no he wasn't or she wasn't. And by gathering the forensic evidence in these mass graves by showing that we had people in these graves buried as unknown individuals. But with the kinds of injuries that were fairly typical of. You know of execution style injuries that has gunshot wounds to the back of the head for instance or evidence of torture. We could prove in fact that these disappearances had

occurred that these were individuals who had died not in combat or not of natural deaths but as the result of execution of being executed. You know this you mention that this was the first use of these sorts of forensic techniques in the human rights context. So this is a really new area I mean you're going out into sort of uncharted territory in a way. How different was it at the time you were the deputy chief medical examiner here in Cook County. How different was doing what you did in Argentina and later in other countries from what you did as a medical examiner. I think that as much as possible we tried to apply the techniques we used at home in these foreign countries. Previously there had been a few cases in other countries where there had been medical documentation of torture on a case by case basis but nothing that had ever been done on a systematic basis. Nothing that has ever been done to present cases in court or to. Look at this evidence from the point of view also praised of

documenting preserving historical record but by applying the techniques that we already knew to human rights were able to make a big difference that is we were able to say in fact that there were human rights violations that occurred. Here's the forensic evidence here is the physical evidence. Historical revisionists will not be able to deny this occurred. The government's denials of what happened clearly are untrue. So it was very important to apply the techniques and methodology that we already knew on this. Greater scale and for I think this this higher purpose. Let's talk a little bit about what the work that you did in Bosnia and Rwanda in those cases you were working for the international tribunal were you under the auspices of the international tribunal. We worked under the auspices of the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague tribunal both for Rwanda and for a former Yugoslavia Yes.

You were invited by them to come in and do this work. That's correct. This is in 96 in Bosnia and also 96 in Rwanda we actually started earlier. Even prior to the creation of the war crimes tribunal there previously was a commission of experts that preceded the tribunals which was gathering evidence. To document what had occurred in order to justify the creation of the tribunal and we actually began working in 93 in Yugoslavia even before the genocide in Rwanda and then subsequently later in both in the in former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda for the War Crimes Tribunal. Tell me a little bit about what you did in each case in each case again these examinations of mass graves in Rwanda. We Exuma one large mass grave in the western portion of the country along the border of Lake keepit which separates Rwanda from what was then SA year and the zoom of the mass grave that contained approximately 400 individuals mostly women and

children. Almost all of whom had either been killed by blunt head trauma or by machete blows again which documented and confirmed what the few survivors had claimed had happened at that site. That evidence was used in trials more facts and trials are going on currently in Rwanda relating to the genocide there in. Former Yugoslavia we had the Exuma and prior to the creation of the war crimes tribunal a small mass grave in Croatia and subsequently for the tribunal we consumed four mass graves in Bosnia in the sever nature region and a mass grave in eastern Croatia near Vukovar in an area of town called off. And in each of these instances we were able to document that the people burry in those graves

again were not victims of combat these are not people who died of natural deaths but were victims of mass executions and we were able to document that. By the pattern of injuries that they had the pattern of gunshot wounds. The fact that in one grave many of the victims have been blindfolded in another grave. Many of the victims had their hands tied behind their backs obviously these are not people who died in combat. And then at the grave an after a where there were 200 bodies. These are all people who have been removed from a hospital in Vukovar back in 1991 and mostly patients and a few physicians and other hospital personnel who have been taken out and shot and buried in this mass grave and in the grave in an off camera. One could still identify patients who had intravenous line still in place or catheters or other medical appliances.

Showing that they were at the time they were killed were patients in the hospital. And what has been done with the evidence that you collected in the US but in former Yugoslavia you mention there are trials ongoing in Rwanda. What has become of the knowledge that you gathered in former Yugoslavia. Again all that evidence was turned over to the War Crimes Tribunal for use in trial of those who've been indicted for these particular crimes. Those process of the War Crimes Tribunal is ongoing obviously and it's proving to be pretty difficult to to make cases for a lot of reasons there. Do you feel well how do you feel about the idea that this may ultimately lead possibly to very few convictions and very little punishment. Well I think all of us are disturbed by that. I think we're disturbed by the lack of of progress and there are many reasons for that. Obviously the lack of cooperation on the part of the of the governments in former Yugoslavia

the lack of the necessary will to go out and arrest those who have been indicted and also the problems inherent in creating an international court and trying to get it to function smoothly and efficiently so that. We're all you know we all would like to see more convictions. I would like to see more indictments I think the important thing is the the fact that the principle has been established that there should be an international court. We're moving towards a permanent international court which I think is very important and the kind of evidence that we gather again is very necessary in the development of prosecutions. The problem still remains however that once we've discovered a mass grave or prove there is a mass grave we then go beyond the point of whether or not the crime occurred. And it then is a question of proving who was responsible for proving who

gave the orders. And of obviously the defense in most of these cases is that so that you know my client didn't do it to somebody else did it. And that's the hard part to get around when you don't have the cooperation of of those who themselves of participated. One of the problems with the War Crimes Tribunal was they announced early on that they were only going to go after the top people and that sent a message that many of those who were lower down in the echelons of the of those responsible that they didn't have to cooperate with the war crimes tribunal because they'd have nothing to fear in terms of prosecution. So I think that the tribunal itself sent out many mixed messages and in some respects that has hindered the of the prosecution hinder the cooperation of those who may have been involved. What was your reception like in each place by the local community or local officials when you go

to do this work. I think in any country that we go to the reception depends on who you're talking to or who you were who you're with in Bosnia obviously the Muslim community was very pleased to have us there. I'm very supportive of the Serb community was not because the exhumations we were doing wrong were in Serb controlled territory. The people who have been killed were Muslims the victims of sever nature were Muslim men and they're all allegedly killed by Serbs in control of that territory. So the reception one receives depends of course on on who your companions are at the time. Was there any attempt to interfere with the work that you were doing. No there was no winner. There was no interference but on the other hand we were protected at all times by heavily armed American troops which is a good deterrence towards from interference.

You talked before about applying standards in these situations. And as you mentioned this is a fairly new field in a way I mean obvious obviously an outgrowth of lots of other fields that had long existed but are you seeing an emerging set of standards about how to go about this process and are they by the medical standards or the technical standards or are they standards of practice. Back in the late 80s under the auspices of the what was then called the Minnesota Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. We put together a protocol for the documentation of extra judicial executions. And this protocol basically was a guide to how to perform autopsies on individuals who had died in custody or at the hands of the government. And it also provided some guidelines for Exuma exhumation of small graves not mass graves.

The guidelines were based on standard practices in this country of examination of people who die in custody. These guidelines were subsequently adopted by the United Nations this became a United Nations manual on the documentation of arbitrary illegal and extra judicial executions. More important than the. Technical part of it is the principles that were adopted along with this. That is the principles of investigation that set out the obligations of governments to cooperate in these investigations. The rights of families to have an independent investigation an independent autopsy and a knowledge of what the cause of death was and the rights of families to expect their governments to pursue those who are responsible for committing the crimes and have those principles been adopted as well by the international community. Well the principles have been adopted by the United Nations

yes. OK so they say they stand as United Nations documents. Let's talk a little bit about some of the other ways that forensic science is being used other than autopsies in some of the work that you've been doing with exhumations in El Salvador for example. You've been involved in programs to reunite kidnapped children with their families. Can you talk a little bit about that. Yes and actually I'm glad to talk about something other than you know what one gets the reputation you get typecast. It was and if you try to break out of that type casting. Because we do a lot of work that does not involve examinations of mass graves and in art and it has me in El Salvador which worked for many years and in fact did some examinations there for the Truth Commission on El Salvador. Following the peace process in El Salvador and the peace agreement we

learned that during the period of the civil war in El Salvador up to 400 children were kidnapped by members of the El Salvadoran Army. Many of them just snatched from the arms of their parents. Others may have been separated from their families temporarily and some clearly their parents have been killed by during a time of excursions by their solider an army into the villages. Many of these children were placed in orphanages in San Salvador in the in the capital and subsequently were adopted by families in other countries including the United States and many European countries. The surviving family members have now come forward looking for their children. And we've been working with an organization in El Salvador called dissociation in search of missing children to try to locate these these children. And there are adoption records that are still available down there there are court records that they've been using to

trace these children. And we have been notifying families in the United States when we believe that we've located a child whose biologic parents are still alive in El Salvador. And speaking to these families and also providing the DNA testing to prove the identifications. So we've been taking blood samples from the surviving family members in El Salvador and blood samples from these children here in United States to prove that in fact these identify and to prove these identifications of the PRF prove the relationships. Now all these children now. How are at least teenagers. The kidnappings went on between one thousand eighty one thousand ninety four. So even the youngest of these children are now 13 14 years old. And some of them are now young adults. And the response so far has been very positive. We've had many of these children have gone down the aisle Salvatore met with their biological

families their remains have been very healthy both for the children of course for their families in El Salvador as well as for the adoptive families here. And it's helped to fill a gap in these in the lives of these children. So we've been very pleased with that and it's been a very positive and happy kind of things that we do occasionally. The organization that you're working for now Physicians for Human Rights is not just involved in after the fact attempts to deal with human rights violations but also focuses specifically on the role that physicians play or can play in the whole process of developing respect for human rights and in preventing human rights abuses. Can you talk a little bit about why physicians have a particular role to play in this process. I think the role of physicians. In promoting human rights evolves from the codes of medical ethics and the the obligations of physicians towards their patients. And while this

traditionally has always been a very close and personal one to one type of relationship we see the extension of the physician's role as being a very positive one because physicians still speak with a fair amount of authority when they talk about such moral issues. Also we know unfortunately that in any country where there are systematic human rights abuses going on that there has to be involvement of physicians in those human rights abuses. Can you explain why that is either willingly or unwillingly because physicians are called upon in these countries to certify people as being fit for torture to revive them after they've been tortured. Perhaps the signed false death certificates or to perform autopsies to determine why you know someone died during torture and then to cover up the death.

The as I say many in some countries physicians have done this willingly you know other countries they're forced to do this by threats against themselves or their families. And we've spoken out very strongly on behalf of physicians who are threatened in other countries condemning those who willingly participate in working to protect those who speak up in their own countries against these practices. Where specifically have you done some of this work. Well I think. We can look at Turkey as an example of a country that is a is a classic example of how physicians are coerced into participating in a process of torture. And in Turkey the torture of prisoners occurs usually in the first week that their arrests are arrested and those who are arrested potentially for political types of crimes almost are tortured

universally. It's ubiquitous. Those arrested for common crimes probably half of such persons are tortured. Turkey has a law that requires that before someone is released from custody they be examined by a forensic physician who is supposed to document any injuries that they have. And the purpose of this law was quote to prevent torture from occurring or if it did occur to for it to be recognized. In fact what happens is that many of these people when they're released show clear signs of torture. But if a physician writes down that there are signs of torture or documents the injuries then in the report that he writes will be torn up by the police because the report goes back to the police and he will be threatened or his family will be threatened and the police. Or is it here to the appropriate ethical norms of physicians and as a

result of that officers of the Turkish medical association themselves have been threatened have been arrested and charged with crimes that we've been working very closely with the Turkish medical association and with the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey against this misappropriation of medical skills and knowledge. How much can you do for them from outside I mean obviously you can give them a great deal of moral support but but beyond that how much of an effect do you have on the climate. I think we can have a significant effect on the climate. We did we actually did a study a survey of forensic physicians an anonymous survey asking them questions regarding their practices and published the results of that survey in Turkey. And it created quite a stir among the government officials in the short run in dealing with human rights violations in any country is always a struggle. And in the long run we hope that you know that we succeed. Turkey is you know it's been denied. Admission into the European Union because of

its human rights record. There's been a lot of pressure on Turkey because of the massive human rights violations and we just continue to do what we can to work against those human rights violations as do too many others. We need to take a short break in just a moment. When we come back of course we will open the phone lines. Our number here is 3 1 2 8 3 2 3 1 2 4 3 1 2 8 3 2 3 1 2 4 We're talking with Dr. Robert Kurtz who is the head of the International Forensic Program of Physicians for Human Rights and also a former chief medical examiner for Cook County. Before we take a break I do want to ask you one thing and that is you when you began your career as a pathologist did you expect that this is where it was going to head did you did you know that there was even this much potential in pathology to do this kind of work. Well when I began my career as a pathologist I started off primarily as an academic pathologist at the University of Chicago and after several years.

Decided that I wanted to switch from primarily doing research into the field of forensic pathology. And during that time I was a friend sick pathologist. I began to see in several areas of forensic pathology areas that were ripe for further development if you will. And then it was just by chance that the opportunity to work in Argentina came along and we the work that we did there however. So then spurn it a lot. Spurs should say much greater interest in the use of document medical documentation of human rights abuses in other countries in the world. Well talk about some of those areas of pathology that were ripe for reform when we come back but we do need to take a break. We'll also take your phone calls when we come back 3 1 2 8 3 2 3 1 2 for my guest today is Dr. Robert Kirshner this is Odyssey. I'm Gretchen health and you're listening to WBEZ Chicago volunteering is a

great way to get a behind the scenes look at WBEZ. We are currently looking for volunteers to help out with our spring membership drive. If you have a few hours to spare and would like more information please call our volunteer coordinator at 3 1 2 8 3 2 33 37. Support for programming on WBEZ is provided by the Museum of Contemporary Art presenting Cuba's legendary last minute ketosis on Friday March 13th at 8:00 p.m. and Saturday March 14th at 3 and 8. The New York Times is last minute Tito's display spectacular sensual dancing and some of the most complex drumming in the hemisphere. The group performs rumba an effort Cuban ritual music using drumming singing and dancing. Information reservations are available through the MCI 3 1 2 3 9 7 forty 10. This is WBEZ Chicago ninety one point five FM and you're listening to Odyssey my guest today is Dr. Robert Kirchner head of the international friends of program of Physicians for Human Rights and a former chief medical examiner for Cook County

deputy sorry deputy chief medical examiner for Cook County. Our phone number here is 3 1 2 8 3 2 3 1 2 4 3 1 2 8 3 2 3 1 2 4. Before we go to the phones let me ask you at this point you're pulling back a little bit from your work from your globetrotting days and working a little more here at home. Can you talk a little bit about what you're doing at University of Chicago. Yes we have a very exciting program in human rights that were beginning at the University of Chicago and it's the development of a curriculum that is interactive visual and interdisciplinary. The Through the course began this year as a three quarter sequence that dealt in the first quarter with Flossie human rights in the winter quarter with the historical development of human rights and in the spring quarter we will be dealing with contemporary issues of human rights from both a medical and a legal

aspect and we have a film series of human rights films that has accompanied this course. We have been developing. Internships for students for the summer time in human rights working with human rights groups. We will have visiting lecturers who will be coming in the spring quarter and next year we have several other faculty members who want to offer elective courses dealing with various areas of human rights including the environment human rights the rights of indigenous peoples and we're hoping that this whole program will evolve into perhaps some states degree granting program. We also hope to have visiting professorships both of human rights activists who will be able to come and spend six months and relax and do some writing and teaching and also professorships for scholars from other countries who cannot work in their countries because they are at risk because their universities have been

destroyed. And in order that they may continue to do their work. We hope to be able to invite some of those to work at the university. So we're very excited about this program we've gotten tremendous support from each of the deans and from the provost. And you know look forward to. We've had great student student participation as well. OK let's turn to the phones for a moment. Let's talk with Mike. Good morning Mike. I got hi I don't have a question. I mean just find out when the doctor was invited to Bosnia. Question Why did only to find out what happened. Mostly Gratian. Victims are actually looking you know all of the sides. People suffered and if you find any messages on all the syrups and positive reports of the someone in the autism know about if you know anything about that. In fact Thanks Mike and in fact the first

summation we did was a mass grave of Serb victims and we've also subsequently did a second smaller grave where the Kims were served so answer the question is that. We have looked at victims of all ethnic backgrounds in various parts of former Yugoslavia was that where you told where to go and look or were you just told to go and find what you could find no we were asked specifically by the tribunal to examine particular graves. We did not go out. Searching for graves date except that we were we were prof and provide you with information and we had to locate actual grave sites but the tribunal made the decisions about where the examination should be done. All right our phone number is 3 1 2 8 3 2 3 1 2 4 3 1 2 8 3 2 3 1 2 4 Let's talk to Adam good morning Adam.

My comment is I was in Turkey and I was in the University Press and I was a Setian chairman and I may be in political prison and tortured. But the thing is during the Cold War we tend to see the stakes in China Russia. But we have never tried to I mean it's generally we never tried to could size or see to mistakes or a license to accuse. Because for just practical reasons. They are helping us and the time to not all people except some human rights organization be timed in a day that they neglect the human rights condition and I have seen two types of doctors. There are too many 300 serving pro American and I have seen doctors like me when I see how serving them is the government giving false reports. Just observing torture even and I have seen other type of doctors which are my friends broke into a human rights organization to create an overseas helping

to humanity and I both size dialectical black and white and it's negative and positive it comes together. But the human rights activities and every bit of the injustice and good sizing is very important for the P.. But trying to survive. I'm trying to build democracy. Thank you. Thanks Adam thanks for your call. You want to respond to that. I wrote nothing that I think that often the words of those who are survivors of the most powerful and it's a difficult it's always difficult when you've been in the situation as a political prisoner and have been tortured to come out of that and to be able to reintegrate yourself into society to get back to a semblance of health. And it's just it's a struggle so I always admire those who are able to overcome the kind of adversity.

All right let's talk with one though not Good morning one on our own. Hi. I thank you for taking my call and I'm particularly this whole thing that's been very interesting. I'm particularly interested in finding out how doctor there have been personal and professional changes that you may or may not have experienced because. The direction that you've taken and I also wonder if it changed any of you or thought about what kind of training you could be required or what institutional changes might be made here to be more helpful to others. And I'll hang up to listen to your answer. OK thanks for your call. That's a good question how how has it changed you either professionally or personally to do this kind of work. I think that those of us who are in the human rights field are eternal optimists perhaps were foolish optimists because often we were for many years and see very little change.

Clearly working in the field has given me much more insight in respect of human resilience because I've seen people go through things that I just don't think I could. To survive and have come out of this. Their experience is not only surviving but. But but recovering and with their spirits undaunted. I think that it's would be important when talk about training in this country I think much more important than training persay is human rights awareness that all of the children in school learn more about human rights and learn more about human rights abuses and have a greater awareness of the importance of human rights in any country. We take them for granted in our country and most people can't take them for granted. What about your view of your fellow man. I mean in a sense you've seen some of the worst things that

human beings can do to each other. You know the worst sorts of violence that it can be done. Did it affect your opinion judgment of people. You describe yourself as an optimist I think you'd have to be to be able to do what you do. Sometimes I go off into a small tantrum of cynicism. But. The. The work that we do we think is is important. I think in addition to being optimists all of us at home at Deep down inside feel that really that the human condition is not in such bad shape that we can't do something to improve it. We have seen you know the worst inhumanities of one man to another the last half of the 20th century. Clearly since the onset of the of the of the Nazi era through the end of

the centuries you go up to the year 2000 and we've seen horrors that no other century has seen. And then we didn't learning lessons from World War 2 we didn't learn lessons from the Holocaust and seeing what's happened in Rwanda and in Bosnia and other countries. So that clearly the moral lessons have not been learned by most of the people in the world. Let's talk with Chris. Good morning Chris good morning. I would just like to say that it is doing human rights work is quite dangerous. My wife and I believe that it is not so. I've been out without one of them as for the previous year and a half after it had been destroyed by the government. But we had no harm come to it as a result of our efforts there. But later doing human rights work for Northern Ireland we were framed here by the FBI we were raided five times by the FBI with drawn guns highly theatrical raids we're very lucky to be alive. They framed me for the murder of the couple in Winnetka. People had

never heard of in my whole life and the murderer saved my life. All this was done to us by the FBI because of our human rights work. Having failed to kill him by lethal injection for those murders the actual murderer after he boasted about it got life without possibility of parole. The FBI continued on fabricated evidence and concocted two new crimes against SCN and were going to put us in prison for 10 years for two more crimes which the FBI themselves that's advocated. So this is what happened six human rights workers in this country and the US it is far. Hard to blow it democracy that the news media and the legal establishment are advised you know to keep our mouths shut. That the FBI might do greater harm to us if we don't keep quiet. About your culture have you ever had either here or abroad have had that experience of feeling that you were somehow in danger or that you were under some sort of threat from any authority.

Human rights work can be dangerous we do our best to maintain our safety in any country and in some cases that means avoiding contact with with other Americans in the past it certainly meant avoiding contact with the American embassy or American officials particularly in countries like El Salvador Guatemala in other countries. It may mean armed protection such in Bosnia. I was arrested in Kenya some years ago while investigating death in custody in Kenya. Clearly we have human rights violations in United States as well. We had them in Chicago. We had them in other cities. The. They're not the type of systematic violations that we see in other countries. But clearly there is a willingness often of of nationals in this country to turn a blind eye to things that are going on in our prisons in our jails that clearly constitute human rights

violations. What is your response to Chris's description of his own situation you find that surprising. Well I don't know his own situation his situation so I can't speak to that. I Nasri not here to defend the FBI. I'm old enough that my awareness of the FBI goes back to the McCarthy era and to people I knew who were being hounded by the FBI for their political beliefs. So I always have a certain amount of skepticism about the FBI reforms whether the FBI is has really changed since those days. Chris are you still there. Yes I am. Were you surprised that that you were treated that way in this country. I had Absolutely. I was a fan of law enforcement. I thought that the FBI and CIA were actually good organizations doing America's work. I had no idea that they are criminal organizations from top to bottom and I only

I only discovered that after I contacted the chain of command all the way up to and including Janet Reno and found that every single government official had contact. After he got the evidence of the FBI crimes I did what the criminal. And by the way as to torture I think that someone should go to the walking city jail where we were assaulted by police. Best August and look and see what happens to people who are newly arrested and trying to lock up their overnight. OK Chris thanks very much for your call. That's one major area of concern I think for Physicians for Human Rights is it not police treatment of people in their custody. Yes we've we've worked on this ph our published report on violation of human rights in the insert New York humor. And they get county jail. We've looked into. Human rights violations

pertaining to maximum security prisons such as merit as a federal penitentiary in Marion Illinois. I personally was involved in the lawsuit of Andrew Wilson against the Chicago Police Department he says he was a young man who had been who had killed a police officer and was badly tortured as were many other people by that certain members of the Chicago Police Department. And this doesn't this doesn't occur. Los Angeles had a great deal of brutality in its in its police department many people dying in custody. Let's talk with a NIDA Good morning Anita. Oh hi. Oh I just wanted to say that I think starting the program at the end every few sick Aagot and human rights is a wonderful idea and I did have a question. Go ahead. We talked about teaching children in school about human rights and human rights abuses. Does he feel that he won't be be a way of talking about human rights abuses.

Yeah the grammar school level without it being you know you don't want to hear. Are the children going home at night mares or be having you know being too frightened. I missed the international actually puts out educational materials appropriate to all ages and if you're interested in doing that I would suggest contacting amnesty. They have some they have booklets and brochures and educational films that are geared towards different age groups. OK I need to thanks very much for your call. Our number here is 3 1 2 8 3 2 3 1 2 4. I want to ask you about some of the work that you did before you became involved in the international human rights community as a medical examiner here in Chicago. One area that you focused on particularly and in which you are credited with great expertise is the area of child abuse and the role that pathology can play in addressing problems of child abuse. What in particular has been accomplished in this area in the time that you've been working in this field.

I think the increased awareness of child abuse particularly deaths of infants and serious injury to infants has been a major accomplishment. And this is increased awareness not only on the part of physicians particularly pediatricians but also social workers. States attorneys and the police and in fact I would give more credit often to the two police departments and the police officers than to the medical field because as we've given seminars around the country over the past 10 years in the area of child abuse we find that the police officers who attend these seminars pick up the material they listen to what we have to say they understand what we have the say in the integrated into their into their investigations. We often have found that it's much more difficult to get medical people to understand and to change their ways of thinking

about children. But we feel we've made a lot of progress in the last 10 years. What was the state of pathology in this area when you first began working on the problem. Well I think that. Not in pathology and forensic pathology that we had many more questions and much less knowledge about head injuries in children and were much more willing to accept head injuries as being quote accidental rather than recognize recognizing them as being due to abuse. And today particularly because of vast number of clinical studies that have been done in emergency departments around the country pediatric emergency departments and the information that we've correlated with autopsy results in children who have died as a result of head injury we've been much we're much better able to understand which injuries are accidental which ones are inflicted.

And what a infant can withstand in terms of different kinds of injuries that parents may inflict on them. And so you feel that there are more prosecutions more than anything else prosecutions. Right. And we've been accused of being child abuse zealots. We're not. But what's happened is that the maneuvering room for defense attorneys has narrowed. I think that the case in Boston the Woodward case is sort of the last gasp. Maybe it's the last gasp of the defense of a quote accidental injury leading to death of a child of an infinite home. It just doesn't occur. I mean this is the defense in the cases is basically nonsense and the physicians who took care of this child who immediately recognized the child's injuries as being due to a shaken baby syndrome or were correct. Shaken Baby Syndrome has a very clear diagnostic features that are just as well recognized now as a strep throat. And the physicians should not. All for a diagnosis of

accidental injury. When they see children like that. Do you think it's a question of just a question of time before this information becomes widely disseminated and all controversies eliminated. I think that it's reached the point that it's so widely disseminated now that the controversy is becoming less and less There's no you know controversy in the medical community among experts. You only see the controversy in the courtroom. So what we see are not alternative medical diagnosis we basically are seeing alternative legal diagnoses or courtroom diagnoses that we're seeing in these cases. OK let's try to fit another call in before the end of the hour if we can. Let's talk to Ted good morning Ted. Hi good morning. I just wanted to I had a kind of a question I guess. I really respect the work you do and thank you. But I I wonder about this human rights thing I always thought. You know human. Right so the idea of human rights is a little bit like a peace treaty. The minute one side decides that it's inconvenient to believe in the peace treaty anymore the

whole thing disintegrates and that I mean isn't it just a matter of people realizing that treating people badly is is you know financially and socially a very bad idea. You never achieve the aims that the people think that it's going to oppressing people does be just doesn't work. You know but. But I wonder about that. The idea of human rights existing without a social contract where people say OK I realize this is a bad idea to oppress people like this you know. Do you think social rights exist outside of a social agreement that we that these things are you know the treating people well is a good idea. Or or do you think it's you know it's just a matter of social rights being a convenient label to say OK you know. The thing under which you know we're going to decide OK let's not treat people badly anymore. Well in fact all of our human rights work is done within a legal construct that is in order to have a common definition of human rights that everybody can agree to we use the definitions in United Nations documents and Geneva Conventions and operate from a legal

framework. So a social contract is not enough. One has to have the legal framework and the legal structure in which to operate so that violations of human rights become crimes. And I think that's the important thing. But Ted are you saying that you think I'm not really clear on what you're trying to say or are you saying that we need to make it clear to people that human rights violations are not effective and are not worth their while. You know I think I think you answer the question when you said it's it's within a legal framework for example you know these countries agree that they're going to abide by certain laws about how to treat people and that if they don't they're breaking their own laws is that correct. Yes an international law more importantly right. OK that's that dance is it. The question for me thanks. OK thanks Deb. Thanks for your call. Let's talk to do we have time. Yeah we'll try to sneak in. Jim good morning Jim. Hello. Hi. I'm wondering about the organization called Amnesty International and how effective it is and whether or not he's aware of it.

Oh more than aware of it yes we have. We work very closely with and this the International on many issues and they've been very effective. And it's sort of the pioneers in this field. What are what types of things are human rights organizations most effective at. I mean they've got a huge obviously huge mandate and they can't get everything done if they want to have done. But what do you think their strengths are. I think that the the strength of human rights organizations are first of all awareness. It's making the population aware of what their rights are and more or less human rights organizations and along in the long run are effective in protecting people not in every country not in every instance but I think that if we look at the histories of various countries where Great efforts have been made towards promoting human rights that eventually those human rights to improve. Well done. I like to thank you very much for coming in and talking with me today Dr. Robert Curtin or is the head of the International Forensic Program of Physicians for Human Rights and he's a former

deputy chief medical examiner for Cook County thank you very much for coming in today. You're welcome. My pleasure. Thanks also to Joshua Andrews for producing and directing and to Steve and Barry Winograd for engineering. Up next more international stuff international news analysis on worldview with Jerome McDonnell coming up next. This is Odyssey I'm Gretchen Healthwatch And you're listening to WBEZ Chicago. The. Support for programming on WBEZ is provided by the Poetry Center of Chicago presenting poet Patti Ann Rodgers author of seven books.