[CTRL] Bush-"World Champion Executioner"

[William Shannon]

Many Europeans See Bush As Executioner Extraordinaire
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16803-2000Dec16.html
By T.R. Reid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, December 17, 2000; Page A36

LONDON, Dec. 16 –– George W. Bush has been a jet fighter pilot, a business
owner, and chief executive of a state bigger than most European countries.
But across Europe, the president-elect is known primarily for something else:
"He's the world champion executioner," said former French justice minister
Robert Badinter. "He is a horrible symbol of your mania for the death
penalty."
"What we know about the new president," echoed Claudia Roth, a member of the
German Parliament, "is just two things. He is the son of President Bush, and
he has sent 150 people to their death in Texas, including the mentally ill."
However successful the president-elect may be in his push for "reconciliation
and healing" back home, he is facing political fire in Europe because of his
close identification with a practice that people here widely consider
barbaric. On a continent where capital punishment has been designated an
abuse on par with torture and genocide--all three are banned by the European
Convention on Human Rights, signed by 34 countries--George W. Bush is seen as
one of its leading proponents.
It is no passing concern here. Most U.S. executions get more coverage in the
European media than at home. Students hold noisy campus rallies denouncing
Texas, the state that leads the nation in executions. European politicians
regularly cross the Atlantic to meet with death-row inmates, amid great
publicity back home.
Accordingly, some death-penalty opponents have welcomed the Texas governor's
political promotion on the theory that it will make their case more visible.
"From a campaigning perspective, it's useful to have the most identifiable
villain in the White House," said Chris Stalker of the British branch of
Amnesty International. Stalker said Bush will "have a lot of trouble on this
when he comes here" in the form of demonstrations.
In a recent conversation, a German diplomat said both officials and the
public in his country are deeply troubled by the number of people executed in
Texas and the issue of capital punishment is likely to continue to dog Bush
in Europe. He said the issue is likely to sufficiently animate the public to
bring people on to the streets when Bush visits, and predicted that European
politicians will raise the issue in meetings with the new president.
Most of the criticism in Europe comes from the political left, but this is an
issue on which conservatives, too, tend to criticize the United States. When
a 6-year-old shot and killed a first-grade classmate in Michigan in February,
the arch-conservative British tabloid the Sun editorialized that the most
likely American response would be to build a kiddie-size electric chair. The
Daily Mail, the farthest right of the British newspapers, noted acidly in a
profile of Bush last week that he is "best known for signing 153 death
warrants."
Dan Bartlett, a Bush spokesman, said the president-elect looks forward to
working with foreign leaders despite the disagreement on capital punishment.
"Governor Bush believes that capital punishment ultimately saves lives and
reduces crime," Bartlett said.
Bush "was sworn to uphold the laws of the state of Texas and he took his
responsibility with regard to the death penalty very seriously, and performed
the duties that he was sworn to uphold," Barlett said. "He understands that
people can respectfully disagree on the issue, but he remains steadfast in
his belief that it can reduce crime and save lives."
Those who disagree in Europe are not always so respectful.
Consider the repartee of Jeff and Stacey Lardburger, a fictional American
couple who appear on the satirical British TV show "Big Breakfast." The
Lardburgers fit all the classic European stereotypes of Americans: They are
fat, crude and ignorant, and they argue all the time. Last week, Jeff
Lardburger hurled a new threat at his wife: "Button it . . . or I'll sendya
to Texas and putya in the chair."
A front page cartoon in the British newspaper the Guardian on Thursday showed
a stockbroker with the message "Bush wins" on his computer screen sending
frantic investment advice to clients: "Buy Lethal Injections!"
There are clearly political points to be won in Europe by opposing capital
punishment in the United States, which is one reason politicians here
routinely cross the Atlantic to meet the condemned.
When French Education Minister Jack Lang was preparing to run for mayor of
Paris, he traveled to Texas to talk with convicted murderer Odell Barnes Jr.,
who was executed on March 1, still declaring his innocence. Similarly,
Germany's Roth traveled to Arizona last year to talk with two convicted
murderers, Karl and Walter LaGrand, before their execution.
Roth said she took particular interest in the case because the LaGrands were
born in Germany. But they had spent their entire adult lives in the United
States and were unable to converse with her in German when she arrived.
No major political party in Europe supports the death penalty--hardly
surprising, since opinion polls show that most voters across the continent
oppose the practice. Many here are simply baffled that the United States,
with its reputation for defending human rights around the world, supports it
so strongly.
"I am regularly asked to speak about this at [European] universities," said
Badinter, who ended capital punishment in France in 1981, when he was justice
minister. "I wish you could see the students, how perplexed they are, how
amazed they are, that the U.S. permits this barbarous deed.
"After all, U.S. pop culture is part of their life. U.S. technology is on
their desks. But when it comes to the death penalty, the U.S. is not a
leader. Your country stands with China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Democratic
Republic of the Congo in number of executions. And the students say, 'What
the hell has the U.S. to do with those four dictatorships?' "
On dozens of occasions, the European Union has formally protested specific
executions, usually those involving youthful or mentally deficient
defendants. U.S. diplomats in Europe say they are deluged with complaints
about capital punishment, some from organized political groups and many from
citizens who have read about an upcoming execution in the newspaper.
In response, the U.S. Embassy in Paris hands out an explanation of the issue
that is defensive in tone. "The death penalty is an emotional and
controversial subject," it says. "Public opinion polls have shown that 66
percent of the American public support the death penalty. On the other hand,
some major American organizations, such as the American Bar Association and
the Texas Catholic Bishops, have called for a moratorium on its use on
humanitarian and human rights grounds."
"There are more homicides in Texas than in Britain," said Owen Williams, a
death-penalty opponent who rejects the deterrence argument. "So where's the
deterrent effect? And there is no social value in state-sponsored murder."
One result of the anti-Bush fervor on this point is that Europeans tend to
see many more news reports about Texas executions than Americans do.
Most U.S. news organizations paid little attention last month when Texas was
preparing to execute a convicted rapist and murderer named Johnny Paul Penry.
In Europe, though, the event was major news, partly because Penry was said to
be retarded--Britain's Press Association reported that he still believed in
Santa Claus--and partly because he was to be the 150th person executed since
Bush became governor.
Britain's second-biggest daily newspaper, the Mirror, devoted its first six
pages completely to this story (headline: "The Texas Massacre"). On page 7,
it ran an editorial: "Bush makes no apology for his hideous track record. And
disturbingly, he has mass support from Americans, driven by their
out-of-control gun culture and blood lust for retribution."
Correspondent Peter Finn contributed to this story from Berlin.