Belarus,
Cuba,
Iran,
Myanmar,
North Korea and
Zimbabwe."Outposts of tyranny" was a term used in 2005 byUnited States Secretary of StateCondoleezza Rice and subsequently by others in the U.S. government to characterize the governments of certain countries as beingtotalitarian regimes ordictatorships. In addition to specifically identifyingBelarus,Cuba,Iran,Myanmar,North Korea, andZimbabwe as examples of outposts of tyranny, Rice characterized the broaderMiddle East as a region of tyranny, despair, and anger.[1]
Rice provided details to characterize "a fear society" in her prepared remarks before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 18, 2005:
The world should apply whatNatan 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.[2]
Rice went on to identifyBelarus,Burma,Cuba,Iran,North Korea andZimbabwe as examples of outposts of tyranny.[2] Other governments were implicitly criticized in her remarks by being part of the broaderMiddle East:
In theMiddle 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.
Thegovernment of North Korea took strong exception to the label, declaring that it would not return tosix-party talks on theKorean nuclear weapons crisis until the United States apologized. On June 21, 2005,U.S. Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global AffairsPaula Dobriansky used the term during a speech for theHudson Institute: "North Korea, Burma, Zimbabwe and Cuba are outposts of tyranny." In response, the North Korean deputy ambassador to theUnited 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 KoreanForeign MinisterBan Ki-moon was concerned over the implications forinter-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][4]
Similarly,South AfricanPresidentThabo Mbeki, who had attempted to effect a conciliatory attitude to neighboringZimbabwe by avoiding public criticism of the record ofPresidentRobert Mugabe, was displeased. "It's an exaggeration and whatever the U.S. government wants to do with that list of six countries, or however many, it's really somewhat discredited."[5]
Some commentators have accused the U.S. of double standards in relation to the application of the "outposts of tyranny" tag since the named countries were limited to those routinely criticized by the U.S. State Department in its annualCountry Reports on Human Rights Practices and the International Religious Freedom Report. For example, Amitabh Pal ofThe Progressive wrote that as Rice specifically refrained from applying the term to such states asSaudi Arabia,Equatorial Guinea, andAzerbaijan, it suggested that the administration had ulterior motives for its human rights pronouncements, which are "heavily subordinate to U.S. strategic and economic interests".[6]
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.[7][8][9][10][11][12]
The term has been compared toGeorge W. Bush's phraseaxis of evil. Two of the states that were named in the axis of evil are also named by Rice: Iran and North Korea.[13]
The Guardian listed the term "outposts of tyranny" with "rogue states," "states of concern," "outlaw states" and "pariah states" as terminology of the "longstanding American policy of setting up international bogeymen."[14]
TheState Department has not used the term "outposts of tyranny" officially.
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