Ronald Slye, human-rights expert

Ronald Slye

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It doesn't surprise him that family members of those accused of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq describe them as loving and decent. "I have no doubt that's true," says Slye, who recalls visits in South Africa with people who committed atrocities, were in the chain of command or ordered them done. "They were perfectly decent people. They were very friendly to me; I would go to their houses."

Slye, a professor at Seattle University's School of Law, has served as a legal consultant to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa and holds a position with the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation.

To explain how decent people can participate in abuses, Slye faults an age-old construct he thinks is now very much in force: the "godless, soulless enemy."

"Whenever you see this sort of incredible cruel activity that one person inflicts on another, part of what makes that person able to do that is they don't view that person as equal to them — or even as human," Slye says.

Slye tries to put himself in the shoes of the people who engaged in the abuses. "They hear high-level people saying, in effect, 'The law doesn't really apply here. We're fighting a godless enemy. We need desperately to extract intelligence from these people.' "

There's a danger in believing this has to do with "good" people versus "bad" people, Slye cautions. "It has so much to do with the systems in which we find ourselves — both the formal systems and the people around you," he says.

"I have looked at these sorts of activities being committed in all parts of the world. The humbling thing, and the scary thing, is to reflect on ourselves and say, 'Gee, am I really confident that if I were put in that situation, I wouldn't do the same thing?' "

— Carol M. Ostrom

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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