W ASHINGTON, July 6: Citing the eaviiig of IS trade restrictions against China and the export of weapons to governments that use them to suppress dissidents. Amnesty international on W ednesday blasted the Clinton administration for abetting human rights abuses abroad, re ports AP.

The hands of the United States are far from clean when it comes to human rights, said William Schultz. Executive Director of Amnesty-International (USA), at a news conference Ix-re on tlx- report which also was released in London.

Schultz described as a "dismal failure' the administration s policy of try ing to entke China to improve its human rights record by promoting free trade .

since 1994 the United States has tw ice renewed a trade clause granting favourable treatment of China s ex-

ports to the United States, despite w idespread criticisms of Beijing's persecution of dissidents. The administration explained the move by saying tliat free trade would influence Beijing to clean up its image.

But China's human rights abuses have steadily worsened over the past year, Schultz told reporters at the National Press Club.

If the United States has had little impact on an adversarial government such as (liina's it also lias been unsuc-ccssfiil in exerting pressure on Turkey — "an allied government utilising US-supplied arms to commit human rights against its own people,'' Schultz, noted.

Thousands have died in a decade long conflict between Turkish security forces and Kurdish rebels fighting for self rule in the country's eastern regions.

Given the State Department's

own admission that IS weapons were being used to suppress the uprising. Schultz called on the administration to prevent further weapons deliveries.

But this is not the first time that the United States has been sullied by its association with thugs and mur deters," he commented.

US citizens have been murdered by agents of the Central Intelligence Agency in I atin America, and US intel ligenre services have been engaged in torture, deaths and disappearances on the continent he said

Holding up a garden trowel. Schultz said Amnesty International would send such utensils to all members of Congress and the administration to remind them "of their obligation to dig up and bring to light the whole truth about CIA-inspired human rights violations throughout the

Americas."