[North-NV-Greens] Fwd: U.N. Gen'l Assembly Threatens Revolt

Mon Nov 29 00:12:14 PST 2004

>
>
>U.N. Body Rejects Censure, Threatens Revolt
>
>By Thalif Deen
>
>The 191-member U.N. General Assembly, the largely ignored
>policy-making body of the United Nations, is threatening to
>derail a slew of mostly Western European and U.S.-inspired
>resolutions condemning human rights violations.
>
>November 24, 2004, Inter Press Service
>
>http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=26428
>
>UNITED NATIONS, Nov 24 (IPS) - The 191-member U.N. General
>Assembly, the largely ignored policy-making body of the
>United Nations, is threatening to derail a slew of mostly
>Western European and U.S.-inspired resolutions condemning
>human rights violations.
>
>A key committee of the assembly, which previously refused to
>take action on resolutions against Belarus and Sudan, took a
>similar stance Wednesday on another draft resolution, this
>time on human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, signalling what some
>observers call a backlash against U.S. abuse of the world
>body and international law.
>
>The three rejections will be routinely ratified next week by
>the General Assembly, which represents the views of the
>overwhelming majority of the member states.
>
>On Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador John Danforth lashed out at U.N.
>member states, and challenged ''the utility of the General
>Assembly.''
>
>''One wonders if there can't be a clear and direct statement
>on matters of basic principle, why have this building? And
>what is it all about?'' he asked.
>
>The answer came both from U.N. diplomats and U.S. academics,
>who are blaming the United States for what appears to be a
>growing revolt at the United Nations on human rights issues.
>
>The resolution against Sudan, co-sponsored by the 25-member
>European Union (EU) and the United States, got only 74 votes
>compared with 91 votes against.
>
>The draft resolution expressed ''grave concern'' at some of
>the continued atrocities in the country's western Darfur
>region, ''including forced displacement and arbitrary
>executions, forced disappearances, torture and other
>degrading punishment.''
>
>The United Nations estimates that 70,000 ethnic African
>villagers in the area have been killed by Arab militias known
>as îjanjaweedî (men on horseback). It says 1.5 million locals
>have fled the violence, some to neighbouring Chad.
>
>The resolution called upon the Government of Sudan as well as
>other parties to the conflict to stop the atrocities and co-
>operate fully with the Mission of the African Union and the
>Mission of the U.N. Special Representative for Sudan.
>
>Speaking on behalf of the African Group, the representative
>of South Africa told delegates Wednesday: ''Our vote is not
>an attempt to condone human rights violations. It is a vote
>to counter the double standards (on human rights) by the
>European Union.''
>
>According to Naseer H Aruri, chancellor professor (emeritus)
>of political science at the University of Massachusetts, ''
>The United States, it seems, is paying a heavy price for its
>contemptuous treatment of the United Nations and for its own
>transgressions of civil liberties, at home and abroad.î
>
>The rejection of three resolutions condemning human rights
>violations in Sudan, Belarus and Zimbabwe ''could be the
>start of a new global challenge to the self-designated U.S.
>role of chief arbiter and human rights monitor,'' Aruri told
>IPS.
>
>Although the General Assembly really represents the will of
>all 191 member states, the 15-member Security Council has
>been increasingly taking on the role of final arbiter on
>issues ranging from war and peace to child soldiers and
>sexual violence against women.
>
>For example, on Monday the United States voted against a
>resolution condemning mercenaries on the ground that the
>issue should be within the purview of the Security Council,
>not a committee of the assembly.
>
>But resentment has been growing against this trend because
>all major decisions at the United Nations are now taken by
>the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security
>Council: the United States, Britain, France, China and
>Russia, marginalizing the General Assembly.
>
>Danforth told reporters Tuesday the assembly ''is not
>prepared to speak strongly, not prepared to speak with the
>same voice that the Security Council had spoken with,''
>particularly in respect to Sudan.
>
>''And the message from the General Assembly is very simple:
>'You may be suffering (in Darfur), but we can't be
>bothered,''' he added.
>
>But to Aruri, author of 'Dishonest Broker: The U.S. Role in
>Israel and Palestine', ''The action by the General Assembly
>committee highlights a political-cultural divide in a world
>split between those who insist on the application of the rule
>of law, peaceful resolution of international disputes and the
>universality of human rights, on one hand, and those who
>practise unilateralism, preventive wars and selective
>standards of human rights, on the other.î
>
>''Claims of divine inspiration, reinforced by expansionist
>designs and driven by an outdated moral mission, are no
>longer accepted by a broad segment of a divided world that
>has grown tired of global autocracy and a reincarnation of
>old-fashioned imperialism,'' he added.
>
>Francis A. Boyle, professor of international law at the
>University of Illinois College of Law, told IPS, ''Finally,
>the member states of the U.N. General Assembly are taking a
>stand against the administration of (U.S. President George
>W.) Bush and its wanton aggression, war crimes and gross
>human rights violations all over the world, including here in
>the United States where they are trying to establish a police
>state''.
>
>The U.N. General Assembly must now invoke its own 'Uniting
>for Peace Resolution' -- which superseded Security Council
>action on the crisis in South Korea in 1950 -- against the
>Bush administration and proceed to sanction it for its
>international legal nihilism, said Boyle, author of
>'Destroying World Order'.
>
>''Otherwise, the United Nations will go the same way the
>League of Nations did in the late 1930s, when it failed to
>act against (dictators such as) Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo and
>Stalin,'' he added.
>
>But Yvonne Terlingen of rights group Amnesty International
>said her organisation is ''extremely concerned'' that a key
>committee of the General Assembly should have determined that
>a human rights situation as grave as that in Sudan ''is not
>worthy of its consideration.''
>
>''As a global body, the General Assembly must at the very
>least express its condemnation of human rights abuses
>committed by all sides to the conflict and make
>recommendations to stop these abuses,'' she added.
>_______________________________________________________
>
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-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand