Posted on 08/26/2003 7:22:35 PM PDT by Patriotways
U.N. Condemns Attacks on Workers
NITED NATIONS, Aug. 26 — The Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution today declaring that attacks on United Nations aid workers on missions "constitute war crimes."
The resolution, originally proposed last spring by Mexico, was passed one week after a suicide truck bomber devastated the United Nations mission in Iraq, killing 23 people, including 18 United Nations staff members and the mission's leader, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
The resolution was an answer to Secretary General Kofi Annan's plea to "bring to account those who attack these innocent and unarmed civilian humanitarian workers."
A potential confrontation between Mexico and the United States was avoided when Mexico, under pressure, agreed to eliminate a reference to the International Criminal Court, a standing war crimes tribunal which is fiercely opposed by the Bush administration.
In remarks to reporters after the session, the Mexican ambassador, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, said the modifications were needed to ensure unanimity. "The message to the international community and to the perpetrators cannot be affirmed if the resolution is not adopted unanimously," he said.
The United States ambassador, John D. Negroponte, said in explaining his vote to the Council that the new resolution "creates no new international legal obligations, but rather reaffirms the existing obligation of all parties involved in an armed conflict to comply fully with the rules and principles of international law."
Originally, a State Department official said last week, the United States had threatened to veto the Mexican proposal, so Mexico put the resolution aside in May. Last week, after the bombing, it revived the measure and attracted Bulgaria, France, Germany, Russia and Syria as co-sponsors.
Faced with the untenable option of vetoing a measure to protect workers when the need for such protection was brutally obvious, Washington successfully persuaded Mexico to amend the draft.
If, however, the resolution singled out the murder of UN employees as deserving of war crimes status, then we should have vetoed the resolution and damn the PR.
Am I missing something here? Is there more to this resolution than has been reported in this article? How is this resoultion a "measure to protect workers"? Was it not always a crime everywhere to murder? Why is the need for this resolution "brutally obvious"?
The Times pro UN bias is showing in this news story. Why are we presented, as an article of faith, with the notion that UN resolutions are effective at anything, much less protecting workers against suicidal madmen? The article equates the resolution with the protection.
Why didn't we just pass a strongly worded resolution calling for Saddam to behave himself and we could have avoided the war?
"Local" courts don't understand the "attacks" facing the children of the elite who fill UN positions.
How is a selfless UN assistance team member going to better a country if people key their luxury SUV, unplug their Espresso machine, pee in their swimming pool, bleed on their custom Birkenstocks, or make loud noises outside their luxury apartments before noon!
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