Posted on 01/26/2003 12:35:30 PM PST by Clive
If Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot were all still alive, we can be assured of one thing.
Their countries, while under their rule, would likely have won the chairmanship of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
Any shred of credibility that remained with the UNCHR last year after its members named Syria as chair has been completely wiped out by its decision this year to give the chairmanship to Libya.
Any resolution by the commission's 53 member nations will be rendered meaningless as a result of this vote, particularly because Libya is by no means unique on the commission.
According to Freedom House -- one of the world's most respected human rights organizations -- fully 13 of the commission's members are declared "not free" and receive scathing marks in the areas of both political rights and civil liberties.
These worst-of-the-worst human rights abusers that sit on the UNCHR are: Algeria, Bahrain, Cameroon, China, Cuba, Congo, Kenya, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Swaziland and Syria.
There are another 18 countries on the commission classified as partly free.
To give you a perspective of how tough it is to meet the criteria to be declared "not free" under Freedom House's annual survey of freedom in the world, consider the fact that Zimbabwe (which also sits on the commission), led by the murderous Robert Mugabe, is ranked as merely partly free, despite the fact that newspapers in that country are not allowed to publish criticisms about Mugabe, that the latest election was fixed, that political opponents are often assassinated by government forces -- and that white farmers are killed or thrown off their land so it can be given to Mugabe's political cronies and thugs while his people face starvation and drought.
Syria, however, is much worse than Mugabe's Zimbabwe.
It has never ranked above partly free since the rankings started in 1972 and has been ranked as not free, with the highest possible scores since 1980 -- more than two decades.
So what about Libya? Well, it's considered even worse than Syria. Libya has always ranked as not free since 1972 --that's more than three decades.
All the principles the UN rights commission claims to stand for -- free elections, free expression and fair trials -- are absent in Libya and have been since Col. Moammar Gadhafi came to power in 1969.
But it's not just what Libya does to its own citizens that's so appalling. It's what it does to innocent civilians around the world through its support of terror that is equally heinous.
On the night of Dec. 21, 1988 when Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over the Scottish village of Lockerbie, killing all 259 on board and another 11 on the ground, the world was shocked.
The world was not shocked, however, when, after a massive three- year investigation, two Libyan intelligence agents were charged as the principal actors -- one of whom was eventually convicted in Holland.
The selection of Libya as chairman of the UNCHR fits a troubling pattern at the commission over the past few years. As the New York Times wrote in an editorial Thursday, "Instead of investigating human rights abuse, the commission has been turning itself into a support group for abusers."
Indeed, what's been happening is these abusers have been picking on the countries with the good human rights records instead of fulfilling its mandate to shed light on the most oppressive regimes in the world.
As Freedom House wrote in a letter to the UN urging the majority democratic countries to vote against Libya last week: "The United Nations itself has voiced concern over Libya's human rights practices including extra judicial and summary executions perpetrated by state agents, arbitrary arrest and long-term detention without trial, systemic use of torture and other ill- treatment or punishment, imposition of the death penalty for 'political and economic offences,' and numerous restrictions on freedom of expression and, in particular, the right to express opposition or criticism of the government."
What's most shameful is that most of the 32 democratic countries on the commission did not vote against the election of Libya by the African bloc of countries enthralled of late by the oil money Gadhafi has sent their way by means of a new political body of African fellowship called the African Union.
It was Africa's turn to pick the new chairman and because of Libya's oil money, Libya was the only country on the ballot.
Canada, the U.S. and Guatemala voted against Libya, the only countries to do so. The other democracies either abstained or voted for it.
Adrian Karatnycky, the president of Freedom House, points out that a recent study of voting patterns at the Human Rights Commission found that from 1995 to 2000, most of the world's most repressive states, including Belarus, China, North Korea, Laos, Pakistan, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Libya, successfully avoided any censure.
Meanwhile, Israel, which is trying to defend itself against those who believe in the righteousness of murdering children on school buses is condemned at every opportunity.
The group Human Rights Watch is urging the United Nations to change the rules determining who can win a seat on the UNCHR, including that they must ratify the main human rights treaties and allow United Nations investigators to visit at any time.
Canada should take up this cause and press for change and if change doesn't take place, Canada should resign from the commission and urge all other democracies to do likewise.
To do otherwise is to be complicit in farce and injustice.
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