UNITED NATIONS
Group critical of rights panel
Once an enthusiastic backer of the new U.N. Human Rights Council, an
influential rights groups has expressed disappointment.
BY PABLO BACHELET
pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com
WASHINGTON - Human Rights Watch on Thursday criticized the performance
of the new U.N. Human Rights Council, saying the European Union failed
to fill a leadership void left by the United States and acted too meekly
to stop abuses.
The rights watch group embraced the council when it was launched last
summer as a big improvement over its predecessor, the U.N. Commission on
Human Rights, which was considered ineffective and too influenced by
human rights violators like Libya and Cuba.
HRW's turnaround reflects the growing disappointment within the rights
community with the new body, which has issued multiple condemnations of
Israel but none against other violators.
In an interview with The Miami Herald ahead of the launch of the Human
Rights Watch 2007 Annual Report, the organization's president, Kenneth
Roth, also said Latin America was on the right path in terms of human
rights but criticized Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's decision to
revoke the license of an opposition TV station as political censorship.
The report also reiterates its critical stance on abuses in Cuba as
''the one country in Latin America that represses nearly all forms of
political dissent.'' Roth also criticized the U.S. embargo against Cuba.
The group's 556-page report, which assesses violations worldwide, says
the Geneva-based U.N. Council has ''quickly fallen prey to some of the
same problems that doomed its predecessor.'' Countries charged with
rights violations joined the previous body and then blocked its actions,
with Cuba often acting as a lead lobbyist to water down resolutions.
The U.S. government declined to run for a seat on the new 47-member
council, saying it wanted to evaluate its performance first. According
to Human Rights Watch, this sidelined Washington at a critical time.
But Miami Rep. Ileana Ross-Lehtinen, the ranking Republican on the House
Foreign Affairs Committee and a critic of the new council, said the Bush
administration was right in not joining.
Its ''embarrassing performance'' was no surprise since abusers like
China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia were members.
In its first six months, the council devoted three special sessions to
Israel but lacked ''the basic courage to condemn genocide in Darfur, the
sprawling gulag of North Korea or bloody military repression in Burma,''
she said in a statement.
Roth said democratic nations actually have a majority on the council,
but member nations from the European Union have failed to fill the U.S.
void and are being outmaneuvered by Arab nations.
Rights Watch argues that part of the problem is that the U.S. voice on
the human rights issue ''rings hollow,'' due to ``the abuses it
practices in the name of fighting terrorism.''
The watch group is not giving up on the council.
Roth expressed hope that the so-called ''peer review'' mechanism, where
countries evaluate each other's human rights performance, will redeem
the institution.
Roth said Venezuela's decision not to renew the license of an opposition
TV station, RCTV, is of particularly grave concern.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/americas/16441463.htm
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