Been Wondering How the UN 'Reform' Is Going?

[Annie]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/10/w...04e9d21e6&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Notice the nuance at the end, UN logic has it that if you put the fox in charge of the hen house, the fox will learn to get along. I suppose that is after he eats them?

May 10, 2006
New U.N. Rights Group Includes Six Nations With Poor Records
By WARREN HOGE

UNITED NATIONS, May 9 — Six nations with poor human rights records were among those elected to the new Human Rights Council on Tuesday, although notorious violators that had belonged to the predecessor Human Rights Commission did not succeed in winning places in the new group.

China, Cuba, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan, countries cited by human rights groups as not deserving membership, were among the 47 nations elected to the council. But in a move hailed by the same groups, both Iran and Venezuela failed to attract the needed votes.

Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, said: "The good news is that we did better than expected in the voting because Iran and Venezuela both lost. Venezuela's losing shows that bluster and anti-Americanism isn't enough to get elected."

Nations running for the council had to meet more demanding standards than in the past.

The previous commission was long a public embarrassment to the United Nations because countries like Sudan, Libya and Zimbabwe became members and thereby thwarted the investigation of their own human rights records.

The United States did not run for a seat on the council, saying that the new body did not go far enough to correct the deficiencies of the old one. The council was created on March 15, in a 170 to 4 vote, that the United States, Israel, Palau and the Marshall Islands opposed.

Commenting on the outcome of the vote, Kristen Silverberg, assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, said, "On the whole, we think it is an improvement over the commission."

She added, "There were some members elected who, in our view, don't share a genuine commitment to human rights, the kind of high standard we would have hoped would have been met on the selection."

Mr. Roth said the council had proved its ability to attract more suitable members even before the vote because countries with poor rights records that had been part of the commission were scared away from running this year by new demands to demonstrate a commitment to rights standards.

As examples he cited Sudan, Zimbabwe, Libya, Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria, Vietnam, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Eritrea and Ethiopia. "The pool of candidates for the council was significantly improved over the typical pool for the commission," he said.

Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based UN Watch, said, however, that he was not convinced that the vote signaled much change. "The council offers a membership with certain improvements, but the election of Cuba, Saudi Arabia, China and other egregious violators suggests that, come June 19, when the council opens, we're likely to see business as usual in Geneva."

The all-day vote was conducted under more stringent rules than in the past. The principal innovation was that countries needed a minimum of 96 votes — an absolute majority of the 191 members — and that the election was for individual candidates rather than for closed regional slates.

The 63 nations that declared themselves candidates have been promoting themselves vigorously in recent weeks during meetings with other states and in documents on the United Nations Web site that outline their past records and future commitments to human rights.

When the delegates arrived in the General Assembly chamber, their desks were covered with stacks of campaign fliers marked with the colors of the nations' flags and the statement, "Your support will be highly appreciated."

All 63 candidates voluntarily agreed to a series of pledges that will form the basis for public reviews of their human rights records. Under the rules of the new council, all members of the United Nations must submit to such reviews, and the members of the council will be the first to be scrutinized.

Yvonne Terlingen, the United Nations representative for Amnesty International, said: "The countries that have weak human rights records and are elected to the council must now start re-examining their own records and improve them and implement the pledges they have made to the General Assembly. We will closely watch to see if they do so."

 

[Annie]

It must be Yahoo's! day to have some 'truth at the UN' ...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060508/wl_nm/liberia_abuse_dc

Peacekeepers, teachers prey on Liberia girls: report

By Alphonso TowehMon May 8, 1:10 PM ET

UN peacekeepers, aid workers and teachers are having sex with Liberian girls as young as 8 in return for money, food or favors, threatening efforts to rebuild a nation wrecked by war, a report said on Monday.

Save the Children UK said an alarming number of girls were being sexually exploited by men in authority in refugee camps and in the wider community, sometimes for as little as a bottle of beer, a ride in an aid vehicle or watching a film.

"This cannot continue," Save the Children UK Chief Executive Jasmine Whitbread said. "Men who use positions of power to take advantage of vulnerable children must be reported and fired."

"More must be done to support children and their families to make a living without turning to this kind of desperation."

The 20-page document said local people reported sexual exploitation by peacekeepers in every location where a contingent of the UNMIL peacekeeping force was stationed, highlighting the continuing problem of sex abuse by UN forces.

Allegations of sexual misconduct have dogged UN operations in Liberia, Ivory Coast, Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the world body has accused members of its biggest peacekeeping force of rape, pedophilia and giving children food or money in return for sex.

The UN force in Liberia said in a statement eight cases of sexual exploitation and abuse involving UN personnel had been reported since the start of 2006. One of those had been substantiated and the member of staff suspended.

"We are appalled with any activity, the sexual exploitation or abuse by aid workers, be they international or Liberian. It's unacceptable behavior," Jordan Ryan, UN humanitarian coordinator in Liberia, told BBC radio from Monrovia.

Save the Children urged Liberia's new government, UN agencies and donors to set up a government-led ombudsman office to ensure sex abuse allegations are investigated.

Countries which contribute troops to the UN force should also ensure soldiers who sexually exploited children are charged and those found guilty removed from the force, it said.

The report highlighted the relationship between food aid, poverty and sex, in particular accusations that some men involved in distributing food rations demanded sex in return.

"The World Food Programme (WFP) together with the other UN agencies will obviously be looking into these allegations very seriously because obviously we have zero tolerance for any sexual exploitation," WFP spokeswoman Caroline Hurford told Reuters TV in Rome.

"MAN BUSINESS"

Liberian society has been shattered by a 1989-2003 civil war which caused an estimated 250,000 deaths in a country of barely 3 million people, forcing around 1.3 million people from their homes into camps around the capital Monrovia or abroad.

Elections late last year saw Harvard-trained former World Bank economist Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf voted in as president, but her government faces a massive task to rebuild an economy and society torn apart by years of bloodshed.

The report's compilers spoke to more than 300 people in camps for displaced people and communities where people had recently returned to their pre-war localities.

"All of the respondents clearly stated that they felt that the scale of the problem affected over half of the girls in their locations," it said, adding aid workers, teachers, camp and government employees, policemen and soldiers were involved.

"The girls reportedly ranged in age from 8 to 18 years, with girls of 12 years and upwards identified as being regularly involved in 'selling sex'," it said.