Stop Press: Annan Criticises UNHRC for Disproportionate Focus on Israel

A SAPA-AP report last week dropped a real bomb-shell: Annan warns top human rights body that it has a duty to probe abuses by all countries.

The UN Human Rights Council should broaden its focus beyond the Palestinian-Israeli issue to avoid being accused of being one-sided, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said. Speaking here for the last time before he steps down as head of the UN, Annan said the council’s preoccupation with Israel’s actions in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories while ignoring the situation in Darfur had led some people to wonder whether it had "a sense of fair play". "(The council members) have tended to focus on the Palestinian issue and, of course, if you focus on the Palestinian-Israeli issue without discussing Darfur and other issues, some wonder, `What is this council doing?`" The 47-member council has been criticised by some countries for moving four times to condemn Israel, while not taking up human rights violations in Myanmar, North Korea and Sudan. Annan’s remarks coincided with the release of the council inquiry’s findings on Israel’s actions during its offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon. The inquiry, instigated by members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, was not mandated to look at the conduct of Hezbollah during the conflict.

A Reuters report on the very same inquiry accusing Israel of “flagrant violations of human rights” managed to spin for the Palestinians by neglecting to inform readers that

• The inquiry was instigated by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference
• The inquiry was mandated only to consider Israel violations – violations by Hizballah were not to be investigated.
• The inquiry triggered criticism by Kofi Annan questioning the council’s "sense of fair play" because they have tended to focus on the Palestinian issue neglecting other issues such as Darfur.
• The council has been criticised for moving four times to condemn Israel, while not taking up human rights violations in Myanmar, North Korea and Sudan.

Here’s the Reuters report

A UN commission of inquiry yesterday day accused Israel of "flagrant violations" of international human rights law in its month-long war with Hizbollah Islamist fighters in Lebanon. A team of three legal experts, sent to Lebanon by the UN`s Human Rights Council, said Israel was guilty of "excessive, indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force" in the conflict. "The commission has formed a clear view that, cumulatively, the deliberate and lethal attacks by the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) on civilians and civilian objects amounted to collective punishment", they said in a report on the council`s website. The team was made up of Joao Clemente Baena Scares, a former secretary-general of the Organisation of American States, Mohamed Chande Othman, a judge on Tanzania`s Supreme Court, and Stelios Perrakis, a professor at Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences in Athens, Greece.

Don’t Reuters consider even some of this information relevant?

Comments

[gersh]

Another example the Secretary General could look at:

Compare the world uproar when Lebanese citizens fled the south of that country before the conflict to the current silence in Ethiopia and Somalia.

I cannot believe how silent the worlds press is at the moment. There is about to be a conflict that kills many thousands of black africans on both sides of that border. And THE RESPONSE IS DISPROPORTIONATE!!!! What we will see happen in that area over the next weeks and months may be the greatest failure yet of the UNHRC