pierrelucpicard

George W. Bush in 2004!

Anne Bayefsky (Columbia Law School). "Why we shouldn't trust the UN."

Professor Anne Bayefsky (Columbia Law School). "Why we shouldn't trust
the UN." The Globe and Mail. 4/26/2002. p. A21.

Israel's concern over United Nations investigators in Jenin is
projected worldwide as one of human-rights violator versus independent
arbiter. Does the UN's record in the investigation and assessment of
human-rights violations bear out this image?

A few days ago, the UN Human Rights Commission defeated for the first
time in 17 years the resolution condemning human-rights violations in
Iran. It thereby deleted the post of UN Special Representative on Iran
(currently held by Canadian law professor Morris Copithorne) that had
been charged with investigating Iranian abuses. The representative's
2002 report expressed concern with failure to comply with standards in
the administration of justice, the absence of due process of law and
respect for religious minorities, systematic discrimination against
women, and the killings of intellectuals and political activists. For
the past six years, Iran refused to co-operate with the representative
and denied him entry into the country. The result was that the UN
commission, rather than condemning Iran, removed the representative.

This is not an isolated UN phenomenon. Within the past two weeks, the
UN Human Rights Commission terminated the mandate of the UN Special
Representative on Equatorial Guinea contrary to his recommendations,
defeated the draft resolution that would have set up an independent
inquiry on Chechnya, and passed a "no-action motion" on a resolution
requesting on-site examination of human-rights abuses in Zimbabwe
(defeating the substantive resolution before it came to a vote).

With the United States off the commission this year, no state had the
courage to even put forward for discussion a resolution on China.

This year is not an aberration. In the three decades in which the UN
Human Rights Commission has passed resolutions on specific states,
there has never been a single resolution on countries such as Syria or
China. In the past five years alone, complaints to the UN of "a
pattern of gross and reliably attested human-rights violations"
against Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and
Yemen have all been dropped behind closed doors during commission
sessions.

The UN Secretary-General told the commission two weeks ago that "the
UN cannot afford to be neutral" in the face of wanton disregard for
human rights. But other than a handful of states, the UN's
"neutrality" on specific human-rights situations has been deafening.

The UN human-rights legal system, in place through a series of
treaties for 30 years, officially registers fewer than 100 cases
annually. The Council of Europe, while covering a fraction of the
population, registers 14,000 applications a year.

The UN's record on Israel, by contrast, tells a markedly different
story. Almost 30 per cent of UN Human Rights Commission resolutions on
specific states over a 35-year period are on Israel alone. Of 10
emergency special sessions in the history of the General Assembly, six
have concerned Israel. The UN currently operates three mechanisms
focused only on Israel: a Special Rapporteur since 1993, a Special
Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting Human Rights
since 1968 that issues three reports a year, and a Committee on the
Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People,
established in 1975 on the same day the General Assembly passed the
Zionism-is-racism resolution and still producing annual reports.

Each one of these UN bodies refuses to do***ent the range of
human-rights abuses by the Palestinian Authority.

In his 2002 report, the Special Rapporteur specifically applauded his
artificially truncated mandate to investigate allegations of
human-rights violations only by Israel.

Israel is the only UN member not permitted to stand for election to
the full range of UN bodies. So while membership of the UN Human
Rights Commission now includes Cuba, Libya, Sudan and Syria -- four of
the seven states designated as state sponsors of international
terrorism by the U.S. State Department -- Israel cannot even be a
candidate.

The other side of the same coin is the UN's record on the human right
to be free of anti-Semitism. From 1975 to 1991, the self-determination
of the Jewish people, Zionism, was racism, according to the General
Assembly. At the 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights,
"anti-Semitism" was omitted from the final declaration because the
chair of the drafting committee said it was too controversial. In
1995, the General Assembly adopted a declaration in connection with
the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War and rejected
mention of the "Holocaust" as a consensus-breaker.

Overtly anti-Semitic remarks are voiced in UN Human Rights Commission
proceedings, whose resolutions speak of the "Judaization" of
Jerusalem. In recent years, Jewish non-governmental organizations,
such as Hadassah, have repeatedly been singled out for differential
treatment in their efforts to get formal accreditation to participate
in UN meetings. Three days before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the
UN Durban World Conference Against Racism systematically deleted
almost all references to Jewish victims of anti-Semitism and the
Holocaust. The subsequent racism discussion at the General Assembly in
February deleted reference to "anti-Semitism" as a specific concern of
the UN Third Decade to Combat Racism.

In practice, human rights at the UN is a highly selective term
attached only to victims deemed worthy for political ends, ends often
directly antithetical to the protection of human rights. Only last
week in the name of human rights, the UN Human Rights Commission
sanctioned the use of "all available means" -- that is, suicide
bombing -- as a legitimate tactic against Israelis.

So when the UN comes calling to investigate a human-rights situation
with Israel as its target, its ability to be fair has to be proved,
not assumed. Since the UN refuses to define terrorism, the willingness
of the Jenin fact-finding team to include in its consideration of
"events" the terrorist infrastructure and its activities in Jenin is
consequently not a foregone conclusion.

So the real issue is, why are U.S. decision-makers now serving up
Israel as fodder for the Security Council, and why are they deluded
into thinking this engagement of the council won't come back to haunt
them?

Anne Bayefsky is a visiting professor at Columbia University Law
School and a member of the governing board of Geneva-based UN Watch.

inger e johansson

'Beacon' who isn't Beacon,
you are OT as OT can be writing this to soc.culture.nordic!

Good Night

Inger E
"Beacon" <pierrelucpicard@voila.fr> skrev i meddelandet
news:2045dc8b.0310131415.364edcca@posting.google.c om...

pierrelucpicard

Everyday, anti-American, racist, terrorist posts are being posted @
soc.culture.irish + soc.culture.nordic + soc.culture.polish:

http://groups.google.com/groups?meta=group%3Dsoc.culture.irish&q=%2BBush+%2BIraq

http://groups.google.com/groups?meta=group%3Dsoc.culture.nordic&q=%2BBush+%2BIraq

http://groups.google.com/groups?meta=group%3Dsoc.culture.polish&q=%2BBush+%2BIraq


Lynette Clemetson. "Democrats worry as young blacks drift from party."
The New York Times. 08/08/2003.

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas -- The debate had become a familiar one for
LaShannon Spencer. As director of political affairs for the Democratic
Party of Arkansas, Spencer, 30, is charged with taking the pulse of
voters and keeping them connected to the party. But at Cajun's Wharf,
a restaurant and bar on the banks of the Arkansas River that is
popular with young professionals, Spencer's political pitch was met
with skepticism.

"Democrats just assume my political affiliation, based on my ZIP code
or voting precinct," said Khayyam Eddings, a 31, a labor lawyer,
referring to his predominantly black neighborhood. He was one of three
African-American men engaged with Spencer in an animated discussion.
"I don't cast my ballot based on learned behavior."

Eddings's comments were emblematic of what some Democratic strategists
fear may be a growing problem: The party is perilously out of touch
with a large swath of black voters - those aged 18 to 35, who grew up
after the groundbreaking years of the civil rights movement.

It is a group too important and complex to ignore, many caution, when
****ysts are predicting another close election in which every vote
counts.

Democrats have traditionally counted on more than 90 percent of the
black vote. Post-civil-rights-era blacks make up roughly 40 percent of
the black voting-age population, but turnout among young blacks was so
low in the 2000 elections that they made up only 2 percent of the
entire vote.

Democratic leaders are expressing concern about the disengagement.
Young blacks are responding by warning the party not to take their
votes for granted.

"Not only do I not see myself as part of the base," Nnamdi Thompson,
30, an investment banker, told Spencer at the restaurant, "I wish the
Democratic Party would stop seeing me as part of its base. We have
more power as voters if they have to come and court us."

A 32-year-old lawyer, a friend of the other two who did not want to
give his name because of his involvement in state politics, also
offered his take.

"I question whether the party sees us at all," he said.

First they calculate who they do not want to alienate, he said,
adding: "Then they decide on acceptable losses. We seem to fall into
the acceptable losses."

Spencer, who is also African-American, said these frustrations are not
unusual.

"These are the concerns I hear over and over," she said. "These are
people who care, people the party needs. If we could only convince
them of that."

Over the years, blacks have proved a reliable source of support for
Democrats, whom they viewed as more responsive than Republicans to
their issues and concerns.

But members of generations X and Y, raised on hip-hop and the
Internet, in a niche-marketed culture, are proving to be a tougher
sell.

[P]olls show that younger blacks are more open to at least exploring
initiatives shunned by the Democratic Party, like school vouchers and
the partial privatization of Social Security.

.....

In 2000, 74 percent of African-Americans identified themselves as
Democrats. By last year, that number had dropped to 63 percent,
according to a recent survey by the Joint Center for Political and
Economic Studies, an organization devoted to African-American issues.

[A]n increasing number, especially those between the ages of 18 and
35, are identifying as independents. Some 24 percent of black adults
now characterize themselves that way. Among those 35 and under, said
David Bositis, a senior researcher at the Joint Center who conducted
the survey, the figures run between 30 and 35 percent, with men
leaning more heavily independent than women.


Racist Swedes Just Like Pope Pius XII

Swedes claim to be Lutheran, but in reality they are racist nazis just
like Pope Pius XII.

Pope Pius XII also objected to the presence of African-American
soldiers who had defeated hilter's inferior army on the grounds that
"Italian women will fall in love with their Negro liberators." See
"Pope Pius XII: Hitler's Pope." CBS 60 Minutes. 3/19/2001.

bill levinson

The United Nations is a bit like the Sejm of the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth, in which any noble could stop all proceedings with a veto.
Now imagine a Sejm in which the King of Sweden, the Tsar of Muscovy, and
the Sultan of Turkey have veto privileges.

The UN Security Council, however, has one dictatorship (China), one
partly-free country (Russia), and something hard to classify (France)
with veto power. Furthermore, there is a terrorist haven (Syria) on the
Security Council.


http://www.omdurman.org/un_vote.html

--Bill

beacon

[snip]

Inger,

I advise you not to reply to the troll Axod. And please do not bother to
crosspost yout reply to other groups. They are not interested in Axod
either.

If you wish to avoid the troll just look at the size of his posts. If a post
at the beginning of a thread is over about 2K then it usually says "long
post". Axod is posting 8, 9 and 15 k posts.

Beacon (who is Beacon)