Zimbabwe
UN "abusers club" halts action on Zimbabwe

afrol News, 28 April - An "abusers club" of countries in the UN Commission on Human Rights, which has even grown in strength over the last years, is blocking any attempt to take action against fellow abusers, such as Zimbabwe, human rights groups now hold.

The US-based group Human Rights Watch is criticising the lack of action by the UN Commission on Human Rights regarding documented abuses in Zimbabwe. According to the group, an "abusers club" of governments hostile to human rights had "further consolidated its position and blocked several important country initiatives, while the United States and to a lesser extent, the European Union have not exerted positive leadership."

- The commission appears to be in a really serious decline, said Joanna Weschler, UN representative for Human Rights Watch. "Governments this year were even less outspoken in criticising the worst human rights violators worldwide," she adds, especially pointing to abuses in Russia (Chechnya) and Zimbabwe.

The group in a statement criticised the United States and the European Union for not being firm enough about resolutions concerning the situation in Zimbabwe. "Resolutions on Russia, Zimbabwe and Sudan were all less critical than in previous years and ultimately were defeated," the statement said.

A powerful grouping of hostile governments who have joined the commission in recent years, "including Algeria, Libya, Sudan, Syria and Zimbabwe, joined with China, Cuba and Russia to oppose several important country initiatives." Further, African governments, led by South Africa, had "worked as a bloc to oppose scrutiny of the human rights situation in Zimbabwe and Sudan."

This has also been noted in Southern Africa. In Zimbabwe, the government mouthpiece, the daily 'Herald', has "celebrated Zimbabwe's escape from criticism" at the meeting which ended on Friday 25 April, while reports in the private press "indicated that human rights abuses in the country were as bad as ever," according to a report from the Zimbabwe Media Monitoring Project.

In South Africa, both the leading trade union, COSATU, and the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) have protested the ANC-government's failure to address human rights abuses in neighbouring Zimbabwe. COSATU noted it was not in South Africa's interest to block an improved monitoring of human rights in Zimbabwe. The EU and US had presented a resolution text condemning Zimbabwe's human rights record, which was turned down by the body's majority, including South Africa.

Elections for UN commission's one-year membership will be held next week in New York, but Human Rights Watch was concerned the situation could even get worse. "The upcoming elections for next year's session will make or break the commission," Ms Weschler warned. "Several countries with terrible human rights records - such as Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia - are in the running."

According to the group, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Norway, New Zealand and Switzerland were among the few countries to hold a firm and principled line on many key human rights issues. Other Latin American and Caribbean countries who might be expected to champion human rights, such as Brazil and Argentina, had "failed to back important resolutions."

Also the US' position at the UN body was sharply criticised by Human Rights Watch. The US had "blocked any focused debate on the situation in Iraq and resisted human rights monitoring of Iraq's transition. It strongly opposed any call for accountability for past human rights abuses in Afghanistan, and criticism of continuing human rights problems in that country."

- Despite the overwhelming international consensus against the execution of juvenile offenders, the US insisted that this principle be dropped from a resolution on children's rights, the group added. "In 2002, the world's only known executions of juvenile offenders were carried out by the US state of Texas, and the US is the only country worldwide that continues to execute people who were under eighteen at the time of the offence."

 

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