Now we know what it takes for the United Nations to take action against a country

Yesterday the United Nations suspended Libya's membership of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) some five months after Libya was elected to the Council. At the time and since many people have argued that Libya's presence on this Council was abhorrent to us and should be to the United Nations as well. I would say better late than never but what does it say about a Human Rights Council that it was happy for a country, whose human rights record was so poor, to serve on it? It seems that so long as the government of this country was strong and in control then their human rights abuses could be ignored but as soon as enough of the country are in revolt then action will be taken. Now that Libya has been removed from the UNHRC will they also take action against the other equally or more unpleasant regimes who are still on the UNHRC or does the UNHRC consider that Cuba, Saudi Arabia and indeed China have adequate records on human rights? Of course there is one other way to ensure that a country is not a member of the UNHRC and that is to be a Israel; who wants a Middle Eastern democracy on the very Council that delights in attacking it?

Before anyone runs away with the idea that the UNHRC is suddenly purged of its love for Libya remember that one of its previous vice-Chairmen was the Swiss Jean Ziegler. He was elected to serve a one year term on the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee, indeed he finished top in the ballot with receiving forty of the available forty-seven votes. It has been reported, albeit not by the BBC, that Ziegler's appointment was also criticized because of his associations with such as Mengistu Haile Mariam and Robert Mugabe and his involvement with the Gaddafi Prize, as well as for his vocal "total support for the Cuban revolution" and its leader, Fidel Castro, whose repressive regime has left hundreds of political dissidents to languish in jail but has the support of the BBC. Of course Ziegler's candidature was not hindered by his regular criticisms of the only pluralist democracy in the Middle East, Israel.

Why is this description of Jean Ziegler pertinent to this piece about the UNHRC and Libya? Well it was Jean Ziegler, who assisted in the creation of Libyan despot Moammar Qaddafi's charmingly named 'al-Qaddafi International Prize for Human Rights' and indeed became one of its first winners (albeit that he claims to have refused to accept the prize because of his position at the United Nations). It is Jean Ziegler who, like so many on the UNHRC, is obsessed with Israel's supposed sins, to the exclusion of almost any other problem on Earth, that he has shared the Qaddafi prize 'honour' with such fighters for human rights as Fidel Castro, Louis Farrakhan, Hugo Chávez and Nicaragua's Miguel D'Escoto Brockman, an admirer of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and defender of Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

The UNHRC like much the United Nations is not an organisation especially interested in protecting freedom and democracy but an organisation devoted to protecting the prejudices of the majority against the minority. At the United Nations the Islamic bloc is a large and important group and wields great power, what chance does Israel stand against the regular censure of this group's members? The United Nations is unthinkingly supported by most people in the West because they are told how it is the world's best hope for peace and fairness; this is a lie but whilst there is a conspiracy of silence about the true nature of the United Nations, it is a lie that will spread.


If you have found this article of interest then please read my previous articles on the United Nations hypocrisy, the United Nations itself and the UNHRC. You might also take a look at the work of UN Watch whose Hillel Neuer is a hero of mine.