As reported in the New York Daily News, last month UN Watch exposed the UN Human Rights Council’s publication of a blood libel by the anti-Semitic EAFORD group, accusing Israeli doctors of a racist conspiracy to steal organs of Palestinians.
Though it claims in its official UN filings to be a non-governmental organization dedicated to promoting universal human rights, EAFORD appears instead to be a front group for one of the world’s worst human rights violators: the Libyan regime of Moammar Kaddafi. Its raison d’etre is demonizing Israel as a racist state. The GONGO also foments hatred against America and the West, in the past by publishing the works of various fringe figures.
EAFORD was established in Libya in 1976:
“EAFORD” is the abbreviated name of the International Organization for the Elimination of Ali Forms of Racial Discrimination, established by an International Symposium held in Tripoli (Libya) during 24-28, 1976. It was attended by close to 500 participants from eighty countries representing ali continents. Papers, by invitation, were presented. A selection of those papers was published in book form, entitled Zionism and Racism…See http://dergiler.ankara.edu.tr/dergiler/44/684/8706.pdf
The group’s additional ties to the murderous Libyan regime of Col. Moammar Kaddafi abound:
- The late Mansour al-Kikhya, Libya’s former Foreign Minister and ambassador to the UN, was a member of EAFORD’s Executive Council (see preface at http://www.eaford.org/publications/1/9-11.pdf). The EAFORD website still lists him as a member.
- EAFORD’s President is Abdullah Sharfelddin, former President of the state-controlled Libyan Bar (see preface at http://www.eaford.org/publications/1/9-11.pdf). In 2003, he defended the regimes of Saddam Hussein, the Taliban, and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
- The executive director of EAFORD is Hanan Sharfelddin, presumably the daughter of Abdullah Sharfelddin. In 2001, she delivered a UN speech for EAFORD objecting to sanctions against the Libyan regime.
- Libya’s former Oil Minister Fuad Kabazi is another member of EAFORD’s Executive Council.
- EAFORD’s Secretary-General, Anis Al Qasem, is also honorary counsel to the Libyan British Business Council.
- Certain EAFORD documents in the past listed the head office as Tripoli, Libya. See p. 24 here. However, current filings with the UN list a Geneva address.
- Another long-time EAFORD Executive Council member is Yvon Charbonneau, who as a Quebec militant in the 1970s was accused of close ties with the Libyan regime. In 1983, while Charbonneau headed a major Quebec union, a demonstration was held in Montreal to protest his Libyan ties. In a Montreal Gazette article, Charbonneau denied that a group he founded, the Mouvement Quebecois pour Combattre le Racisme, had ties to EAFORD.
For a list of EAFORD statements equating Israel with ultimate evil, see their website here, or see the list compiled by NGO Monitor here.
Libya’s primary front group at the UN, however, remains “North-South 21,” which manages the “Moammar Kaddafi Human Rights Prize,” co-founded by Jean Ziegler, Vice-Chair of the UN Human Rights Council’s Advisory Committee. For more on this GONGO, click here.
