Noting how antisemitism was not addressed by the UN, even as it condemned other forms of discrimination, Annan asked: “Are not Jews entitled to the same degree of concern and protection?”

Annan Recognized Valuable Work of UN Watch
“I deeply appreciated the valuable work performed by UN Watch,” wrote Annan. “I believe that informed and independent evaluation of the United Nations’ activities will prove a vital source,” he added. Annan also expressed his gratitude to UN Watch founder, Ambassador Morris Abram, for his support at a “critical time” when Abram approached U.S. congressional leaders to help resolve the matter of arrearages of United Nations dues.
In 1999, Annan spoke at the tribute dinner held in honor of Abram, whom he described as a “forceful advocate of freedom, tolerance and civil rights” and “a global citizen of the first rank.” Annan said all this “even as head of an organization which has been on the receiving end of some sharp criticism from UN Watch.”

The post UN Watch mourns Kofi Annan, "a great advocate of reform at the UN" appeared first on UN Watch.

• Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on 25 March 1998, said that “Israel [is] the only Member State that is not a member of one of the regional groups…This anomaly should be corrected. We must uphold the principle of equality among all United Nations Member States.”
•  Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on 12 December 1999 remarked that “the exclusion of Israel from the system of regional groupings [and] the intense focus given to some of Israel’s actions, while other situations sometimes fail to elicit the similar outrage […] have given a regrettable impression of bias and one-sidedness.”
• Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in regard to Israel’s exclusion from a regional group, said that “we must uphold the principle of equality among Member States. I shall keep encouraging all concerned to find a solution.”
• Late UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio de Mello in Geneva advocated the inclusion of Israel in the Western group, lobbying ambassadors.
• Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on 15 March 2005 spoke of the “need to correct a long-standing anomaly that kep tIsrael from participating fully and equally in the work of the Organization” by including Israel as member of the Western European and Others Group in Geneva.
• Sir Robert Jennings, QC, former President of the International Court of Justice, wrote that “Israel’s exclusion from the regional group system places the UN in breach of its fundamental obligations regarding sovereign equality and is thus illegal… The need now to redress it is urgent.”

Biased Agenda Item and Resolutions

• UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 20 June 2007 criticized “the Council decision to single out Israel as the only specific regional item on its agenda, given the range and scope of allegations of human rights violations throughout the world.”
• Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on 25 March 1998 said that “I know that Israelis see hypocrisy and double standards in the intense scrutiny given to some of its actions, while other situations fail to elicit the world’s outrage and condemnations.”
• Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in his message to the Human Rights Council on 29 November 2006, expressed the hope that the Council would deal with the Middle East issue “in an impartial way” and “not allow it to monopolize attention at the expense of others where there are equally grave or even graver violations.”
• Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, addressing the Security Council on 12 December 2006, remarked “I believe the actions of some UN bodies may themselves be counterproductive. The Human Rights Council, for example, has already held three special sessions focused on the Arab-Israeli conflict. I hope the Council will take care to handle the issue in an impartial way, and not allow it to monopolize attention at the expense of other situations where there are no less grave violations, or even worse.”

The post Comment on Israel's Return to UN Human Rights Council appeared first on UN Watch.

NGO urges Ban Ki-moon, Navi Pillay and Olivier de Schutter to speak out 

GENEVA, October 24 — A Wikileaks cable circulated for the first time today reveals that Kofi Annan was in possession of an urgent World Food Program request to remove a UN Human Rights Council’s expert on hunger because he was playing “profoundly immoral” and “inflammatory” politics that “had a negative impact on the lives of the hungry.”  See detailed letter to Ban Ki-moon below. Click here for PDF.

The Geneva-based monitoring group UN Watch today urged Ban Ki-moon and UN rights chief Navi Pillay to call on Jean Ziegler, the former UNHRC special rapporteur on the right to food, to resign from his continuing council mandates on hunger. As a member of the UNHRC Advisory Committee, Ziegler has participated on right to food drafting groups, and has been mandated to work on related reports, background papers and studies for the council.

Earlier this year, Swiss TV reported that Ziegler covered up his role as founder of the “Muammar Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights,” and 45 NGOs called on him to resign. 

UN Watch director Hillel Neuer also called on Olivier de Schutter, the council’s current special rapporteur, who reports today to the General Assembly, to repudiate Ziegler’s “politicized path.” Mr. de Schutter, who has expressed admiration for Ziegler, this year praised Syria’s Assad regime in a major report, often attacks the West and Israel, and has refused to explain why he is planning a country visit next May to food-secure Canada, instead of spotlighting food emergency countries like Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan.

In 2008, Mr. de Schutter was appointed a “Special Senior Advisor” to UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockman, a former Sandinista politician who often embraces Iran’s Ahmadinejad and other anti-Western tyrants. Other appointees included Richard Falk, supporter of the 9/11 conspiracy theory; Ramsey Clark, who has defended Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein and Rwandan torturers; and Noam Chomsky, the anti-American guru.

_____________ 

October 24, 2011

Dear Mr. Secretary-General,

We write concerning the alarming revelation by Wikileaks that the World Food Program had sent urgent letters to your predecessor warning that Jean Ziegler, a UN Human Rights Council official tasked with combating hunger, has engaged in “profoundly immoral” actions and “inflammatory” politics that endanger the lives of millions of starving people worldwide.

We urge you to (a) commission an international and independent inquiry to determine who in the United Nations knew about this detailed warning, and why no remedial actions were taken to remove Mr. Ziegler, and prevent him from further harming the lives of hungry people; (b) demand that Mr. Ziegler immediately resign from all of his UNHRC responsibilities, especially those relating to hunger; and (c) take steps to ensure that Mr. Ziegler’s successor, Olivier de Schutter, refrains from following a similar path.

We enclose here one of the letters, dated 24 October 2002, from World Food Program Executive Director James T. Morris to Secretary-General Kofi Annan. An earlier letter to Mr. Annan by his predecessor, WFP Executive Director Catherine Bertini, is referenced therein but has not yet been made public.

The enclosed WFP letter makes the most severe accusations against Jean Ziegler, who was the UN Human Right Council Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food for the period 2000-2008. Mr. Ziegler continues to serve the UN Human Rights Council as a member of its Advisory Committee and to perform mandates for it concerning the right to food.

As you know, the World Food Program is the food aid arm of the United Nations system, the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide, feeding more than 90 million people in more than 70 countries.

In the enclosed letter, the World Food Program—the genuine expert on hunger—accuses Mr. Ziegler of making it “harder rather than easier for WFP to help hungry people fulfill their right to food in emergencies.” Mr. Ziegler, says the WFP, is “playing politics with aid,” and his actions and statements are “profoundly immoral” and “unconscionable.”

According to the World Food Program, the “clearly inflammatory politics played by Mr. Ziegler has had a negative impact on the lives of the hungry.” Moreover, Mr. Ziegler’s “public statements and the reports he has submitted to the General Assembly show a serious lack of understanding of economics and the details of the food situation in the areas he professes to analyze on behalf of the High Commissioner.”

The Wikileaks cable also reveals that the late UN rights chief Sergio de Mello, in a meeting with WFP Acting Deputy Executive Director Jean Jacques Graisse, reportedly expressed “considerable exasperation with Ziegler,” saying that “the man had taken up half of [de Mello’s] time since entering office.

In 2004, UN Watch published detailed reports on Mr. Ziegler’s record which corroborated the World Food Program’s disturbing findings, including our report “Blind to Burundi: Jean Ziegler’s Neglect of the World’s Food Emergencies.” We also documented Mr. Ziegler’s propaganda on behalf of the Gaddafi regime, including his key role in founding, managing and receiving the “Muammar Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights.” Tragically, even as the UN was in possession of WFP’s expert substantiation of this information, the world body ignored our appeals for action. Millions of hungry people have suffered as a result.

In light of the above, we respectfully urge you (a) to create an international and independent commission of inquiry to determine who in the United Nations knew about this detailed warning, and why no remedial actions were taken to remove Mr. Ziegler and prevent him from further harming the lives of hungry people; and (b) to call on Mr. Ziegler to resign from all of his ongoing UNHRC responsibilities, especially those relating to hunger.

In addition, we are concerned about actions by Mr. Ziegler’s successor, Mr. Olivier de Schutter, which seem to follow at least some of the same politicized agenda and misplaced priorities. For example, Mr. de Schutter is planning to conduct a special country visit to Canada in May 2012. However, he has refused to answer questions by UN Watch as to why a UN champion for starving people should be wasting precious time and resources visiting Canada, instead of spotlighting countries that do have food emergencies, such as Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

Like Mr. Ziegler, who was often confused by media agencies with being the UNHRC expert on Palestine, Mr. de Schutter has repeatedly misused his mandate on hunger to make one-sided and political attacks on Israel that lack a genuine nexus to his mandate. For example, on July 7 of this year, Mr. de Schutter went so far as to issue a pre-emptive attack on one of your own statements, in a press release marked “Urgent” and entitled “UN Special Rapporteur opposes Ban Ki-Moon’s conclusions on flotilla.” It is rare for a UN rapporteur to attack a statement by the UN Secretary-General, and unprecedented to do so by anticipatory action.

Mr. de Schutter’s recent report on Syria, while mentioning several problems there, raises serious questions about his approach. The report takes pains to repeatedly praise and “commend” the Assad regime. “The Special Rapporteur commends the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic for its cooperation during the mission”; “The Special Rapporteur commends the efforts made to support agri-food economic activities with added value (for example, cheese-making)”; and the Special Rapporteur “applauded the efforts of the Government of Syria in seeking to provide food security to its population.”

Instead, Mr. de Schutter reserves his harshest language to attack the international community for its “unacceptably poor” response to Syrian drought, and to attack Israel for controlling the Golan Heights, which de Schutter inexplicably categorized as one of Syria’s three “huge challenges” regarding hunger.

Accordingly, we urge you to take steps to ensure that Mr. de Schutter refrains from following the same path as his predecessor.

There are millions of hungry people worldwide. They need the UN’s urgent help, not inflammatory politics. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Hillel C. Neuer
Executive Director 

The post Wikileaks: World Food Program told Kofi Annan of UN Hunger Expert’s “Profoundly Immoral” Actions “Harming Lives of the Hungry” appeared first on UN Watch.

GENEVA, October 24 — A letter discovered by UN Watch in a Wikileaks cable reveals that Kofi Annan was urged by the World Food Program in 2002 to remove the UN Human Rights Council’s hunger expert because he was engaging in “profoundly immoral” and “inflammatory” politics that had a “negative impact on the lives of the hungry.” See below text of letter sent today to Ban Ki-moon, or click here for PDF.

In reaction, UN Watch today urged Ban Ki-moon and UN rights chief Navi Pillay to investigate why nothing was ever done to stop Jean Ziegler, the UNHRC’s former “Special Rapporteur on the right to food,” and to call on Ziegler to resign from his continuing council mandates on hunger. As a member of the UNHRC’s Advisory Committee, Ziegler continues to participate on right-to-food drafting groups, and has been mandated to work on related reports, background papers and studies for the council.

Earlier this year, Swiss TV confirmed UN Watch’s findings that Ziegler has been covering up his key role as founder of the “Muammar Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights.” A coalition of 45 NGOs led by UN Watch have called on Ziegler to resign. While many European and anti-Western journalists continue to treat Ziegler as a respected authority, the Salzburg Music Festival, citing UN Watch’s findings, disinvited Ziegler from delivering this summer’s keynote address.

UN Watch also called on Olivier De Schutter, the council’s current special rapporteur, who addressed the UN General Assembly today, to repudiate Ziegler’s politicized path.

Earlier this year, Mr. De Schutter, who has often expressed admiration for his predecessor, praised Syria’s Assad regime in a major report. His statements often blame the West and Israel.

In July, De Schutter launched a pre-emptive attack on Ban Ki-moon, protesting to the world’s media that the UN chief was about to issue a statement recognizing the legal and security justifications for Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

De Schutter has refused to answer questions submitted by UN Watch as to why he is now planning a country visit next May to Canada, of all places, instead of spotlighting food emergency countries like Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan.

Columbia University law school hosts De Schutter this year as a visiting professor. Columbia also hosted a lecture last week by Richard Falk, the UN Human Rights Council expert who supports the 9/11 conspiracy theory.

In 2008, De Schutter was appointed a “Special Senior Advisor” to then UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockman, a former Sandinista politician who notoriously embraced Iran’s Ahmadinejad and other anti-Western tyrants. Other appointees included Falk; Ramsey Clark, the defender of Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein and Rwandan torturers; and Noam Chomsky, the guru of anti-Americanism. Brockman today sits on the UNHRC Advisory Committee, together with Jean Ziegler. We couldn’t make this stuff up if we tried.

_____________

UN Watch letter sent today to UN Chief Ban Ki-moon:

His Excellency Mr. Ban Ki-moon
The Secretary-General
The United Nations
New York, NY 10017
October 24, 2011

Dear Mr. Secretary-General,

We write concerning the alarming revelation by Wikileaks that the World Food Program had sent urgent letters to your predecessor warning that Jean Ziegler, a UN Human Rights Council official tasked with combating hunger, has engaged in “profoundly immoral” actions and “inflammatory” politics that endanger the lives of millions of starving people worldwide.

We urge you to (a) commission an international and independent inquiry to determine who in the United Nations knew about this detailed warning, and why no remedial actions were taken to remove Mr. Ziegler, and prevent him from further harming the lives of hungry people; (b) demand that Mr. Ziegler immediately resign from all of his UNHRC responsibilities, especially those relating to hunger; and (c) take steps to ensure that Mr. Ziegler’s successor, Olivier de Schutter, refrains from following a similar path.

We enclose here one of the letters, dated 24 October 2002, from World Food Program Executive Director James T. Morris to Secretary-General Kofi Annan. An earlier letter to Mr. Annan by his predecessor, WFP Executive Director Catherine Bertini, is referenced therein but has not yet been made public.

The enclosed WFP letter makes the most severe accusations against Jean Ziegler, who was the UN Human Right Council Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food for the period 2000-2008. Mr. Ziegler continues to serve the UN Human Rights Council as a member of its Advisory Committee and to perform mandates for it concerning the right to food.

As you know, the World Food Program is the food aid arm of the United Nations system, the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide, feeding more than 90 million people in more than 70 countries.

In the enclosed letter, the World Food Program—the genuine expert on hunger—accuses Mr. Ziegler of making it “harder rather than easier for WFP to help hungry people fulfill their right to food in emergencies.” Mr. Ziegler, says the WFP, is “playing politics with aid,” and his actions and statements are “profoundly immoral” and “unconscionable.”

According to the World Food Program, the “clearly inflammatory politics played by Mr. Ziegler has had a negative impact on the lives of the hungry.” Moreover, Mr. Ziegler’s “public statements and the reports he has submitted to the General Assembly show a serious lack of understanding of economics and the details of the food situation in the areas he professes to analyze on behalf of the High Commissioner.”

The Wikileaks cable also reveals that the late UN rights chief Sergio de Mello, in a meeting with WFP Acting Deputy Executive Director Jean Jacques Graisse, reportedly expressed “considerable exasperation with Ziegler,” saying that “the man had taken up half of [de Mello’s] time since entering office.

In 2004, UN Watch published detailed reports on Mr. Ziegler’s record which corroborated the World Food Program’s disturbing findings, including our report “Blind to Burundi: Jean Ziegler’s Neglect of the World’s Food Emergencies.” We also documented Mr. Ziegler’s propaganda on behalf of the Gaddafi regime, including his key role in founding, managing and receiving the “Muammar Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights.” Tragically, even as the UN was in possession of WFP’s expert substantiation of this information, the world body ignored our appeals for action. Millions of hungry people have suffered as a result.

In light of the above, we respectfully urge you (a) to create an international and independent commission of inquiry to determine who in the United Nations knew about this detailed warning, and why no remedial actions were taken to remove Mr. Ziegler and prevent him from further harming the lives of hungry people; and (b) to call on Mr. Ziegler to resign from all of his ongoing UNHRC responsibilities, especially those relating to hunger.

In addition, we are concerned about actions by Mr. Ziegler’s successor, Mr. Olivier de Schutter, which seem to follow at least some of the same politicized agenda and misplaced priorities. For example, Mr. de Schutter is planning to conduct a special country visit to Canada in May 2012. However, he has refused to answer questions by UN Watch as to why a UN champion for starving people should be wasting precious time and resources visiting Canada, instead of spotlighting countries that do have food emergencies, such as Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudanand Zimbabwe.

Like Mr. Ziegler, who was often confused by media agencies with being the UNHRC expert on Palestine, Mr. de Schutter has repeatedly misused his mandate on hunger to make one-sided and political attacks on Israel that lack a genuine nexus to his mandate. For example, on July 7 of this year, Mr. de Schutter went so far as to issue a pre-emptive attack on one of your own statements, in a press release marked “Urgent” and entitled “UN Special Rapporteur opposes Ban Ki-Moon’s conclusions on flotilla.” It is rare for a UN rapporteur to attack a statement by the UN Secretary-General, and unprecedented to do so by anticipatory action.

Mr. de Schutter’s recent report on Syria, while mentioning several problems there, raises serious questions about his approach. The report takes pains to repeatedly praise and “commend” the Assad regime. “The Special Rapporteur commends the Government of the Syrian ArabRepublic for its cooperation during the mission”; “The Special Rapporteur commends the efforts made to support agri-food economic activities with added value (for example, cheese-making)”; and the Special Rapporteur “applauded the efforts of the Government of Syria in seeking to provide food security to its population.”

Instead, Mr. de Schutter reserves his harshest language to attack the international community for its “unacceptably poor” response to Syrian drought, and to attack Israel for controlling the Golan Heights, which de Schutter inexplicably categorized as one of Syria’s three “huge challenges” regarding hunger.

Accordingly, we urge you to take steps to ensure that Mr. de Schutter refrains from following the same path as his predecessor.

There are millions of hungry people worldwide. They need the UN’s urgent help, not inflammatory politics. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Hillel C. Neuer
Executive Director

The post Issue 318: Wikileaks Cable: World Food Program Letter warned Kofi Annan of UN Hunger Expert’s “Profoundly Immoral” Politics, “Harming Lives of the Hungry” appeared first on UN Watch.

Geneva, Nov. 24, 2006 — In advance of Monday’s renewed session of the UN Human Rights Council, UN Watch today released a report card  that warned of a downward spiraling of the body formed only six months ago.  The Geneva-based monitoring organization also issued recommendations for concerted action by democracies to stop the council’s regression.

UN Watch appealed to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to urgently intervene by taking a more vocal role to ensure council action against ethnic killings in places like Darfur and Iraq, as well as for victims of political and religious repression in China, Cuba and Zimbabwe, and in another 20 countries  having the worst human rights abuses.

The UN Watch report card assessed the council’s recent performance in detail and gave the following grades:

• Ending politicization and selectivity:  FAIL
• Addressing gross human rights violations:  FAIL
• Establishing effective mechanisms:  NEEDS IMPROVEMENT
• Ensuring robust NGO participation:  SATISFACTORY
• Creating a new culture of dialogue and cooperation: POOR
• Championing the UN Charter’s democratic values:  POOR

Click for full report

According to UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, despite high expectations following the reform adopted in March, “the new council has replaced the former commission, but remains a place where the foxes are asked to guard the chickens.”  Neuer said the 47-nation body “has failed to take any action on genocide in Darfur, mass killings of Shiites and Sunni in Iraq, or repression in Belarus, China, Zimbabwe, or to scrutinize any other of the serial abusers that require immediate attention.”  Instead, said Neuer, contrary to the repeated appeals of Secretary-General Annan for objectivity and universality, “the Council has devoted 100% of its censure powers to one-sided condemnations of Israel, in four country-specific resolutions and three special sessions.”  It has yet to pass a resolution or convene a special session against any other state.  “Victims of human rights violations around the world were promised change and they deserve it.”

Neuer said that “abuser states have been more proactive, better organized, and more cohesive than the liberal democracies and as a result have consistently dominated the debate.  The Council’s human rights supporting states must immediately redouble their energy and start working together to retake the Council, before it is too late.”

The post Report Card: Human Rights Council in Downward Spiral appeared first on UN Watch.

Geneva, Oct. 20, 2006 — UN Watch today called on UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to denounce Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his government’s move to restrict internet speeds and curb access to information in Iran.  The Geneva-based human rights monitoring organization called Iran’s behavior repressive and “blatantly hypocritical” in light of Iran’s call this week at the General Assembly for increased access to information technology for the world’s poor countries.

Speaking on Tuesday at the General Assembly’s Special Political and Decolonization Committee, Iran’s General Assembly representative called for a “new order” of media responsibility. Citing European states in particular, Hossein Maleki demanded that the media avoid “violations of sanctities”—a reference to the Islamic countries’ ongoing effort at the UN to legislate international restrictions on free speech, a campaign that began with the controversy last year over the publication of Danish cartoons of the prophet Mohammed.

Maleki’s UN speech called on the international community to adopt measures to strike “a balance between capabilities of the media networks of the developed and developing nations and guarantee justice and free flow of information and embark on international campaign against one-sided and purposeful news broadcasts.”  He said that “currently there is an absence of balance on availability to modern information technology of the developing and developed nations.”  See full text here.

“Iran’s doublespeak on access to information is particularly audacious, even by UN standards,” UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer said today.  “When Ahmadinejad’s government talks at the UN about free flow of information—while at home it bans satellite dishes, shuts down pro-reform newspapers, and now restricts internet speed—the regime is once again showing contempt for the world body and the principles of freedom that underlie its Charter.”

Neuer also criticized Ahmadinejad’s bellicose speech this morning about Israel that warned European countries “you may get hurt.”  Neuer said the latest broadside is one more example of the clear danger the Iranian regime—now known to be developing nuclear weapons—poses to the world.  “The same man who supplies weapons to Hezbollah is once again saying Israel has no reason to exist,” Neuer said.  “Silence by the UN and the international community will be interpreted as acquiescence to the storm of genocidal hatred and nuclear proliferation now gathering in Iran.”

The post Iran Tells UN to Expand Internet Access But Clamps Down at Home appeared first on UN Watch.

Geneva, Oct. 9, 2006 — The UN Security Council has recommended South Korea’s foreign minister Ban Ki-Moon to be the UN Secretary-General to succeed Kofi Annan.  UN Watch, a Geneva-based human rights monitoring organization, today called on Mr. Ban to place protecting human rights victims around the world and improving the UN’s human rights mechanisms at the top of his agenda.

“Mr. Ban’s priorities as Secretary-General must include taking a firm stand against the continued atrocities in Darfur and other areas,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.  “The world is watching, and Mr. Ban must show human rights violators that the new Secretary-General will not tolerate, and will speak out against, their abuses.”

With last week’s disappointing end to the new Human Rights Council’s second session, there is an even greater need for leadership from Mr. Ban, according to Mr. Neuer.  That three-week session concluded on Friday with the Council taking no action on any substantive human rights issue, despite having heard many reports from its independent human rights experts identifying serious situations of violations around the world.  “Mr. Ban must send the Council an unambiguous message that inaction is unacceptable,” said Mr. Neuer.  “The UN’s primary human rights body cannot get away with turning a blind eye to human rights victims in places like Darfur, Belarus, Burma, and Somalia.” (For a list of compelling situations of human rights violations that UN Watch and a coalition of NGOs asked the Council to address, click here.)

Mr. Neuer also urged Mr. Ban to follow Mr. Annan’s example of speaking out against the Council’s unfair selectivity.  “Secretary-General Annan explicitly criticized the former Commission for Human Rights for its counter-productive obsession with condemning Israel, and urged the Council not to follow the same path,” Mr. Neuer continued.  “As the Council has, regrettably, shown that it has not abandoned this bias, we urge Mr. Ban to continue to press the Council until it improves.” In its three months of existence, the Council, which is dominated by countries from the UN’s Islamic group, has adopted only three resolutions on country-specific human rights situations, all of which have been against Israel.

“We hope that Mr. Ban will continue Mr. Annan’s tradition of brave and forceful critique of those groups and countries that seek to hijack the UN’s human rights mechanisms to advance their own biased political agenda,” Mr. Neuer said.  “Now is the time for Mr. Ban to show the world what he is made of.”

The post UN Watch Urges New UN Secretary-General to Speak Out on Human Rights appeared first on UN Watch.

Geneva, August 28, 2006 — UN Watch today demanded that the U.N. investigate new allegations that its UNIFIL mission in Lebanon was providing intelligence that helped shield Hezbollah forces as they fired more than 4,000 deadly rockets at Israeli civilians.  Following is the full text of the UN Watch letter, sent today to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and UNIFIL Commander Major-General Alain Pellegrini:

His Excellency Mr. Kofi Annan
The Secretary-General
The United Nations
New York, NY 10017
Via fax

28 August 2006
Dear Mr. Secretary-General,

We are deeply troubled by new evidence that the supposedly neutral United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (“UNIFIL”) assisted Hezbollah terrorists by publishing detailed, sensitive information on Israeli troop movements on its website during the recent Israel/Hezbollah conflict.  (See Lori Lowenthal Marcus, “What did you do in the war, UNIFIL?”, The Weekly Standard , Volume 11, Issue 47, 4 September 2006 (copy attached )).   No similar information was published about Hezbollah forces, who fired more than 4,000 missiles aimed deliberately at Israeli civilians.

If true, such conduct is unconscionable—although not entirely surprising, given UNIFIL’s sad history of both tacit and active bias towards Hezbollah and against Israel—and raises troubling questions as to whether UN forces can be trusted to even-handedly police this area, just as more are being readied to deploy.

We urge you to initiate an immediate investigation into this matter.

With great respect, we remain,

Sincerely yours,

Ambassador Alfred H. Moses

Chairman

Hillel C. Neuer
Executive Director

cc: Major-General Alain Pellegrini, UNIFIL Force Commander

The post UN Watch Demands Investigation of UNIFIL Aid to Hezbollah appeared first on UN Watch.

Geneva, July 5, 2006 –  UN Watch condemned the UN Human Rights Council’s decision to single out Israel for denunciation in a special session to be held this afternoon. While recognizing the difficulties of Palestinians and the legitimacy of scrutinizing the actions of all governments, the Geneva-based monitoring group expressed deep concern over the imbalance in both the session’s agenda and its proposed resolution.

“It’s fixed,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.  “A guilty verdict is a foregone conclusion. The Arab Group’s request for the session, as well as their proposed resolution, are entirely one-sided. Both speak only about alleged Israeli violations, while ignoring the Hamas government’s role, not only in the hostage-taking that precipitated the crisis, but in perpetrating deliberate attacks on civilians, such as last night’s firing of a rocket at a children’s school in the city of Ashkelon.” Palestinians have fired more than 500 Kassam missiles against civilian centers in Israel proper since it pulled out of Gaza 10 months ago. “Unlike the latest North Korean projectiles,” said Neuer, “these do not fall harmlessly in the sea, but murder and maim innocent Israeli civilians.”

UN Watch joined the international community in supporting Israel’s disengagement from Gaza last summer.  Since the withdrawal, tragically, terror in Gaza has prospered. Weapons were imported, militants were trained, Kassam rockets were produced, and tunnels were dug. Sderot, the outskirts of Ashkelon, and other Israeli communities around the Gaza Strip periphery, were bombarded nearly every day.  The Palestinians elected a terrorist organization to run their government, which—in defiance of the international community—openly calls for Israel’s destruction and celebrates terrorist attacks.

Yet these violations of international human rights and humanitarian law are omitted in the Arab Group’s request, and cannot be formally considered by the Council because the President and Bureau ruled yesterday that “[t]he special session shall only deal with the specific question for which it was convened. Therefore the only agenda item shall be the specific question.”  (See here .)

Since the council was created on March 15, several months of preparatory sessions in Geneva were dominated by repeated demands of Arab and Muslim states for a special agenda item to censure Israel.  Neuer applauded Canada, members of the EU, and other democracies for supporting the efforts of Council President Luis de Alba to nevertheless preserve a neutral agenda for the June session.  “Supporters of a credible new Council recognized that a biased agenda would mark a return to the dark days of selectivity and politicization that killed the old commission,” said Neuer.

Regrettably, however, on the last day of its June session, the Council adopted a one-sided condemnation of Israel, introduced by the Islamic bloc, making the Jewish state the only country to be singled out for censure.  The Friday decision, opposed by most democracies, now forces a permanent anti-Israel agenda item at every future Council meeting.  A separate resolution singled out the Council’s rapporteur on Palestine as its only expert mandate with no year of expiry.

Prior to the June session UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a plea for the Council to preserve its credibility, saying, “I hope we are not going to see a situation where the Human Rights Council focuses on Israel, but not on the others.”

Neuer expressed regret that a majority of Council members are “showing contempt for Mr. Annan’s urgent plea to leave behind the discredited Commission’s self-destructive obsession with bashing Israel, at the expense of urgent human rights situations affecting millions of victims in Darfur, China, Chechnya, and in so many other regions across the globe.”

Similarly, other NGOs, such as Human Rights Watch, have separately called on the council “to avoid the selectivity that discredited its predecessor,” saying that “the council’s singling out the Occupied Palestinian Territories for special attention is a cause for concern.”

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Secretary-General Annan Urged to Investigate Jean Ziegler’s Ties to Libyan Regime

Geneva, June 21, 2006 – A UN human rights official up for both new and renewed appointments next week denied and failed to disclose his significant ties to a Libyan-funded organization that awards the “Moammar Khaddafi Human Rights Prize,” according to a report released today by UN Watch. (See full report here, “Switzerland’s Nominee to the UN Human Rights Council and The Moammar Khaddafi Human Rights Prize.”) The Geneva-based non-governmental organization called on UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to investigate possible ethical infractions and other wrongdoing.

Jean Ziegler—whose 6-year term as UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food is set to be extended next week by the world body’s new Human Rights Council—aided Colonel Khaddafi in depositing $10 million into a Geneva bank in 1989 to create the “Moammar Khaddafi Human Rights Prize,” says the report.  Since that time, a group of interconnected organizations, co-founded and co-managed by Mr. Ziegler, has awarded the Prize and its accompanying funding to accused and convicted racists such as Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohammed and French Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy. The Prize has also been used to reward anti-Western figures like Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, and to fund NGOs who lobbied at the UN against the international sanctions on Libya, put in place after its agents bombed Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988.

Records attached to the report from the Canton of Geneva, UN documents and international news sources indicate that, despite recent denials by Mr. Ziegler, he played a leading role in founding the Khaddafi Prize, has continued to maintain an ongoing relationship with the Prize organization in Geneva, and that he himself won—but did not disclose his connections to—the Khaddafi Prize in 2002.

An international coalition of 20 human rights groups including victims of the Libyan regime (see list under footnote 1 of the report), have signed an appeal opposing the Human Rights Council’s planned appointment of Mr. Ziegler.

UN Watch called on UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour and the UN Ethics Office to examine the documents in the report and investigate whether Mr. Ziegler’s conduct violated UN ethics rules.  If Switzerland refuses to rescind Mr. Ziegler’s nomination to the Human Rights Council, UN Watch urged the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada and other democracies to vote in opposition.

The human rights record of Colonel Khaddafi’s regime is rated by Freedom House as one of the “Worst of the Worst.”  Libya’s recent renunciation of weapons of mass destruction has won it international favor. But Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch, said that “Khaddafi continues to rule by fiat, denying freedom of the press, freedom of religion,  freedom of assembly, and other basic civil rights and liberties.”

Mr. Ziegler’s position as the Human Rights Council’s hunger expert was to expire under a 1999 UN rule that limits expert terms to six years.  However, the former Swiss politician is expected to benefit from an omnibus one-year renewal of all mandates to be adopted unanimously by the new body.

Separately, Mr. Ziegler’s native Switzerland also nominated him for an additional post at the Human Rights Council, as an expert on its advisory Sub-Commission.  Mr. Ziegler was nominated under one of the three vacant seats allotted to the Western European and Others Group, which in addition to European Union countries includes the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.  Because there are only three nominees, if elections of the Sub-Commission experts are held next week—as proposed by the African group, though opposed by others—Mr. Ziegler’s election to the second post is equally assured.

Widespread outrage over the election in 2003 of Libya as chair of the old Human Rights Commission is considered to have helped bring about the demise of that body.  “It would be tragic if one of the Human Rights Council’s first actions will be the appointment of a man with substantial and unethical ties to the regime of Colonel Khaddafi,” said Neuer.  “The harm to the Council’s credibility, legitimacy and effectiveness might be irreparable.”

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