Observer Status At The United Nations
Yasser Arafat did it, he was triumphant in entering the grand chamber of the United Nations, proudly wearing his Palestinian kaffiyeh, and something else beside. Didn't the members of the Assembly feel themselves to be generous and kind in extending this privilege to this man of the people? And didn't Palestinians themselves feel rather good that their doughty hero was given this honour, to address the United Nations?It took a lot of hard work on the part of Arab countries who championed the worthy cause of the Palestinian people, and who agreed among them that Yasser Arafat would best represent their need and their cause, and who engineered this triumph. Sly fox he, bringing a firearm into the august chamber, never quite having to resort to demonstrating its use, but permitting it to be seen, to be known that he knew how to use it, and did, and would continue to.
A terrorist could be seen to be an honourable presence within the Assembly of Nations, to be honoured as a bona fide observer, a person of status, of international repute, of substance, of honour. But political activists attempting to persuade that respected international body of State delegates that Taiwan might be granted international status to make a case for Taiwan's membership in the World Health Organization, had their observer status suspended for angering China.
Yasser Arafat was allowed to flaunt his firearm, however surreptitiously, and by so doing flout United Nations in-house rules and there would be no protest, no attempt to restore the dignity of the chamber by divesting him of that ferociously impudent gesture. The Geneva UN meeting of the Economic and Social Council, run by 54 member governments for the United Nations was recently faced with another decision with respect to the granting of observer status for a specific group.
On this occasion the Council was reviewing the potential for granting NGOs permission to campaign at ECOSOC meetings as official "observers". Among the 19 members, Egypt, Guinea, Pakistan, Qatar and Sudan led to the blocking of the Coalition gaie et lesbienne du Quebec to receive "observer" status at their initial try. This group has status as a bona fide campaigner within Canada, and Canada pulled out all the stops this time around in its effort to swing sufficient votes to reverse that earlier rejection of the group.
The hostility in which gay rights are held in many parts of the Muslim and developing world, along with Russia and China, ensured that the Quebec gay rights activist group faced a hard struggle for acceptance. But now, they're satisfied and elated, planning to use the United Nations as a springboard from which to work on behalf of gay and lesbian rights internationally. "It may take many years in places like Egypt, where there's been extensive persecution, or Iran, where they hang homosexuals", said Yvan Lapointe, CGLQ executive director.
According to Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based monitoring group, "Canada should be saluted for speaking out forcefully and fighting bigotry on the homosexual question."
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, July 22, 2007
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