Hail(stones) And Farewell
Louise Arbour is stepping down from her position - her highly controversial mandate and her much-questioned administration - as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. She has her admirers and she has more than her share of detractors. She's earned both plaudits and disparagements during her tenure.She has been seen to be too accommodating toward those who least deserve it, and too condemnatory toward those who least deserve it.
The reality is that she has not been a neutral observer of the passing scene. Her very own and very obvious biases have come to the fore, and helped to besmirch both her standing in her position and her personal integrity. Some of her fiercest critics have voiced their unequivocal opinion of her discriminatory biases, and some of her most enthusiastic supporters continue to claim she has shone as a voice of reasonableness.
Within Canada, Treasury Board President Vic Toews, stood in the House of Commons and termed Ms. Arbour to have been "a disgrace", claiming that "the comments that Louise Arbour has made in respect of the state of Israel and the people of Israel are, in fact, a disgrace, and I stand by those words". As well he might, for the fact is they're observably true.
Her detractors can be found in liberal democracies such as Canada's as well as in totalitarian governments. She seems, throughout her tenure, to have focused keenly on perceived wrong doings in the United States and in Israel. Somehow managing to overlook egregious human rights abuses taking place in repressive dictatorships, to which situation she seems to have given short shrift.
She has been seen, in fact, to equate Israel and the United States as human-rights abusers, right along with terror- and tyrannical-states for whom atrocities visited against their populations are everyday activities. According to Hillel Neuer of UN Watch, "There is no question that in her statements she has applied a double standard.
"Israel, of course, has to be held accountable... The problem was that she made no distinction between a terrorist group that every time they hit civilians it's a victory, as opposed to Israel, which is trying to defend itself from terrorist groups, and every time a civilian is killed as collateral damage, that's a tragedy."
Last year, when Madam Arbour visited Israel in her fact-finding mission - when she claimed the IDF's disproportionate responses to rocket attacks from Gaza and Hamas were to be condemned - and found herself in the midst of a rocket attack in Sderot, she appeared dreadfully anxious to extricate herself from her situation as a potential sitting duck.
Within Canada, Madam Arbour certainly has her supporters, however. Among them a fellow judicial traveller, Claire l'Heureux-Dube, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. Somewhat unsurprising, since Louise Arbour was also once a judge sitting on the Supreme Court of Canada.
Madam l'Heureux-Dube characterizes Mr. Toews' statement as a disgraceful attack, an "unwarranted verbal assault by a federal cabinet minister on one of Canada's most accomplished citizens. "She has tirelessly advocated for the respect of human rights on a broad range of issues including human trafficking, torture, oppression of women and people with disabilities, attacks on press freedom, extra-judicial executions, and the current food crisis."
Madam l'Heureux-Dibe makes reference to Ms. Arbour's "April 27, 2008 statement with respect to violence in Zimbabwe". And then deflates the value of the statement by noting that "In her characteristic neutral fashion, Ms. Arbour called upon the political leadership on both sides to restrain their supporters and renounce the use of threats, intimidation and violence against opponents."
Of what possible value could that statement be in the face of the reality of the ruling ZANU-PF party's use of threats, intimidation and violence?
The MDC opposition and its supporters were the recipients, not the equal fomenters of the "threats, intimidation and violence". In the case of Robert Mugabe's thuggery and vile attacks against his opponents applying a neutral stance; in the instance of Israel defending itself from terrorist Hamas, dumping neutrality. Ignorance is her best defence.
She characterized the Arab human rights charter as "an important step forward", even while it equated Zionism with racism. She completely ignored in her speeches prevailing and growing incidents of anti-Semitism. She somehow missed opportunities to condemn Iran's abysmal record of human rights infringements - failed to comment on Ahmadinejad's promise to "wipe Israel off the map".
When the Danish cartoons brought death threats from Muslims, Madam Arbour was sympathetic to Muslim anguish, and expressed no position on the revenge exacted through deadly and hysterical responses, nor did she express support for free speech entitlements. Britain's University and College Union's attempts to organize an academic boycott of Israel which was condemned by the international academic community saw no critical response from her.
On the other hand, the director of the Irish Centre for Human rights celebrates what he considers to be Madam Arbour's fearlessness in attacking the flaws she saw in international human rights as practised by high-profile and powerful countries like Russia, the United States and China. He feels it's a loss to the international community that she will not stay on for another term.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
Labels: Societal Failures, United Nations, World News
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, June 22, 2008
<< Home