Zimbabwe's role in U.N. rights panel angers U.S.
By Warren Hoge
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NEW YORK TIMES WIRE SERVICE
28 April 2005
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UNITED NATIONS - Zimbabwe was re-elected Wednesday to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, a panel that Secretary General Kofi Annan has proposed abolishing because of its practice of naming known rights violators to its membership.
Zimbabwe's selection as one of the 15 countries winning three-year terms drew protests from Australia, Canada and the United States, with William J. Brencick, the American representative, saying the United States was perplexed and dismayed by the decision.
In a speech to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, Brencick said Zimbabwe had repressed political assembly and the news media, harassed civil society groups, conducted fraudulent elections and intimidated government opponents.
How can we expect the government of Zimbabwe to support international human rights standards at the Commission on Human Rights when it has blatantly disregarded the rights of its own people? he said.
Annan, in proposals last month to bring broad changes to the United Nations, recommended scrapping the commission, which is based in Geneva, saying its practices cast a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations as a whole.
He said the commission had been undermined by allowing participation by countries whose purpose was not to strengthen human rights but to protect themselves against criticism or to criticize others. In recent years, members have also included Cuba, Libya and Sudan.
Annan proposed replacing the 53-nation commission with a smaller council, whose members would be chosen by a two-thirds vote of the 191-nation General Assembly rather than by regional groups, as is the current practice. Zimbabwe won re-election automatically because it was the choice of the African group.
The African group is showing contempt for Kofi Annan's call to elect only states with solid records of commitment to the highest human rights standards, said Hillel C. Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a nongovernmental group that monitors the organization.
Boniface G. Chidyausiku, Zimbabwe's ambassador to the United Nations, said that no country was above reproach when it came to human rights and those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. He said the United States has a lot of dirt on its hands because of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He called Brencick's remarks puerile and hate-driven.
The other countries named Wednesday were Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Botswana, Brazil, Cameroon, China, Germany, Japan, Morocco, the United States and Venezuela.