UNITED
NATIONS, March
20 -- On the
second day of
the Arms Trade
Treaty talks
at the UN in
New York,
Inner City
Press asked
Amnesty
International's
Salil Shetty
what Amnesty
thinks of
calls by
France, the UK
and
others to arm
the rebels in
Syria. Video
here.
Shetty
replied, “We
have been
critical of
the Assad
regime,”
saying its
“atrocities
far exceed the
rebels'...
[but]
increasingly
our
reports take
about abuse by
rebels.”
He
cited the
“Golden
Rule...
Assessment has
to be made of
risks
involved, no
exception in
the case of
the rebel
groups.”
Amnesty's
Head
of Arms
Control and
Human Rights
Brian Wood
then stated
Amnesty's
position that
“at present,
no arms should
go to Syria”
because “for
sure there's a
substantial
risk that arms
to those
[opposition]
brigades are
going to be
used for war
crimes.”
He
said “there's
a slight
difference” in
that with the
rebels, “if
measures are
taken and risk
is removed,
then the
situation
would
change.”
This
appears to be
the claim of
President
Francois
Hollande of
France, of the
prospective
assurances he
says he's
gotten
from the
rebels.
Wood
zeroed in on
Article 3.3 of
the draft ATT,
which adds
after “the US
put working
in” to the
concept that
it is unlawful
to assist in
war
crimes the
need to prove
intent. The
American
phrase is,
“for the
purpose of”
assisting war
crimes. Expect
more on this.
Inner
City Press
asked these
questions, and
others on Cote
d'Ivoire, at
an
Amnesty
International
press
conference
that while
held in the
UN's
Dag
Hammarskjold
Library
Auditorium was
not on UN
Television,
unlike
a similar
press
conference by
Oxfam on the
first day of
the ATT
talks.
Oxfam's
press
conference
listed and was
apparently
sponsored by
Mexico's
mission.
Amnesty's
mistake was to
rely on the
increasingly
discredited UN
Correspondents
Association, now known at
the UN's
Censorship
Alliance.
After
devoting most
of its
meetings in
2012 to trying
to get the
investigative
Press thrown
out of the UN
-- this is
evidenced by
documents
obtained under
the US Freedom
of Information
Act from
Voice
of
America,
also
concerning the
Reuters
and AFP
bureaux at the
UN --
in 2013 UNCA
“leaders” have
torn down
flyers of the
new Free
UN
Coalition for
Access --
then posted
their
“branding” of
the AI
presser on the
resulting
non-UNCA
bulletin board
won after
advocacy
by FUNCA.
The
day before
Shetty's press
conference,
UNCA president
Pamela
Falk
ghoulishly
took
photographs
of the UN's
non-consensual
search of
Inner City
Press' office
two stories
above the
auditorium.
Golden
Rule,
indeed...
Watch this
site.
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