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UN Advised to Screen Peacekeepers for Torture, Laxity on
Myanmar Allows Mass Evictions, Nukes
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
October 24 -- The UN should screen
prospective peacekeepers to make sure they are not implicated in
torture, UN
human rights expert Manfred Nowak told Inner City Press on Friday.
Nowak added
that many UN peacekeepers come from countries with questionable human
rights
records -- he named Pakistan and Nepal -- and end up, during
peacekeeping
missions, engaged in sexual exploitation and abuse. This damages the
UN's
reputation, Nowak said. Video here.
Inner City Press later on Friday at Ban Ki-moon's
spokesperson's noon
briefing asked for any UN response to Nowak's comments, but five hours
later no
response had been provided.
Inner City
Press asked Nowak about torture in a range of nations, from Sri Lanka
to
Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea to Uzbekistan, and two countries in which
the UN
has country-specific human rights rapporteurs, Myanmar and North Korea.
On Sri
Lanka, Nowak praised the government for letting him in, but criticized
the
police's use of torture particularly against Tamils, and conditions in
its
jails. In Zimbabwe, he said, MDC
activists had been tortured in the run up to this year's elections.
Equatorial
Guinea to Uzbekistan he has yet to visit, but he told Inner City Press
after
his briefing that while the European Union has lifted its sanctions on
Uzbekistan, it did so with the expectation that Nowak would be allowed
in.
A day after
the UN's
rapporteur for Myanmar, Tomas Ojea Quintana, told the Press that
"restoration of full democracy cannot happen overnight; it will take
generations. In the meantime.... I am appealing to you all to
assist the
government of Myanmar," torture expert Nowak said that he would only
ask
on complaints of torture in Myanmar after conferring with his colleague
Quintana.
This leads one to wonder whether a torture victim in Myanmar might be
worse off
because of the country-specific rapporteur than without on, and whether
torturing countries, rather than fight the appointment of a rapporteur
for
their country, oughtn't to welcome such country-specific posts, as long
as they
get to chose the occupant.
India's Ved Malik on Friday at UN, views on torture
and North Korea not shown
On Myanmar, the UN's
Rapporteur on the Right
to Housing, Raquel Rolnik, later on Friday told Inner City Press that
she is
concerned that some of those displaced after Cyclone Nargis will not be
allowed
back. There are reports of mass clearance in order to build ports and
even
resorts. She too said she would only act on Myanmar after consulting
with
Quintana. Whether he is wittingly helping the Than Shwe government is
not
known. On housing, Ms. Rolnik said that foreclosures are increasing in
for
example Spain, especially "in subprimes." Video here.
On North
Korea, Inner City Press on Friday asked the four panelists produced by
the
EastWest Institute to comment on North Korea's on-again, off-again
approach to
stopping its nuclear program. That didn't come up, Indian general Ved
Malik said. Video here.
On
the EastWide Institute's Board of Directors is Sandy Weill, who as head
of
Citigroup exported subprime and predatory lending beyond the U.S. to,
among
other places, Spain. And to it goes.
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
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