Not Counting Niggers: Blast From The Past II

May 04, 2004

Blast From The Past II

[Originally cited in "Crippled Inside".]

Nation & World: Saturday, April 26, 2003

U.S. Blocks Post-Saddam Human-Rights Inquiry

By Seattle Times news services

GENEVA -- The United States yesterday blocked international efforts to allow a United Nations Human Rights Commission investigator of crimes under Saddam Hussein to look at the post-Saddam period.

Diplomats said several countries on the commission wanted the investigator, Andreas Mavromattis of Cyprus, to look at how the U.S. and British were behaving in Iraq and whether they had committed offenses in the war.

The United State's ambassador to the U.N., Kevin Moley, argued that it would be illogical for the investigation to go beyond "the crimes of the regime that has been replaced."

The commission -- under what diplomats said was strong U.S. pressure -- said the focus should be on what happened during Saddam's rule.

Wrapping up its annual six-week session in Geneva, the 53-member body voted 31-3 for a resolution condemning what it called oppression and widespread terror during Saddam's reign.

Twelve nations, including Russia, abstained and seven, including China, were absent for the vote.

Malaysia, Zimbabwe and Cuba voted against, and a Havana envoy said the resolution was shameful at a time when Iraq was under "foreign occupation".

After weeks of backstage diplomacy, the commission agreed to extend the inspector's job for another year, but asked for an earlier reports focusing "on newly available information about violations of human rights and international law...over many years" by the ousted government.

A first draft of the resolution said that Mavromattis should report on "the situation of human rights in Iraq," which the diplomats said would have given him scope to look beyond Saddam's rule.