GENEVA, -- Forty parliamentarians and human rights activists from 19 different countries ended their protest campaign today, in a failure to get the U.S. or the EU to even verbally oppose Venezuela's bid for a seat on the U.N.'s top rights body, and they circulated a resolution to condemn the Chavez government for gross violations.
"As Syria's Assad kills his own people, and a year after the U.N. finally removed Col. Qaddafi's regime from its Human Rights Council, the organization today is electing one of their loudest backers," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, the Geneva-based human rights group spearheading the protest. "It's absurd."
"Chavez is being elected in a Cuban-style ballot: there's no competition. This is the product of a pre-cooked political deal done behind closed doors."
"By choosing Chavez, the U.N. today grants legitimacy to a regime led by an autocrat who systematically harasses journalists, judges, human rights activists and student leaders, and a top supporter of the butchers of Syria and Iran."
Support Canada Free Press
Despite UN Watch's Miami Herald op-ed in May urging U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to live up to her pledge to keep bullies off the 47-nation body, and an internet petition by UN Watch appealing for action from EU foreign minister Catherine Ashton, Neuer said "we deeply regret that neither the US nor the EU took any action or made any statement to oppose Chavez. They could have persuaded another Latin American state to come forward, allowing Chavez to be defeated in a competitive vote as he was in 2006."
Venezeula instead ran uncontested. "Thanks to a backroom deal by the Latin American group," said Neuer, "we had a cooked-up slate of three candidates for three seats. An election with no competition is meaningless."
In its submission published on the U.N. website, Venezuela claimed to be "a democratic and
social State that respects rights and justice," whose citizens live under "one of the most advanced constitutions in the world," enjoying "the full exercise of political freedoms," which are "unprecedented in the history of the Republic."
"The Chavez bid was especially absurd," said Neuer, "in wake of the admission by a former top Venezuelan judge that verdicts in politically-sensitive cases are orchestrated by government officials."
"Despite the promise of reform, it is tragic that the U.N.'s top rights body routinely includes such serial violators as Cuba, China and Saudi Arabia. They and their allies enjoy impunity. When the prosecutor, judge and jury are the perpetrators themselves, justice becomes a joke," said Neuer.
"Because council term limits require China, Cuba and Russia to step off next year, the Venezuelan candidacy is a strategic move by the authoritarian bloc, designed to limit the ability of Western democracies to adopt measures for victims in Syria, Iran and other hotspots," said Neuer.
"The U.S. recently declared that it would fight to keep abusers from joining UN bodies. By Secretary Clinton and her EU counterparts failing to act, the face of the U.N.'s highest human rights body will now be that of Hugo Chavez."
The International Campaign Against the Candidacy of Hugo Chavez for the U.N. Human Rights Council
Joint Appeal by MPs, NGOs & Human Rights Activists
We, the undersigned members of parliament, human rights activists and non-governmental organizations, strongly oppose the candidacy of Venezuela for the United Nations Human Rights Council. Having regard to its poor record on human rights protection at home, and its poor record in human rights promotion at the UN, the government of Venezuela fails to meet the minimum membership criteria established by the UN General Assembly. Instead, we urge the UN Human Rights Council to adopt this NGO-drafted Resolution on Venezuelan abuses.
Matteo Mecacci, Member of Italian Parliament, Chairman of Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions of OSCE Parliamentary Assembly
Riccardo Migliori, Member of the Italian Parliament, Vice President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly
Denis MacShane, Member of the UK Parliament, former Minister for Europe
Irwin Cotler, Member of Canadian Parliament, Liberal Critic for Human Rights, Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Human Rights
Michael Danby, Member of Australian Parliament, Committee on Foreign Affairs
Hillel Neuer, United Nations Watch, Switzerland
Dr. Yang Jianli, Chinese dissident and former political prisoner, Founder and President of Initiatives for China
Robert R. LaGamma, President, Council for a Community of Democracies, USA
Laurence Kwark, Secretary General, Pax Romana, ICMICA/MIIC, Switzerland
Javier El-Hage, General Counsel, Human Rights Foundation
Jacob Mchangama, Center for Political Studies, Denmark
Anyakwee Nsirimovu, Insitute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Nigeria
Ali AlAhmed, The Gulf Institute, USA
Nazanin Afshin-Jam, President and Co-Founder, Stop Child Executions, Canada
John J. Suarez, International Secretary, Cuban Democratic Directorate
Nguyên Lê Nhân Quyên, Delegate, Vietnamese League for Human Rights, Switzerland
Dr. Francois Ullmann, President, Ingenieurs du Monde, Switzerland
Fazal-ur Rehman Afridi, Institut de recherche et d’études stratégiques de Khyber, France
Hu Ping, Chinese dissident, editor of Beijing Spring, former president of the Chinese Alliance for Democracy
Christina Fu, New Hope Foundation, President
Michael Craig, China Rights Network, President
Huang Hebian, The Alliance of the Guard of Canadian Values
Mamady Kaba, African Assembly for the Defense of Human Rights (RADHHO), Guinea
Ann J. Buwalda, Esq., Executive Director, Jubilee Campaign USA
Ali Egal, Fanole Human Rights & Development Organization (FAHRO), Somalia/Kenya
Jean Stoner, Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, USA
Amina Bouayach, Morrocan Organisation For Human Rights, Morocco
Faisal Fulad, Gulf European Centre for Human Rights, UK
Dickson Ntwiga, Executive Director, Solidarity House International, Kenya
Faisal Hassan, Bahrain Human Rights Watch Society, Bahrain
Elizabeth Vanardenne, UN Rep, International Federation of Business & Professional Women
Yang Kuanxing, Chinese dissident, editor of Yibao and original signatory to Charter ‘08, the manifesto calling for political reform in China
Yuri Dzhibladze, Center for Development of Democracy & Human Rights, Russia
Huguette Chomski Magnis, Mouvement Pour la Paix et Contre le Terrorisme, France
Kabaale G Timothy, African Centre for Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture Victims, Uganda
Gibreil I. M. Hamid, President, Darfur Peace and Development Centre, Switzerland
Dr. Harris O. Schoenberg, President, UN Reform Advocates, USA
UN Watch is a Geneva-based human rights organization founded in 1993 to monitor UN compliance with the principles of its Charter. It is accredited as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in Special Consultative Status to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and as an Associate NGO to the UN Department of Public Information (DPI).