NYPost

THROW THE HYPOCRITES OUT

By LINDA STASI

May 6, 2001 -- LET me get this straight: The gasbags at the U.N. throw the United States off the Human Rights Panel, even as they welcome the human slave traders of Sudan?

Instead of crying that the U.N. has thrown us out, we should be throwing a party, before throwing it out - of town.

If this latest move doesn't prove what a bunch of crooked schemers and useless scammers some of the U.N. members are, let me point out that while we're out, human-rights-loving countries like China, whose "one-child policy" results in the deaths and abandonment of a million baby girls a year, are in.

Also in-like-sin are a dozen countries that practice forced female circumcision.

In, too, is Brazil, which the State Department cited for torture of prisoners. Also welcome to the HRP is Guatemala, which has been cited for human-rights violations - like murder - against its indigenous people, homosexuals, street children and union organizers.

OK, so the U.N. wasn't successful in stopping rights violators all over the world; at least it stops war - right? Right. Since its founding, there have been only about 150 wars, which have killed a mere 30 million people.

Well, just because it doesn't stop slavery, torture or war, at least its medical programs are effective - correct?

Absolutely! Except for the 150 million who've died of malaria, AIDS and TB, it's done a bang-up job!

Listen, if we can't throw the bums out, the least the U.S. can do is to stop giving $298 million a year to the U.N. and its high-living/lowlife thugs. Let them find space in a more human-rights friendly place like, say, Cuba, China, Pakistan or Russia.

-- Anonymous, May 06, 2001

Answers

I didn't realize that China still had that one child policy.

-- Anonymous, May 06, 2001

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

Tyrants Take Over
The U.N. makes a mockery of human rights.

Monday, May 7, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT

And so it has come to pass that the torments of the world's most unfortunate men, women and children will be monitored not by the U.S., but by the likes of Sudan, China, Libya, Algeria, Syria, Vietnam and Cuba. The latter are all members in good standing of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, from which the U.S. was ousted last week. Let us lift up a little prayer of supplication to Eleanor Roosevelt, the idealist who helped found this institution in 1947 to protect the world's people from tyranny.

The ouster of the U.S. is being played out in the media as payback for the Bush Administration's positions on Kyoto, missile defense and even AIDS drugs. The U.S. supposedly is getting its comeuppance for acting arrogantly and "unilaterally." This is ludicrous. The episode is a case study in why a sensible government should give less, not more, deference to the tender sensibilities of world hypocrisy.

The human-rights abusers of the world have figured out how to play the game. They have effectively banded together in a kind of U.N. "abusers' bloc," with the aim of quelling institutional criticism of their repulsive behavior. Even though the world's democracies far outnumber the world's tyrannies, there's no effective "democrats' bloc" to counter the abusers' power.

More immediately to blame for Thursday's vote are the Western Europeans, who offered three candidates in addition to the U.S. for the three seats allocated to the West. The European Union should have persuaded one of them to stand aside; Sudan and the like were elected because their blocs offered three candidates for three positions. With China and Cuba beating the "anyone but America" drum, the predictable result was that the U.S. came in last behind Sweden, Austria and France. In addition, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher says it's likely that "very few" of the 29 votes the U.S. received came from the EU. The world will now get a good chance to see how well human rights will be protected by France's favored techniques of dealing with tyrants through "cooperation and dialogue."

Lastly, the U.S. ouster was a failure of U.S. leadership. The White House has announced that President Bush's choice for Ambassador to the U.N. is John Negroponte, an experienced and savvy diplomat. But in the government-wide appointments process bog, his name hasn't yet been sent to the Senate for confirmation. Meantime, the State Department was asleep at the switch. The dirty little secret of U.N. votes is that they rarely are on the merits and almost always about politics. You get votes in the U.N. by giving members something to hope for if they vote for you and something to fear if they don't.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said Friday that the U.S. 29-vote total in the secret vote contrasts with "43 solid written assurances" going into the voting, but said he did not plan to quiz other nations on whether they reneged and why. Why not? That's a question likely to be raised in Congress, where the United Nations' image is already shabby. We'd also hope, though, that Congress does something to relieve background-check morass that slows appointments, and moves with alacrity on appointees such as Mr. Negroponte.

There is one matter that deserves attention: Why is the U.N. voting in secret in the first place? Only in some smoke-filled room could the world's tyrannies take over its Human Rights Commission. A secret ballot with open elections, not recognized by the tyrannies, is designed precisely to protect voters from official threats and intimidation. But governments are supposed to act in the light of day. When Mr. Negroponte arrives at the United Nations, he could make this cause the first order of his day.

-- Anonymous, May 07, 2001