UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The United States walked out of a U.N. meeting Tuesday to protest its decision minutes later to give Sudan a third term on the Human Rights Commission, the world body's human rights watchdog. U.S. Ambassador Sichan Siv called the vote an "idiotic, grand absurdity" and accused Sudan of massive human rights violations and "ethnic cleansing" in the western Darfur region before getting up from his chair and walking out of the Economic and Social Council chamber.
As he was leaving, Sudan's deputy U.N. ambassador Omar Bashir Manis launched into a heated response, accusing American forces of engaging in degrading treatment of Iraqi prisoners and committing "atrocities" against innocent Iraqi civilians. But the United States' seat in the chamber was empty, and no American diplomat was there to hear it.
Under U.N. rules, regional groups decide which countries are nominated to fill seats on U.N. bodies. The African group waited until late last week to present its list of candidates for four seats. It presented four names, guaranteeing election for Kenya, Sudan, Guinea and Togo. The United States scrambled to get another African nation to apply in an effort to make it a contested race and unseat Sudan. But with so little time it was unsuccessful, U.N. diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Siv, the U.S. ambassador to the economic council, said the United States was "perplexed and dismayed" by the African group's decision to nominate Sudan, a country that he said "massacres its own African citizens." He noted that at last month's Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva, members expressed concern about Darfur even though they blocked a stronger U.S. resolution that would have condemned the Khartoum government.
| Guess it wasn't yet time for a strongly worded resolution. |
"The least we should be able to do is to not elect a country to the global body charged specifically with protecting human rights, at the precise time when tens of thousands of its citizens are being murdred or left to die of starvation," Siv said. "Consider the ramifications of standing by and allowing the commission to become a safe-haven for the world's worst human rights violators, especially one engaged in 'ethnic cleansing'," he said. |