Above: The UN Human Rights Council’s Cuban-sponsored Olivier De Schutter, left, with Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mikdad. Damascus, 2010.

Today the UN Human Rights Council’s “right to food” expert made international headlines with a stinging report on the urgent food crisis in. . . Canada. That’s right.

On May 4th, just before Olivier De Schutter began his 11-day investigation of the great Canadian food emergency, I asked his Geneva spokesperson, Ms. Yoonie Kim, what her boss planned to say about the genuine  hunger situation facing 500,000 people in Syria.

She replied that De Schutter had no plans to say anything at all about Syria. This, she explained, was because (a) he had no first-hand knowledge of the situation and (b) other UN officials were already dealing with it. Funny, neither supposed obstacle has ever prevented him from opining sharply on all kinds of other situations around the globe.

De Schutter’s defenders — including Peggy Hicks, the global advocacy director of Human Rights Watch, in a Twitter exchange with me — seek to defend his sense of judgment and priorities by pointing to his visit to Syria back in 2010. In fact it proves the exact opposite.

Consider:

1. De Schutter went to Syria at the invitation of the Assad regime. Likewise, the Communist regime of China also ran after De Schutter, just as Cuba’s regime rolled out the red carpet for De Schutter’s predecessor, the founder of the Muammar Gaddafi Human Rights Prize, Jean Ziegler. Funny, because these regimes never seek out independent investigations. Why the exception for De Schutter & Co.? Read on.

2. During his visit, De Schutter held out Syria’s Assad regime  as a model:  “UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Oliver De Schutter hailed Syria’s efforts and national plans to achieve food security,” reported Syria’s SANA news agency, during his Sept. 2010 visit. De Schutter has never disputed the contents of this or any other Syrian report on his visit.

3. What is more, De Schutter “pointed out that other countries could benefit from Syria’s experience.” While the UN official heaped praise on the Assad regime, he voiced scathing criticism of the West and Israel.

4. De Schutter praised the Assad regime for its “very high, excellent” level of cooperation and “openness.” He said it was “extremely encouraging, the sign Syria is giving by being so open and transparent in its co-operation with the human-rights council.”

In light of what everyone in the world finally knows about Syria’s  regime, it is time for De Schutter to renounce his preposterous comments — and to apologize.

When I called De Schutter a fraud, linking to my recent National Post oped, Ms. Hicks tweeted this to me:

I replied in several tweets:

Hillel Neuer ‏@HillelNeuer

@hickspeggy What’s “personal” about exposing UNHRC food expert’s praise of #Syrian regime & his being a stooge of Cuba & anti-Western bloc?

My point is simple:

1: The holder of a #Cuba-created post, who curiously gets invites from Assad & China, has zero credibility.

2: Even assuming his #Canada facts are true, I query his policy prescriptions. Indeed, top UN experts reject his policies.

3: Even if his facts & remedy are true, it is foolish & criminal for a doctor to attend to broken legs (in this case, more like bruised knees) instead of heart attacks.

Your own NGO, Human Rights Watch, aims “to bring the world’s worst abusers to account.” Shouldn’t the UN’s food expert do the same? Why Canada?

The Chairman of the Committee acting as Co-Rapporteur for Syria, Mr. Claudio Grossman, explained the reasons for this meeting: the severe situation in Syria with widespread violations of the Convention against Torture; Syria’s failure to provide sufficient information in its previous reports; and realizing the committee’s responsibility of achieving greater compliance of State parties with the obligations of the Convention. Pursuant to article 19 of the Convention, the Committee had requested Syria, “to provide additional information in a special report which will indicate the measures it had taken to ensure its obligations under the Convention are effectively implemented; the measures it has taken to implement the recommendations of the Committee’s concluding observations from Syria’s previous review on May 2010; and information about the current situation.”

To the regret of the Committee members, though Syria declared that it is prepared to fully cooperate with the Committee, it failed once again to provide substantial responses to the committee’s requests and it did not send a delegation. Instead, Syria denied the allegations of widespread use of torture and violations of the convention, noting that they are merely unfounded allegations, and focused on a procedural claim pursuant to which Article 19 of the Convention does not allow for such inquiries by the Committee.

The Chairman stressed that the Convention explicitly empowers the Committee to file such a request, recalling that article 19(1) of the Convention sets out that “States parties shall submit supplementary reports every four years on any new measures taken and such other reports as the Committee may request.”

The Chairman stressed that the Committee is deeply concerned about the appalling situation in Syria, based on information from UN bodies and other inter-governmental sources. He listed some of Syria’s violations:

• Killing of civilians;
• Joint operations conducted by military and security forces who had shoot-to-kill orders, and numerous summary executions by security forces;
• The use of live ammunition against peaceful demonstrators and disproportionate means of crowd control including snipers, tanks, and heavy machine guns mounted on anti-personnel carriers and helicopters in urban areas;
• Use by security forces of rocket-propelled grenades and grenade launchers on AK47s in other areas;
• Regular raids by security forces on hospitals to search for and kill injured demonstrators;
• Widespread attempts to cover up killings by the security forces, including the use of mass graves;
• Systematic and widespread torture of detainees;
• Security forces were reported to break into homes and beat civilians including women and children and conduct mass arrests followed by transportation of people in buses and trucks to secret detention centers including public stadiums, where torture and inhuman treatment took place;
• Injured people taken to military hospitals were tortured and beaten during interrogation;
• Numerous methods of torture, including, severe beating with batons and cables, forcing detainees into stress positions for hours or even days in a row, electroshocks, and deprivation of food, water and sleep;
• Detainees were often put into overcrowded cells and forced to take turns to sleep;  Many were blindfolded and sometimes handcuffed, then forced to thumb-sign written confessions of crimes that, at best, were read to them by an officer; 
• Detention and torture of journalists and web activists for reporting on demonstrations;
• Arbitrary arrests;
• Sexual torture used on male detainees – men were routinely forced to undress and remain naked, beatings of genitals, forced oral sex, electroshocks and cigarette burns to the anus in detention facilities, anal rape with batons and rape of boys;
• Cases of the disappearance and torture of children under 18 years old;
• Obstruction and denial of medical assistance to the injured and sick and the systematic arrest and torture of wounded patients in State hospitals;
• Individuals suspected by the Government of setting up and operating alternative medical care or providing medical supplies were also subjected to arrest and torture by the security forces.  

Other Committee members commented on the situation. Some referred to the heinous misuse of hospitals as centers of torture and security forces dressing up as doctors then torturing injured patients; the detention and torture of journalists; the use of torture as an open weapon in Syria; the impunity of the security forces; the obligations on the international community’s responsibility to protect; and the need for a fact-based dialogue with the State party in which it could prove the falsity of allegations, as it claimed.

In his concluding remarks, the Chairman repeated that Article 19 explicitly established the authority of the Committee to request additional reports.  He further said that, unfortunately, instead of cooperating, Syria chose to make arguments of form which did not correspond with the Convention. The Committee still called upon the Syrian authorities to provide it with information. Unfortunately a pattern of non-compliance had emerged after Syria declined to provide information for the UN High Commissioner for the Human Rights’ Fact-Finding Mission and the UN Commission of Inquiry.  In the absence of Syria’s cooperation, the Committee would take into account all information, including information publically provided by Syria.

Geneva, 14 May 2012

Dear Madam President,

Following the March session of the Human Rights Council, I wish to formally inform you of Israel’s decision to suspend its relationship with the Human Rights Council and with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, both in Geneva and in Jerusalem.

This decision was reached in light of the ongoing, unrelenting singling out of Israel in the Human Rights Council, which has been persistent since its inception in 2006, continued through the review process, and exists to this day. The Council and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, respectively, have become a political tool and a convenient platform, cynically used to advance certain political aims, to bash and demonize Israel.

Please accept, Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration.

Aharon Leshno Yaar
Ambassador
Permanent Representative

GENEVA, May 14, 2012

“A global and high-profile position that makes demands of transparency and accountability from the world’s governments should set an example for others,” said Hillel Neuer, an international lawyer and director of the Geneva-based UN Watch. “But we didn’t see that today.”

According to UN Watch’s study of Pillay’s record from 2008 to 2010, there are concerns about her ability to prioritize the most urgent situations. While the second part of the study, concerning 2010-2012, is likely to reveal improvements, the data from Pillay’s first two years as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights show as follows:

• UN Watch examined all statements by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay published on the UN website between September 2008 and June 2010.During this period, Ms. Pillay failed to address most of the world’s worst abusers.

• She made no statement on the human rights situations of 146 countries. She failed to voice any concern for victims in 34 countries rated “Not Free” by Freedom House—meaning those with the worst records, and the most needy victims.

• She failed to criticize another 50 countries rated “partly free” and 63 countries rated “free.” Among the countries not criticized: Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Brunei, Cambodia, Cameroon, Congo (Brazzaville), Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Gabon, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Mauritania, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

• Ignored Iran: Ms. Pillay failed to issue any public statement in response to the well-documented violence against demonstrators in Iran following the June 2009 presidential elections. Her first comment appeared three months after initial reports and video evidence of government-backed paramilitary forces arbitrarily arresting, beating and killing protestors were released. Moreover, her call on the Iranian government to “release those detained for peaceful protest, to investigate reports of their ill-treatment, and to ensure respect for human rights” was made only as part of her traditional opening speech at the UN Human Rights Council session in September 2009. She did not give a press conference and chose not to issue a dedicated statement on the matter.

• Soft on Gulf: In an “unprecedented effort to engage” with the Arab countries, Pillay made a 10-day tour of the six Arab countries comprising the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) from April 17, 2010 to April 26, 2010. Public statements during or in reference to this tour were largely positive and benign. While the High Commissioner did raise some human rights concerns, the discussion of human rights situations in those countries was largely muted. In instances when Pillay raised a human rights concern, she favored praising the country’s progress over naming recorded abuses or highlighting ongoing violations.

• Ignored Mounting Abuses in Syria: During this period, the Syrian government continued to repress minorities and restrict freedom of expression and assembly despite promises of greater transparency by President Bashar al-Assad. In July 2010, the military trials of two renowned human rights lawyers, Haytham al-Maleh and Muhanad al-Hasani resulted in sentenced convictions for criticizing the Syrian authorities on human rights grounds. In March 2010, Syrian military stormed the home of and detained Kurdish leader Abdel Hafez Abdel, and detained journalists, bloggers and writers for exposing government abuse and corruption. However, the High Commissioner did not respond to any of these events, and over the course of her tenure, did not make any public comments about the state of human rights in Syria.

[This will be] a workshop for an exchange of views on, inter alia, the gender implications of international solidarity, the impact of a right to international solidarity, the role of international solidarity in achieving the Millennium Development Goals and the realization of the right to development, with the participation of representatives from all interested States, the independent expert, the members of the Advisory Committee dealing with this issue, and civil society.”

The UN Human Rights Council resolution requiring this seminar, 18/5 (accessible from this list), is one of several sponsored annually by the Communist government of Cuba, supported by fellow Third World dictatorships, which essentially argue that: (a) the wealthy West exploits the rest; (b) that this subject is somehow a matter of human rights; and (c) that the world must focus on the need to transfer more aid money to the often corrupt governments of Third World countries, and ignore issues such as government violence against peaceful dissidents in Iran,  Syria and Zimbabwe.

It is sad that Pillay’s office spends so much of its time on implementing the Orwellian creations of Castro & Co. Eventually, the Geneva staffers and NGOs attribute objective merit to the politically-motivated nonsense.

Equally if not more troubling is that too many US and EU assessments of the council’s record, insisting on a positive headline, omit mention of these intellectually corrupting resolutions.

In a speech delivered yesterday before the superb Canadian Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism — before whom I had the pleasure to speak recently in Winnipeg — Hannah Rosenthal, the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, addressed the “increasing tendency of blurring the lines between opposition to the policies of the State of Israel and anti-Semitism.”

Citing Natan Sharansky’s 3-D test to identify where sharp but legitimate criticism crosses the line into anti-Semitism — namely, where there is demonization, delegitimization or double standards — Rosenthal provided examples of such anti-Semitism occurring at the United Nations:

In the recently concluded UN Human Rights Council session, once again a grossly disproportionate number of the resolutions targeted Israel. Clearly, this is holding Israel to a different standard. No less, when the United Nations first passed its “Zionism is Racism” Resolution that singled out Israel as the world’s only racist country, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia was committing genocide and receiving little or no attention for their crimes against humanity.

Rosenthal added that it was important for the US to be present at such bodies in order to fight from within.

The National Post (Canada)
May 5, 2012, p. A20
EDITORIALS

By Hillel Neuer

Olivier De Schutter is the UN Human Rights Council’s “Special Rapporteur on the right to food,” a post initiated by Cuba. Tomorrow he begins an 11-day investigation of Canada. De Schutter’s senior adviser, Priscilla Claeys, previously worked with Oxfam Canada, part of the group that is unofficially coordinating his visit, and with Rights and Democracy—a Canadian agency soon to be shut down—where she collaborated with the UN office of Jean Ziegler, co-founder of the “Muammar Qaddafi Human RIghts Prize” and De Schutter’s predecessor.

“There is no food and no clean water, nothing,” Mahmoud, a 12-year-old boy from Homs, Syria, told Reuters Thursday. “There is no shop open and we only have one meal a day. How can we live like that and survive?”

According to the World Food Program, half a million people don’t have enough to eat in Syria. Fears are growing that the regime is using hunger as a weapon.

This is the kind of emergency which should attract the attention of the UN Human Rights Council’s hunger monitor, who has the ability to spotlight situations and place them on the world agenda. Yet Olivier de Schutter of Belgium, the “Special Rapporteur on the right to food,” is not going to Syria.

Instead, the UN’s food monitor is coming to investigate Canada.

That’s right. Despite dire food emergencies around the globe, De Schutter will be devoting the scarce time and resources of the international community on an 11-day tour of Canada—a country that ranks at the bottom of global hunger concerns.

A key co-ordinator and promoter of De Schutter’s mission is Food Secure Canada, a lobby group whose website accuses the Harper government of “failing Canadians…and [failing to] fulfill the right to food for all.” The group calls instead for a “People’s Food Policy.”

I asked De Schutter if his time wouldn’t better be spent on calling attention to countries that actually have starving people.

“Globally, 1.3 billion people are overweight or obese,” he responded via his spokesperson, “and this causes a range of diseases such as certain types of cancers, cardio-vascular diseases or (especially) type-2 diabetes that are a huge burden.”

In other words, the hunger expert is not even that interested in hunger, but the opposite. Sure, we should all eat less fries, but do Canadians need a costly UN inquiry to tell us that?

Before Canadians can take De Schutter seriously, they ought to ask him some serious questions about whether his mission is about human rights or a political agenda.

First, consider the origins of the UN’s “right to food” mandate. In voluminous background information provided by De Schutter and his local promoters, there’s no mention that their sponsor was Cuba, a country where some women resort to prostitution for food. De Schutter does not want you to know that Havana’s Communist government created his post, nor that the co-sponsors included China, North Korea, Iran and Zimbabwe.

These and other repressive regimes are seeking a political weapon to attack the West. That is why the first person they chose to fill the post, when it started in 2000, was Jean Ziegler. The former Swiss Socialist politician was a man they could trust: In 1989, he announced to the world the creation of the Muammar Gaddafi Human Rights Prize.

The award spread propaganda for its namesake, and elevated his ideological allies. Recipients include Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. In 2002, the prize went to convicted French Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy — and to Jean Ziegler himself.

From 2000 to 2008, Ziegler’s UN reports and probes turned a blind eye to the world’s hungry. Instead he attacked America, the West, capitalism and Israel. The human rights council applauded him, and repeatedly renewed his mandate. Only because of term limits did they replace him in 2008 with De Schutter, who praises and emulates his predecessor.

De Schutter’s consistent argument is that if there is hunger, Western countries are to blame. His attacks on international trade are so ideologically extreme that even Pascal Lamy, head of the World Trade Organization and a member of the French Socialist party, criticized De Schutter’s approach for threatening to drive food prices higher and “exacerbating the negative impacts on poor consumers.”

In 2010 visit, UN expert held out Syria as a model: “UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Oliver De Schutter hailed Syria’s efforts and national plans to achieve food security,” reported Syria’s SANA news agency, during his Sept. 2010 visit. Above: De Schutter, left, with Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mikdad. De Schutter “pointed out that other countries could benefit from Syria’s experience.” While the UN official heaped praise on the Assad regime, he voiced scathing criticism of the West and Israel. The Syrian regime rarely if ever welcomes international investigators, but De Schutter said that it was Damascus which reached out to invite him. He praised the regime for its “very high, excellent” level of cooperation and “openness.” He said it was “extremely encouraging, the sign Syria is giving by being so open and transparent in its co-operation with the human-rights council.” In light of what the world now knows, and Syria’s complete non-cooperation with the Geneva body, UN Watch today called on De Schutter to renounce his preposterous comments.

Second, even when they visit the right countries, Ziegler and De Schutter reach the wrong conclusions. Ziegler went to Cuba, but it was a staged visit that hailed Castro’s policies as almost divine. De Schutter went to Syria—in 2010, long before the current crisis — and mentioned several problems, but his report took pains to repeatedly praise the Assad regime.

Like Ziegler, De Schutter has repeatedly made one-sided attacks on Israel lacking any nexus to his mandate. Last July, he issued a pre-emptive attack against his own boss, in a press release titled “UN Special Rapporteur opposes Ban Ki-Moon’s conclusions on flotilla.” De Schutter was outraged that a panel appointed by the UN chief found that Israel’s blockade of Gaza, to stop Hamas importing Iranian missiles, was actually legal — contradicting what De Schutter’s human rights council had said the year before.

Hunger is a human rights issue. Tragically, what most interests De Schutter and his council is scapegoating the West. For the next two weeks, that means Canada.

Hillel Neuer, originally of Montreal, is executive director of UN Watch in Geneva.

According to a report today in Sri Lanka’s Sunday Leader, the government is concerned that four countries who voted with it in the March session of the UN Human Rights Council, including key allies China and Russia, are to see their terms end in June, putting them in a poorer position to defend the country when it goes before its automatic quadrennial review in October.

But the government is completely wrong.

In fact, the membership terms this year end in December (see UN website here). Their October concern is moot — China and Russia will both still be full members. How the Sri Lankan government could be ignorant of such key facts ought to raise serious questions among its citizens.

Note to Colombo: From 2006-2011, UNHRC elections were held each year in May, and members rotated on and off in June. The new system beginning in 2013 will have membership coincide with the calendar year. In this transitional year, members like China and Russia get an extra six months, exiting in December 2012 instead of June 2012. Elections for the new 2013 members are expected in the fall.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, April 22, 2012

Re: “Time to include Cuba,” Los Angeles Times Editorial, April 17

To the Editor:

In criticizing the United States for excluding Cuba from the Summit of the Americas, you argued that “engagement, not isolation, is the best way to encourage change.” Cuba’s record in other international forums demonstrates the opposite.

In 2006, the United Nations Human Rights Council elected Cuba as a member and then dropped Havana from its watch list. In return for this engagement, Cuba has vehemently opposed efforts to scrutinize abuses by China, Iran, Sudan, Syria and other repressive regimes. Cuba takes a leading role in sponsoring resolutions that justify terrorism and advocate cultural relativism instead of universal human rights.

Should Raul Castro’s communist government really be given another forum to subvert?

Hillel C. Neuer, Geneva
The writer is executive director of U.N. Watch.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, April 17, 2012

Putin Promised Free Speech, But Russia Imprisons Pro-Democracy Bloggers

To the Editor:

Russia’s alarming restrictions on internet freedom, including the imprisonment of pro-democracy bloggers (Nervous Kremlin seeks to take back control, 16 April), are inconsistent with its membership of the UN Human Rights Council. When he first became president in 1999, Vladimir Putin promised to defend freedom of speech. When he returns to the post next month, Putin would do well to honour his word – and that of his country.

Hillel C Neuer
Executive director, UN Watch, Geneva

_____________

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, April 3, 2012
Translated from original French

Sense of the Theatrical

Dear Editor,

Well, well, the truth finally comes out! Thanks to a Swiss TV broadcast and the letter to the editor of Mr. Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch (Tribune de Genève, March 30 [see below]).

Fifteen years ago, during a public roundtable organized by a Geneva association for the release of one of his books, Jean Ziegler called me a liar because I had mentioned his central role in founding the Muammar Qaddafi Human Rights Prize.

After another speaker confirmed my statement, Mr. Ziegler grabbed his coat and pretended to leave the room, crying slander. I admired his sense of theater: the organizer of the meeting had to beg him to return by presenting him with profound apologies.

Francoise Buffat
Vandoeuvres, Switzerland

_____________

March 30, 2012
Translated from French original

Jean Ziegler’s Rejected Application

Dear Editor,

Your report that Jean Ziegler “withdrew his candidacy” is contradicted by the United Nations itself. (“Ziegler Renonce,” Tribune de Genève, 26 Mars 2012).

According to the UN Human Right Council website, Jean Ziegler applied for the Cuban-sponsored post of UN expert on the “equitable international order,” but was the only one of four applicants not to have been even invited for an interview. The documents say nowhere that he “withdrew.”

On the contrary. In his 9-page application, Ziegler declared: “I am personally very motivated to assume this mandate.” He stressed his strong desire to “participate in the promotion of the justiciability of all human rights within the normative framework of the United Nations.” He emphasized to the UN that he would have six weeks per year to tour the world on country visits.

When Ziegler ran for a UN post in 2008, his friend and fellow socialist Micheline Calmy-Rey (the former Swiss Foreign Minister) lobbied capitals around the globe on his behalf. Her departure from the scene apparently hurt him this time.

Perhaps more damaging was that in the past year Ziegler lost any remaining credibility after Swiss TV, basing itself on UN Watch’s reports, exposed his long-time propaganda activities on behalf of Libya’s Qaddafi regime, including Ziegler’s central role in creating the “Muammar Qaddafi Prize for Human Rights.” Shortly thereafter, the Salzburg Festival canceled Ziegler’s keynote address. Now the UN has finally followed suit.

Hillel Neuer
Executive Director, UN Watch
Geneva

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