COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS CONTINUES GENERAL DEBATE ON VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS AROUND WORLD
Press Release
HR/CN/861
COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS CONTINUES GENERAL DEBATE ON VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS AROUND WORLD
19980416 (Reissued as received.)GENEVA, 15 April (UN Information Service) -- The violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms around the world was again the focus of debate as the Commission on Human Rights met this evening in extended session.
Government delegations and non-governmental organizations made allegations of abuses in specific countries, eliciting in several cases responses from States targeted.
A number of delegations also replied to charges levelled against them earlier today. The representative of Nigeria said the Special Rapporteur studying the human rights situation in the country had been appointed to perform a "hatchet job". It was now being established that the report the Special Rapporteur presented this morning was written for him by some human rights non-governmental organizations in London and Geneva, the representative claimed.
Representatives of Lebanon, Norway, Syria, Nicaragua, Cyprus, Kuwait, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Armenia, Switzerland and Myanmar also made statements during tonight's debate.
The following non-governmental organizations (NGOs) also addressed the Commission: Commission for the Defence of Human Rights in Central America, Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Organization, International Association for the Defence of Religious Liberty, Anglican Consultative Council, World Muslim Council, Federation des Associations pour la Defence et la Promotion des Droits de l'Homme, International Federation of Rural Adult Catholic Movements, Transnational Radical Party, Centre for European Studies, Family Planning Association of Pakistan, European Union of Public Relations, Service Peace and Justice in Latin America, World Confederation of Labour, International Educational Development, International Service for Human Rights and World Society of Victimology.
Representatives of Nigeria, Malaysia, Kenya, Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan and Egypt exercised their right of reply.
Statements in Debate
AMINE EL KHAZEN (Lebanon) said Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon was a flagrant violation of human rights law on its own, but was in fact accompanied by other violations, such as heavy artillery bombardments, air raids, tank and missile attacks, all causing a large number of civilian casualties; thousands of families were displaced and infrastructure was destroyed. Israel justified its military operations by saying they were a matter of self-defence against the Lebanese resistance while forgetting that the resistance was the result of their occupation. Israel was trying to destroy the rehabilitation of the Lebanese economy; it was kidnapping civilians of late, throwing even young boys in prison, and torturing detainees; Israel's latest proposal to accept Security Council resolution 425 (1978) and withdraw from south Lebanon in return for security arrangements was a derogation of the resolution which required immediate, complete, and unconditional withdrawal.
JANIS BJORN KANAVIN (Norway) said situations of internal strife and conflict required particular attention. The armed conflict and activities or irregular armed groups in Colombia were a major cause of human rights violations. In Sri Lanka, the human rights situation was adversely affected as a result of hostilities. In the former Yugoslavia, the international community continued to see serious threats to lasting peace in the form of human rights violations such as reported harassment and apparent discrimination of ethnic Serbs in East Slovenia, police repression of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and of Muslims in the Sandzak region. Africa too, had seen more than its share of such conflicts: in Rwanda, the situation in some areas had deteriorated as a result of armed attacks on civilians. The endless recurrence of violence and displacement in the Great Lakes region was alarming. The suffering of the civilian population in southern Sudan was also deplorable.
GHASSAN NSEIR (Syria) said Israel had been occupying south Lebanon and the western Bekaa for 20 years despite Security Council resolution 425 (1978), which called on Israel to immediately withdraw from those territories. Israel continued to hold hundreds of Lebanese citizens without trial, using them as hostages or bargaining chips in negotiations. Torture, both physical and mental, was practiced. Israel also bombed unarmed civilians in villages to depopulate whole regions. Despite all those human rights violations, Israel was proud of its so-called "democracy", which was based on violations of international instruments and United Nations resolutions. Given such facts, the Commission must condemn Israeli activities.
LUIS ZUNIGA (Nicaragua) said the reports presented by the Special Rapporteur on Cuba continued to show a framework of consistent violations of human rights. Other Latin American countries had made progress in both democracy and human rights in recent years; only Cuba continued with one-party
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government and remained with no progress in human rights. In Cuba there were thousands of dead and thousands of others who had been imprisoned; 10 per cent of the population was in exile. There was lack of independence in administration of justice, lack of freedom to form unions, and precarious working conditions. Cuba's recent report to the Committee against Torture was a total negation of reality; he had with him three documents on Cuban prisons that totally disproved the Cuban report.
PETROS EFTYCHIOU (Cyprus) said Turkey continue to maintain its heavily armed occupation troops in Cyprus, thereby preventing the return, in safety, of one-third of the Republic's population to the homes from which they were forcibly expelled in 1974. Almost 200,000 people continued to be denied their most basic human rights and fundamental freedoms. At the same time, Turkey continued in a systematic manner its policy of colonization of the occupied area, through the implementation of Turkish settlers. According to Turkish sources the number of settlers was now almost 110,000, while the number of Turkish Cypriots remaining had dropped to 89,000 from the 120,000 before the Turkish invasion. Those methods and policies, which aimed at nothing less than to ethnically cleanse the occupied area of Cyprus, knew no bounds and recognized not limits.
DHARAR A.R. RAZZOOQI (Kuwait) said his country appreciated the work of Special Rapporteur on Iraq Max van der Stoel for its impartiality and objectivity. His latest report depicted a tragic picture of the human rights situation in Iraq, a situation that needed appropriate action. The Special Rapporteur had called upon Iraq to establish the whereabouts and resolve the fate of several hundred missing persons, including prisoners of war, Kuwaitis and third-State-national victims. Kuwait deplored Iraq's continued policy of procrastination: mandatory Security Council resolutions insisted that all Kuwaiti and other prisoners of war must be released or accounted for. Iraq had accepted all Security Council resolutions, and now it must put in practice what it had agreed to do on paper.
DIMITRIS KARAITIDIS (Greece) said that 23 years after the Commission's first resolution on Cyprus, the problem remained as acute as ever; the nearly 200,000 Greek Cypriots who were forcibly expelled from their homes by the Turkish invading forces were still prevented from returning; only about 600 Greek Cypriots still remained in the occupied area; over 100,000 Turkish settlers had been installed, changing the demographic balance of the island; and they had been given properties usurped from the expelled Greek Cypriots; the indigenous Turkish Cypriot population, forced to emigrate because of the conditions in the north, continuously decreased. Over 1,600 Greek Cypriots and Greeks remained missing as a result of the 1974 Turkish military operations; the island's cultural heritage was being systematically and deliberately destroyed in the occupied areas. The international community must not avoid the hard choices before it by merely calling on all sides
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concerned to find a solution; it should demonstrate its determination so that a just a viable solution could be found.
ABDULLAH AL-SHEIKH (Saudi Arabia) said his Government was ready for any constructive dialogue with regard to the human rights situation in the country. But some groups which criticized human rights conditions in his country based their views on subjective allegations and not on the reality of the Saudi society. The Government was always ready to discharge its international obligations and cooperate with all those who were seriously concerned with human rights. The Government, once again, had confirmed its willingness to provide credible information to those concerned. It was also engaged in strengthening its human rights mechanisms.
KAREN NAZARIAN (Armenia) said his country was concerned about the situation in Cyprus and the lack of progress; there should be full implementation of United Nations resolutions and recommendations to resolve the issue. Armenia joined the legitimate calls to restore the fundamental human rights of the Greek Cypriots, Maronites, Armenians and other inhabitants of the island, including the right to preserve their cultural heritage. That heritage was being systematically destroyed. Armenia also supported the people of Nagorno Karabakh, who had voted for its national sovereignty. The response of Azerbaijan had been the well-organized pogroms and massacres of Armenians in Azerbaijani cities in 1988-1991. To cover up that policy of atrocities and terror, Baku had issued a decree declaring 31 March as Azerbaijan's genocide commemoration day. Surprisingly, that was a reference to so-called Armenian nationalists who had committed genocide against Azerbaijanis. Armenia condemned that attempt to diminish the notion of genocide.
JEAN-DANIEL VOGMY (Switzerland) said the 1997 report on extrajudicial, summary, and arbitrary executions gave cause concern for situations, among other things, in Colombia, where security forces and paramilitary groups and private forces cooperated with the Government and many had been assassinated; and in India, Bolivia, and Brazil, for deaths attributable to excessive use of force by law enforcement officials. In Algeria, Egypt, Sri Lanka, and Turkey, one felt concern over numerous victims of terrorism, as well as over disproportionate repression in come cases. It was to be hoped that the Special Rapporteur could visit China, Turkey, and India in the coming year; overall, the report showed a decrease in such executions around the world, indicating that States were applying the Rapporteur's recommendations, but that certainly was not the case for the Governments of Cambodia, Papua New Guinea, Romania, and Yemen, who had not responded to any of the communications sent to them by the Rapporteur over the past three years. The Republic of the Congo, Nepal, and Pakistan, had not responded for the last two years. It was to be hoped that Sri Lanka and the United States, both visited by the Rapporteur last year, would take to heart and put into effect his recommendations.
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DENZIL ABEL (Myanmar) said the Government of Myanmar was committed to the principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In pursuit of the protection and promotion of human rights, Myanmar had so far acceded to two core human rights instruments. The Government had been compelled by circumstances to shoulder the responsibilities of State in 1988 in the midst of an anarchic situation created by demonstrations which had degenerated into mob rule and near disintegration of the country. The principal objective of the Government was to put in place a firm foundation where a peaceful, prosperous and modern State with a multi-party democratic system and a market economy could take root and in which every citizen, irrespective of race, religion or sex, could enjoy human rights to the fullest.
FACTOR MENDEZ, of the Commission for the Defence of Human Rights in Central America, said despite peace agreements in Central America, serious human rights violations continued. The latest peace agreement had been signed in Guatemala. There, although some progress in human rights had been achieved, economic, social and cultural rights continued to be seriously and massively violated. There were also shortcomings in the judicial system; many had no access to justice and there were no provisions for access to a free defence in the Constitution. Those shortcomings affected the indigenous population most: for example, there were ridiculously few translators who spoke indigenous languages. In Honduras, despite measures taken, human rights activists continued to be threatened. In Mexico, the human rights situation had deteriorated; the organization hoped those responsible massacre in Chiapas would be tried. The Commission was urged to appoint a special rapporteur to report on the serious human rights situation in Mexico.
MASOOMA ALI, of the Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Organization, said terrorism posed an immense threat today; at this point ideologies had given way to organized terrorism without any recognized political ideology; its mentors and practitioners worked without any respect for national borders; in the words of Hafiz Mohammed Khan, leader of the Pakistan-based Lashkar e Taiba, which proudly told inquiries how many Indians it had killed, "democracy is among the menaces inherited.... These are useless practices and part of the system we are fighting against". Debates on human rights had little relevance for societies whose citizens were the target of wanton killing by groups which had wilfully placed themselves beyond the law; how could civilization protect itself? All States, to begin with, should ratify the Convention for Suppression of International Terrorism. Certain States, such as Pakistan, should be called to account for the killing they encouraged; the developed world, meanwhile, abused the concept of liberty and gave refuge to those who supported and encouraged violence in their home countries; the countries of the west seemed to believe that action against terrorists was only justified when their own citizens were threatened.
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WILFRED WONG, of the International Association for the Defence of Religious Liberty, said since 1996, the Burmese military regime had launched campaigns in many parts of Burma to wipe out all rural villages not under the direct control of he army. In February 1997, its had begun a campaign to forcibly relocate or obliterate all villages in the hills of Papun and eastern Nyaunglebin Districts. The army was attempting to forcibly relocate those villages already close to their military bases and to obliterate all other villages without warning, hunting and killing on sight any people they saw there.
JOHNCY ITTY, of the Anglican Consultative Council, said the people of Myanmar were increasingly being victimized by an oppressive and overbearing military Government that continued to ignore the international community's pleas for reform. The Commission should note, among other things, the unacceptable tolerance for human rights abuses by agents of the Government; continued and unchecked gross human rights violations; significant restrictions of freedom of speech, opinion and movement, and continued oppression of ethnic and religious minority groups. Members of the Commission were urged to assume a more forceful and active role to forge a framework for peace and reconciliation within the country; the Government of Myanmar should be urged to comply with the Commission's resolutions.
MOHAMED NATEEB KHAN, of the World Muslim Congress, said the Government of India, despite several requests, had not extended an invitation to visit to the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions. The reason was self-evident: the Government wished to hide its guilt which would only be confirmed if the Special Rapporteur was to visit Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir. Brutal and violent methods had been used by Indian military and paramilitary forces to silence the people of the region. It was a well-established fact that killings were a deliberate policy of the Indian Government; custodial deaths and faked encounter killings also were widely practiced by Indian forces in Indian Punjab and in the seven northern-eastern states of India. The Commission should mandate the Special Rapporteur to visit Jammu and Kashmir and draw his own independent conclusions about the situation there.
FERNANDO MARINO, of the Fédération des Associations pour la Défense et la Promotion des Droits de l'Homme, said the human rights situation in Colombia had not improved. The Colombian Government, by regulating the paramilitary groups, had institutionalized impunity. While the international community was demanding the dismantlement of the armed paramilitary groups, the Government had made them legal instruments within its institutions. A Special Rapporteur should be named to further investigate the human rights situation in Colombia. In East Timor, too, the human rights situation had reached an alarming level. There, the right to self-determination of the people was being violated by Indonesia, and arbitrary arrests and killings continued.
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PIERRE MIOT, of the International Federation of Rural Adult Catholic Movements, said that in Colombia, unpunished violence forced rural populations to abandon their lands and move to the cities in conditions of great poverty and defencelessness. In Brazil, the situation of the indigenous peoples had not improved: there were conflicts over the land, sequestration and cases of murder of those who stood up against the abuse of indigenous rights. Similarly, in India, the Dalits were dealing with increasingly harsh repression. And the Egyptian Government was harshly repressing peasants who were threatened by property laws; those who had taken up the cause had been imprisoned and tortured. In Algeria, peasants were also being killed. Given the alarming situation of rural populations, Governments should recognize their fundamental rights to have rural associations to represent their interests.
AFRIM DJONBALIC, of the Transnational Radical Party, said the Commission should consider carefully the situation in Kosovo; the results of the political vacuum of recent years from the side of the international community were the latest incidents in Drenica, where paramilitary and police intervention from the Belgrade side, using artillery, tanks, and other military equipment, on the pretext of hunting terrorists, killed more than 80 civilians, mainly children and old women; how could all these victims be killed and thousands of others be forced to leave the region? Some humanitarian organizations could hardly reach Drenica to help the refugees. Under the pretext of fighting terrorism, the Belgrade regime continued to terrorize civilians; the international community had to react in a more adequate way to resolve the Kosovan issue; it had to take more decisive steps - investigate immediately the latest massacres in the Drenica region and put all officials involved under investigation for crimes against humanity. Also needing Commission attention were widespread abuses in Tunisia, especially against political opponents of the Government, and severe discriminatory economic and political treatment carried out by Chinese authorities in Tibet, Eastern Turkestan, and Inner Mongolia.
LAZARO MORA SECADA, of the Center for European Studies, said once again the Commission had to deal with the report of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Cuba. The report devoted ample space to censuring the characteristics of Cuba's democracy and electoral system. Who mandated him to question the Cuban political and electoral systems? Did the Rapporteur happen to know that the Charter of the United Nations and the resolutions of the General Assembly recognized the rights of all countries to adopt the form of government it found most suitable and to adopt the electoral system most convenient for its own interests?
ATTIYA INAYATULLAH, of the Family Planning Association of Pakistan, said that in January 1990, the people of Kashmir had demanded the right of self-determination and their freedom. What they got was Indian bullets. Kashmir was the bloodiest and most concentrated repression in contemporary
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history, but it was the least known; the shroud of silence must be lifted. It was imperative that international human rights non-governmental organizations and media representatives be allowed by the occupying force to visit Kashmir, where the brutalities and barbaric violence of the occupation forces continued. Among other things, the Commission was urged to send a fact-finding mission to visit Kashmir to report on the human rights situation.
VIJAY SAZAWAL, of the European Union of Public Relations, said the Kashmiri Pandits, a religious minority community in the northern State of Jammu and Kashmir in India, had been destroyed in 1989 by ethnic cleansing instituted by jehad warriors armed, trained, and inspired by Pakistan, under the new fervor of religious fundamentalism unknown to the northern region until then. Over a thousand Pandit intellectuals were targets of selective assassination; there also was general mayhem, including random killings, rapes, arson and harassment, that caused a virtually complete exodus of the Pandits into refugee camps outside Kashmir; in the camps their numbers had dwindled and their death rate far exceeded their birth rate. Their sufferings were almost never mentioned while the world media turned its attention to similar genocides in Rwanda, Bosnia, and elsewhere; and for those who had not left Kashmir, there were new dangers that warned that a new genocide might be under way. The Commission must save the Kashmiri Pandit culture and race from extinction, which would happen if the Commission did not take a strong stand on Kashmir; the world bodies must stop being silent spectators to these violations of human rights.
EMMA MAZA, of Service Peace and Justice in Latin America, said the current situation of Mexico reflected the absence of the rule of law. The massacre of 45 women and children in Chiapas on 22 December 1997 had taken place 200 metres from a police station. Disappearances, arbitrary arrests and summary killings had been common in most regions of Mexico; police broke into private homes during the night to arrest innocent people on suspicion of being drug-traffickers. The judicial police perpetrated such acts of arbitrary detention with complete impunity. Moreover, the subordination of the judiciary to the executive had undermined the independence of the judges. Meanwhile, the majority of the population had no access to justice. A Special Rapporteur should be appointed to study the human rights situation in Mexico.
GASTON CICERON, of the World Confederation of Labour, said there were continuing flagrant violations of human rights in Indonesia, Cote d'Ivoire, Guatemala and Colombia. In Indonesia, the members of the independent union Serikat Baruh Sejatera Indonesia had been systematically repressed and harassed since the creation of the group in 1992. The Commission should condemn the systematic violations of human rights of trade unionists by the Government of Indonesia. In Cote d'Ivoire, grass-roots organizations had been intimidated and repressed. Meanwhile, in Guatemala, trade union members were threatened with murder, kidnappings and other measures of intimidation. The Commission should intervene to end that situation of violence. In Colombia,
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hundreds had been victims of massacres political crimes and torture -- the organization estimated that 123 trade union members had died in 1997. Such violence took place with full impunity.
ABDUL MAJEED BANDEY, of International Educational Development, said the situation in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir met the requirements of General Assembly resolutions calling for international action in response to massive violations of human rights; the dispute was not a mere question of territory; it was about the very future of a people; yet India had contravened its international obligations and had blindly sought to perpetuate its occupation through the barrel of a gun; over 60,000 Kashmiris had been killed by Indian security forces; there were many extra-judicial killings, involuntary disappearances, arbitrary detentions, cases of torture, rapes of women; the Commission has continuously been asked to pay attention to grave violations of human rights there. The Commission must take serious note of these violations; urgent action could be initiated to secure protection of those rights; the situation could not be ignored any longer.
ADRIEN-CLAUDE ZOLLER, of the International Service for Human Rights, said his group had trained hundreds of human rights defenders to allow them to better use the conventional procedures in human rights defence. However, during the last two years, the group had recorded numerous victims of abuses among those it had trained. Three participants in a training session that took place in Colombia had been assassinated in 1997; a former trainee had been assassinated in Burundi in 1996; two former scholarship winners in Tunisia had been jailed, and a defender of human rights in Turkey had appeared before the courts in 1997. The aim of the group was not to train future victims but to promote and protect human rights.
SYED YOUSUF NASEEM, of the World Society of Victimology, said the report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions listed India as violating every category of his mandate. Particular concern had been expressed with regard to reports of numerous violations of the right to life by Indian armed forces and paramilitary personnel in Manipur and Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir. The Special Rapporteur also referred to cases of violations of the right to life of women, including minors, by Indian armed forces. Tragically for the victims, such crimes enjoyed official protection in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir. The grave threat to the basic right to life of the Kashmiris begged effective intervention on their behalf by the international community.
Right of Reply
GEORGE F. OBIOZOR (Nigeria) said, with regard to comments made by the Special Rapporteur on Nigeria this morning, that his Minister's address, also this morning, had referred to the resolution adopted by the Commission in 1997 to appoint a country specific rapporteur. It was after an intense search for
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a willing candidate that Soli Sorabjee was appointed to perform the "hatchet job" on Nigeria. It was now being established that the report the Special Rapporteur presented this morning was written for him by some human rights non-governmental organizations in London and Geneva. The whole report was flawed and failed to reflect the actual situation in Nigeria. It was the view of Nigeria that in the interest of the credibility of the Commission, the concocted report should be set aside; the Nigerian delegation should be engaged in a constructive dialogue to deal with any issues of concern.
MUSA HITAM (Malaysia) said the statement of the Inter-Parliamentary Union yesterday inferred that a decision of the appeals court to sentence Lim Guan Eng, an opposition member of Parliament was a violation of freedom of speech and that it was prompted by other than judicial considerations; but he had been tried on two counts -- publishing false information and sedition, he had been tried and sentenced in full accordance with Malaysian judicial process. And he had appealed his original sentence; three senior judges had handled the appeal; it thus could not be argued that the matter was not be handled with anything other than judicial considerations. He also had not yet exhausted all avenues for appeal; he had already filed four notices of appeal to the federal court.
JULIET GICHERU (Kenya) referring to the statement made yesterday by the United Kingdom on behalf of the European Union, said some cases of claims of ill-treatment of suspects by police had indeed come to light. Those had, however, been few and isolated. Nevertheless, police officers who had breached regulations had not only been arrested and tried, but had been convicted when found guilty according to the law. There was therefore, no pattern of systematic torture or ill-treatment of suspects by police as the Government did not condone that kind of practice.
AKRAM ALDURI (Iraq) responding to a statement by the Fondation Danielle Mitterrand-France Libertés, said that group was known for its hostility to Arabs and Muslims. The reason the group had chosen Iraq was that it was an Arab and Islamic country on which the organization wanted to release its venom. The organization could have asked for the raising of the unjust sanctions which had caused the death of 1 million children in Iraq. Instead, it wanted to defame Iraq and cause harm. That was part of a political campaign in the interest of certain countries. The objective was to make false allegations to ensure the suffering of Iraqi people continued. As for what Kuwait had said, Iraq would try to find all persons who had disappeared and it hoped that it would come up with results.
DHARAR RAZZOOQI (Kuwait) said Iraq had accepted and signed an agreement on returning prisoners of war; until now, however, and years had passed, there had been no progress about Kuwaiti missing persons. He doubted the credibility of such a statement by Iraq that it was earnestly working towards release of 600 prisoners of war. What Iraq had signed on paper, it had to
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accept and do. Kuwait did not want statements, it wanted results; it wanted to see its loved ones.
AKRAM ALDURI (Iraq) said his Government had accepted the principle of the work of the Red Cross in finding a solution to the issue of prisoners.
DHARAR RAZZOOQI (Kuwait) said he did not wish to prolong the debate, but what the Iraqi delegate had said was a non-issue. The missing persons touched the destiny and national policy of Kuwait and Kuwaitis. What Kuwait had said was clear: Iraq was a contracting party to international human rights conventions that it should implement by releasing the prisoners of war.
JAFAR HASSAN (Jordan) said the Arab Organization for Human Rights had spoken concerning a temporary publications law introduced by the Jordanian Government last year. Since then, the Supreme Court had considered it and had ordered its abrogation; the Government of course had complied with that ruling. It was unfortunate that the NGO which claimed to be so informed was not aware of this.
AMR HAFED (Egypt) said the statement by the Arab Organization for Human Rights to the effect that civilians had appeared before military courts needed explanation. Civilians involved in acts of defiance of State security and terrorism normally appeared before the military courts; that was to protect the public from any danger. Also, the International Movement for Rural Development had said that farmers were forcibly removed from their farms and tortured. The truth was that there was no torture in Egypt, and that farmers leasing land were affected by a new law, they had consequently been given other plots for their use.
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