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| Saturday, 3 August 2002 |
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by Chakravarthi Raghavan Geneva: There has been a cumulative damage to Palestinian homes and land under Israeli occupation, and the occupying power bears legal responsibility, the Special Rapporteur on housing has said in a report that appears to be bottled up and blocked from publication and presentation at the UN Human Rights Commission now in session here. A group of NGOs at the session have charged that the Western group of governments at the Commission over the last two weeks have prevented the publication of the independent human rights report by the Special Rapporteur, Mr. Miloon Kothari. The NGOs, in a press release, underscored that at its special session in 2000, the Commission had requested all thematic Rapporteurs to carry out missions to the occupied Palestine territories, and the report by the Special Rapporteur on housing was being suppressed because of its indictment of the Israeli practices of administrative punishment by destroying Palestinian homes and seizing them for settlements. Blocked publication Commission sources confirmed the charge, and said that the issue has been before the bureau of the Commission, and that within the bureau, Canada and Guatemala, acting for Israel and the United States, have been blocking publication, on the ground that the Special Rapporteur had been to Israel and the occupied territories and studied the conditions there without an official invitation from Israel. According to the NGOs and several of the Commission sources, in pursuance of the Commission mandate, in December 2000, Mr. Kothari had sought an invitation (and a visa for the visit) from the Israeli government, which refused to cooperate with the mission. While other Special Rapporteurs, who did not need a visa, visited the area as 'tourists', Kothari as an Indian citizen needed one. Subsequently, in January this year, the Special Rapporteur visited Israel and the occupied territories from 5-10 January, at the invitation of the Ben Gurion University and the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, and used the opportunity to meet with a group of NGOs including some Israeli NGOs, UN and inter-governmental agencies and Palestinian authorities to collect information. Prior to the visit, explained several human rights NGOs who have been raising this question in their own meetings, Kothari had informed the Israeli permanent representative in Geneva of his intention to use the opportunity of his visit to prepare a report as requested by the Commission. Suppressed report At a press briefing on April 4, 2002 the NGOs made public parts of the report that has been suppressed. The report itself, though not public, has been in the hands of Commission members, and several of them have referred to it in their intervention over the Palestinian issue and comments on Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson's report earlier. Several Commission members have confirmed the NGO view of what is in the report. The NGO complaint has also been aired in an NGO publication (Human Rights Features) distributed at the Commission meetings. Some members noted that the Western media, which so ardently chase such matters, have been as 'politically selective' and silent on the issue, as the NGOs charge the Western powers are at the HRC. The Special Rapporteur, in this as in other reports about adequacy of housing as a part of his mandate, has interpreted it to include water and several other congruent rights needed to enjoy adequate housing. 'The unprecedented suppression of an official UN document has magnified the image of the Commission's political selectivity and demonstrated how a few unchallenged powers can dictate their will over the agenda, even violating resolutions adopted by a vote,' the NGOs charged at the briefing held in the UN Correspondents library. Several of the Western media, active in reporting on human rights, were conspicuous by their absence. Third World Network Features |
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