UNITED NATIONS Pvt. Ltd.
At the time this edition of the newspaper hits the
newsstands, the resolution on Sri Lanka would have been
introduced, on the floor of the UNHRC in Geneva.
But, what flows from that development, despite everything,
will now be countered by the fact that the like-minded nations –
Russia and China the giants included, have concluded that the
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has exceeded
its mandate on the report on Sri Lanka.
This is the grandest indictment yet on a UN system that’s
broken down, polarized and serving the interests of a few member
states, as opposed to the larger UN community of nations.
But, what’s more important is that this news confirms the
inconvenient truth about the new means of keeping member
countries on a leash controlled by the big powers.
The modus operandi is devious and transparently self-serving.
UN bodies such as the UNHRC which have to be run by member
consensus, have instead parceled out functions to the offices of
appointed commissioners.
These people run their organizations through the agency of
NGOs which are permitted to make their submissions on vital
issues that deal with member nations. The NGOs are funded
handsomely by these same countries that hold sway over the
respective UN commissioners.
This is a fraud perpetrated on UN member states, and it is in
very simple terms an instrument for neo-colonialism.
This ugly face of the UN system however has never been more
apparent that this year, after the release of UN High
Commissioner Navi Pillay’s ‘report.’
In letter and in spirit, this document has exceeded the
mandate granted to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
She started this charade by making public ‘advisory reports’
that were commissioned entirely for the OHCHR (Office of the
High Commissioner for Human Rights) such as the Darusman report
and the Petrie report.
This time she incorporated everything that was in the
Darusman report into her own report and tried to palm that off
as an acceptable and legitimate UN document.
Well, it isn’t - and this is the considered opinion not just
of Sri Lanka but UN member nations such as Russia and China.
‘There is hole in your bucket - dear Pillay dear Pillay, there
is hole in your bucket - there is a hole!’ . The UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights might as well brush her teeth and
do her morning ablutions to this refrain, because there is a
gaping hole now deeper than the Grand Canyon due to her extra
legal machinations to prostitute the UN system to serve the ends
of her own masters, the dominant powers that seek to subvert the
consensus nature of the UN system through the agency of the
offices of the High Commissioners.
This is what the Commonwealth seeks to do as well, and to
this end Sri Lanka’s wise refusal to try and block the creation
of a Human Rights High Commissioner’s office in the Commonwealth
is astute. But the Commonwealth is toothless and decorative,
compared to the substantially empowered United Nations.
The United Nations must now demand for the rightful return of
powers to member nations, from the ‘High Commissioner’s offices’
to which they have been outsourced.
And, absolutely, there should be nothing short of a demand
for dismantling of the UN High Commissioner’s Office on Human
Rights.
Sri Lanka should spearhead that demand, with the support of
like-minded countries.
Any advisory work that is required for the proper functioning
of the UN Human Rights Council should be managed by a consensus
body that is comprised of representatives of member nations, and
the obviously dangerous practice of making NGOs akin to UN
member nations by granting these powers to make disruptive
inputs against member states should be outlawed within the UN
structure.
That will be a start in ensuring that the UN Human Rights
Council is something more than a very big bad joke.
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