How Durban II Undermined Human RightsAnne Bayefsky, 04.27.09, 04:55 PM EDT
The U.N. conference degrades the very causes it says it fights for.
Durban II, the U.N. conference in Geneva that ended on Friday, will forever be remembered for handing a global megaphone to genocidal hatemonger Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the name of combating racism. By the end of the week-long jamboree, even the South African ambassador insisted that participants stop referring to the meeting as Durban II because "it is maligning my country." But the facts aren't stopping the U.N. apparatus from already attempting to rewrite history. Navanethem Pillay, U.N. high commissioner for human rights and secretary-general of Durban II, called a news conference on Friday hours before the adoption of the final declaration to claim Durban II was "a celebration of tolerance and dignity for all." Well, not quite all.
Pillay was open about her intentions to the press corps: "I'm jumping the gun ... the Durban Review Conference is technically not over until later this afternoon. But I know you have deadlines." Rather than changing perceptions, however, her heavily-orchestrated plea confirmed that neither she nor the U.N. understood what had hit them.
The high commissioner bragged: "... a few states disengaged from the process ... they are not part of the consensus that adopted this text ... and Iran is part of that consensus. When the final call came, Iran did not oppose the text." She didn't seem to have a clue that a result approved by Iran--but not by the U.S., Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, New Zealand, Poland, the Czech Republic (currently head of the European Union) or Israel--reflected on the merits of Durban II rather than on these leading democracies.
Pillay is no stranger to double-talk. Since taking office last September, she has repeatedly claimed that the 2001 Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (the DDPA)--which singles out only Israel of 192 U.N. member states, saying that Palestinians are victims of Israeli racism--"transcended divisive and intolerant approaches." She has alleged that back in 2001 "abusive or hurtful remarks against Israel" were confined to "a small section of the NGO parallel forum." In a last-ditch effort to avoid a boycott of Durban II, she told reporters on April 2 that the language on Israel had been removed from the Durban II draft outcome document.
When it was over, however, she evidently felt the need for subterfuge was gone. Her audience had changed, and she noted both that Israel had been singled out and demonized by the DDPA, and that Durban II had done the same by reaffirming the DDPA in its opening paragraph. In her words: "The DDPA includes ... one paragraph which mentions the suffering of the Palestinians ... Palestine is mentioned ... in the DDPA, and the word "reaffirm" carries those paragraphs into this document."
By comparison, the U.N.'s highest human rights officer had no problem with the silence of Durban I and II on the plight of Israelis, or any other specific victim of discrimination or intolerance in the Arab, Islamic and developing world. She had no comment on the fact that the transatlantic slave trade was highlighted in Durban II, while the slave trade and slavery in Arab and Muslim states was deliberately omitted. She said nothing about the fact that ongoing genocide in Darfur was again totally ignored.
Durban II, therefore, revealed a startling development in the world of human rights. Since the position of U.N. high commissioner for human rights was created in 1993, there has never been an incumbent so obviously in the pocket of Arab and Islamic countries. These states invented the global conference formula years ago in an attempt to isolate Israel, curtail free expression, manufacture victimhood that would offset concern with anti-Semitism, and prevent any mention of the racial and religious intolerance and discrimination rampant in their own backyards.
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