I had the opportunity to go to a lecture by Hillel Neuer of U.N Watch. An organization which all of us certainly should know about if anyone already doesn’t. In fact I brought my Macbook and videotaped the whole thing as I was hoping to post all of, or segments at least of this speech as I was pretty sure it would be a good one. Hillel did not disappoint. Photobooth did. 
Memo to all interested, do not use photo booth as a video camera unless you are prepared for crushing disappointment. I got exactly four seconds of it. I did however take some notes. My pen typically works or if it doesn’t I know right away. UN watch is an NGO who occasionally get to speak to the UN on matters which pertain to its various bodies and committees, in this case, the UN Human Rights Council. The lecture was at Carleton University in Ottawa and was attended by about 10 people two of whom where there to protest the speech. Please see videos below of some of the excellent work UN Watch does. Firstly, a word about the United Nations. This is a body of 192 member states. The Human Rights Council has 53 voting members made up from some of the general assembly of the 192 member states. The HRC was created by Eleanor Roosevelt who wrote its charter and mission statement and was in fact, a very good idea. Or at least seemed like it at the time given that it was created shortly after the horrors of Nazi Germany became widely known. The purpose of the HRC was to observe and report on human rights abuses around the world by governments typically against their own citizens. The HRC does not have the power of the sword as the security council does, nor does it have the power of the purse as the general assembly and other UN bodies do, who can fund or stop funding for various groups based on policy. But the HRC has the power of shame. When the UN passes a resolution against human rights abuses, it makes news and brings focus and attention to issues that might otherwise go unnoticed. As a consequence, strange alliances are made at the UN-HRC. There is a body within the UN called the OIC or, ‘Organization of Islamic Councils’ or alternatively, ‘Organization of Islamic Countries’ who of course represent a couple of things. One, the interests of Islam and protection of Islamic goals agendas sensitivities and so on and perhaps more importantly, protect states which are totalitarian, have no basic rights for their own citizens or any similarities to free democracies as we in the west and the Anglosphere would know them. As a consequence, nations rather famous for being atheist and working against religion and religious ideologies tend to vote with the OIC such as Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, China or any other communist or socialist totalitarian state. It turns out, the anti religious sentiments of communist nations is a distant second to protecting their dictatorships and making sure that the notion of real individual human rights or individualism at all in fact, never manages to sneak into the human rights council of the United nations. In other words, the UNHRC works actively against any form of human rights whatsoever. Darfur springs lightly to mind. Roosevelt would be hemmoraging from the spleen if she was at a typical UNHRC meeting today. In theory, the Human Rights Commission was created to have the opportunity to speak truth to power. This goes back to the idea of shame as it’s only real tool as referred to above. But then we have the case of John Ziegler. From Reason.com:
As media coverage of Falk’s nomination has metastasized, it has unfortunately obscured news of UN-HRC’s nomination of the Swiss socialist Jean Ziegler to the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee. A brief recapitulation of Ziegler’s qualifications: In 1996, he defended Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy not only on free speech grounds—an admirable position, after all—but further celebrated his supposed scholarship. “All your work as a writer and philosopher,” Ziegler wrote, “attests to the rigor of your analysis and the unwavering honesty of your intentions. It makes you one of the leading thinkers of our time.” He lauded the Zimbabwean tyrant Robert Mugabe, a leader who “has history and morality with him.” He offered his “total support for the Cuban revolution.” He recently told a Lebanese newspaper the he “refuse[d] to describe Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. It is a national movement of resistance.” Then there’s Ziegler’s friendship with Libyan dictator Moammar Kaddafi. In 1989, according to a report in Neue Zurcher Zeitung (one that confirms research done by UN Watch), Ziegler helped establish the Kaddafi Prize for Human Rights. In 2002, Ziegler himself received the prize, which he shared with, among others, Roger Garaudy. Previous recipients include Fidel Castro, Louis Farrakhan, and Hugo Chavez.
So we have a fellow, influential in the UNHRC, who created a human rights prize, named after a well known brutal dictator, who then accepted his own prize shortly after. Not a very illustrious record for a prize I would say. Even the most amateur performer knows not to clap for himself.
Then we have the GONGO’s. “What’s a gongo” you may ask? “I don’t even fully understand what an NGO is yet”. Welcome to the club. A GONGO is a governmental organization designed to appear to be a non governmental one. A GONGO is a shill, dressed up like an NGO but representing actual fascist dictators. They are apparently, all the rage at the UNHRC. Everyone has one from Cuba to China and of course, the Sudan. The idea is, they celebrate all the worst actions of each nation who hires them. “Genocide? I don’t see no genocide everyone in Darfur is happy and fulfilled”. They manage to add noise to proceedings so that any attempt to actually bring notice shame or attention to the outrages perpetrated by the worst human rights abusers on earth are drowned out in celebration. The one thing the GONGO’s, the John Ziegler people and the dictators all agree on? The US is evil for one, and Israel is the only place they can all safely pass condemnatory resolutions on.
Another word on Ziegler, he was appointed the UN HRC expert on hunger. Oh, before I forget, he was also a good friend and admirer of Robert Mugabe. Who is Mugabe? well of course he is the president for life of Zimbabwe formerly Rhodesia and the cause of most of the worlds hunger. Rhodesia was in fact the bread basket of Africa. A major net exporter of food. Mugabe drove out all the farmers so he could give the land and material wealth to his friends. The excuse was, the farmers where white and hence colonists although most of them if not all had been multi generational for decades to centuries. His friends of course mostly grew a crop of marijuana if they grew anything at all, sold off the equipment and buggered off to Europe.
I suppose this would make Ziegler an expert on hunger. One would hope though that his expertise was based on alieviating it rather than causing it as Mugabe indisputably did.
As the time of NGO’s to speak to the UNHRC is limited, the job of the GONGO’s is to use it up so that real NGO’s really can’t get much of a word in. They are effective at this we are told by UN Watch.
The last point is the activities of the chair of the UNHRC. The chair of course is acutely aware of who will cause embarrassment to the totalitarian states. And the chair picks who can and cannot speak, and can stop any speaker on points of order which, as you can easily see from the videos, is to make sure no embarrassment falls on exactly who the UN and the UNHRC was intended by design, to if not stop, at least embarras.
Eeyore for Vladtepesblog.com
Some UNHRC videos from UN watch below the more fold:
