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	Officials at U.N. seek fast action on Human Rights Panel by Warren Hoge New York Times   January 1, 2006   Officials of the United Nations, have decided they must act within weeks to produce an alternative to the Human Rights Commission in 2006.   The commission, which is based in Geneva, has been a embarrassment to the United Nations because participation has been open to countries like Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe, current members who are themselves accused of gross rights abuses. Libya held the panel"s chairmanship in 2003.   "The reason highly abusive governments flock to the commission is to prevent condemnation of themselves and their kind, and most of the time they succeed," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "If you"re a thug, you want to be on the committee that tries to condemn thugs."   Mark Malloch Brown, chief of staff to Secretary General Kofi Annan, noted that with two other crucial steps toward reform in place - a new Peacebuilding Commission to help countries emerging from war, and a biennial budget under an arrangement laying the groundwork for major management change by June - the rights commission had taken center stage.   "For the great global public, the performance or nonperformance of the Human Rights Commission has become the litmus test of U.N. renewal," he said. "We can"t overestimate getting a clear win on this in January."   Mr. Annan begins his last year in office with a mandate to bring fundamental and lasting change to the institution. Negotiators have been struggling for months over the terms of a new Human Rights Council that he proposed in the spring to replace the commission. A hoped-for agreement in December did not materialize.   Negotiators resume talks on Jan. 11 and must settle on a resolution for the new council soon after to have it in place by March, when the commission reconvenes in Geneva. "The commission should hold that meeting with the understanding that it is going to be its last meeting," said Ricardo Arias, the ambassador of Panama, who is one of the leaders of the working group drawing up the new Human Rights Council.   The current commission has 53 members serving staggered three-year terms and elected from closed slates put forward by regional groups. It meets each year in Geneva for six weeks.   The proposed council would exist year-round, be free to act when rights violations are discovered, conduct periodic reviews of every country"s human rights performance and meet more frequently throughout the year.   Still in dispute are the council"s size, the procedures for citing individual countries, how often the panel would meet, a possible two-term limit for membership and whether members would be chosen based on agreed criteria of human rights performance or by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly as a way of weeding out notorious rights violators.   The proposal envisions votes on each candidate for membership rather than on regional slates. As with most of the changes being proposed at the United Nations, the rights council has drawn suspicion from the poorer and less developed nations of the 191-member General Assembly. They say they fear the new council may be yet another way for wealthier and more powerful nations to intrude in their affairs.   Abdallah Baali, the ambassador of Algeria, said the main concern of objecting nations was "whether or not this council will impose both its measures and its views on a member state or will it seek their cooperation in order to improve their human rights records. " He said Algeria supported the proposed council. Diplomats at the United Nations singled out Egypt and Pakistan as countries that were leading the resistance to the proposed council.   In introducing his recommendation for a new council in March, Mr. Annan cited the flaws in the current commission and the consequences for the United Nations of not reforming it. The commission had been undermined, he argued, by allowing participation of countries whose purpose was "not to strengthen human rights but to protect themselves against criticism or to criticize others."   "As a result," he said, "a credibility deficit has developed, which casts a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system as a whole."   Mr. Roth of Human Rights Watch was blunter. "If the governments of the world cannot get together on human rights at the U.N., then it is a shameful act for the entire organization," he said.   Peggy Hicks, the global advocacy director of Human Rights Watch, said that having rights abusers on the panel had a broadly debilitating effect on its work. "In the case of Sudan, the Sudanese government"s presence on the commission meant that African states and others watered down language that human rights groups around the world thought appropriate to address crimes against humanity," she said.   She said Zimbabwe"s presence on the commission was an important factor in the panel"s decision to take no action this year against the government of Robert Mugabe despite widespread accusations of abuse against Zimbabwe"s own citizens.   "In general," Ms. Hicks said, "what the presence of abusive countries on the commission means is that much of its energy is taken up with the blocking actions and delaying tactics that end up weakening action on human rights abuses worldwide. Yes, they delay action on their own internal situations, but they have a vested interest in seeing that the overall ability is as weak as possible."   Kristen Silverberg, assistant secretary of state for international organizations, said the United States" priorities were "to improve the membership so that countries like Zimbabwe and Sudan were not eligible" and "to make sure the council can act."   "We don"t need more theatrics and discussion in Geneva," she said. "We need concerted action."   "Some countries have argued that it"s better for the council to stay away from anything that would embarrass a country, but we think the council needs to be prepared to take action in serious cases like Darfur and Burma," she said in an interview, referring to the country that now calls itself Myanmar.   Mr. Arias said that "a lot of emphasis has been placed on the matter of cooperation to improve human rights, not just passing resolutions against a country which is in violation but on making an effort to increase the capacity to improve human rights in the long term."   Mr. Roth said the United States and the European Union were strong supporters of the proposed council but needed to become more aggressive in building the case for it with reluctant countries.   Ms. Silverberg said that she and the State Department"s adviser on United Nations reform, Ambassador Sharin Tahir-Kheli, had pressed the case for the human rights council and management reform on trips to capitals in Latin America and South Asia and that she was going to the Middle East for the same purpose next month. She noted that Ms. Tahir-Kheli had visited Cairo and Islamabad, among other capitals.   Prince Zeid Raad al-Hussein, the ambassador of Jordan, said that while his country supported the proposed council, it was concerned that condemning the current commission outright would be to ignore that it had sometimes proved effective.   "What we are concerned about is about 20 percent of its work, while the rest seems to be working quite well," said the prince, a former United Nations peacekeeper in Bosnia. "Look at all the rapporteurs in the field putting together their reports, often with good cooperation with governments. This must be encouraged and continued."   This year the commission established a special rapporteur, or investigator, on human rights and counterterrorism that drew the support of 80 United Nations members, including Russia and the United States. It also passed a resolution establishing a human rights monitoring operation in Nepal where both the government and Maoist insurgents have been accused of abuses.   In November, Mr. Arias and the other leader of the working group, Dumisani Kumalo, the South African ambassador, accompanied Jan Eliasson, the Swedish diplomat who is the General Assembly president, to Geneva on a mission to calm concerns there over plans for the council.   "There was a good deal of suspicion, and it"s important that you don"t develop an antagonistic relationship between Geneva and New York," Mr. Eliasson said in a telephone interview from Stockholm."It was important to pick up the best practices and good things the Human Rights Commission has been doing," he said, "and many people in Geneva felt that aspect was being disregarded."
	Mideast still key to a more Peaceful World by Gwynne Dyer Toronto Star Canada   Dec 2005   First, the good news. In October, a comprehensive, three-year study led by Andrew Mack, former director of the Strategic Planning Unit in the office of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, concluded there have been major declines in armed conflicts, genocides, human rights abuses, military coups and international crises worldwide.   The survey, commissioned by Canada, Britain, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland and conducted by the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the University of British Columbia, revealed a drop of more than 40 per cent in the number of armed conflicts since 1992 — and for the biggest conflicts, involving more than 1,000 battle-deaths per year, the drop was 80 per cent.   The international media, by their very nature, will always offer us an image of global chaos. But, in fact, the Americas, Europe and Asia were almost entirely at peace during 2005 with Colombia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Nepal and the southern Philippines being the major exceptions.   The Middle East was also at peace, except for the American war in Iraq. Even sub-Saharan Africa, home to over half the world"s remaining wars, saw some major improvements during the year.   The peace agreement in Sudan in February ended the continent"s longest and worst civil war, and the death of southern leader John Garang in a helicopter crash only weeks afterwards did not upset the deal. By the end of the year, millions of southern refugees were making their way home, and even the separate and more recent conflict in Darfur in western Sudan, which has killed some 200,000 people and made up to 2 million homeless, was abating in intensity.   Africa   Africa is still the poorest continent, and the most turbulent one. Ethiopia"s first free election ended in violence in May, the threat of another border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea grew throughout the year, and the attempt to recreate some sort of central government in Somalia after 14 years of anarchy was falling apart at year"s end. Ivory Coast, cut in half in 2002 after a failed coup led to a civil war, made only halting progress towards reconciliation, and sporadic outbreaks of violence continued to interrupt the peace-building process in eastern Congo.   But southern Africa was entirely at peace. Almost every southern African country was not only democratic but also making significant economic progress, Zimbabwe under aging dictator Robert Mugabe being the horrible exception.   Middle East   The only other region of the world that rivalled Africa in political turbulence was the Middle East. But almost all the killing was confined to the cauldron of Iraq; elsewhere, the upheavals were mainly political.   The biggest changes by far were in Israel and Palestine, where a series of radical shifts altered the whole political landscape.   The death of Yasser Arafat in late 2004 brought Mahmoud Abbas, a much cannier and more presentable leader, to the presidency of the Palestinian Authority last January. But a new Palestinian parliamentary election was repeatedly postponed (it is now scheduled for Jan. 9) because of fears that Hamas, which rejects territorial compromise with Israel in return for peace, would win a majority in the new parliament.   This did not much matter so long as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon"s government was determined to impose a unilateral peace on the Palestinians, but now the balance of forces has become much more fluid and unpredictable. Right down to August, when Sharon forced the evacuation of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip against strong opposition from within his own Likud party, his strategy seemed to be working.   The Gaza withdrawal guaranteed that he would face no serious pressure from the United States for further concessions for at least a year or two, and, meanwhile, the "security fence" that would define the new de facto border between Israel and the occupied territories continued to snake its way across the West Bank.   But then his own Likud party hard-liners mounted a serious assault on his leadership, pushing his long-standing rival Benjamin Netanyahu as his replacement, and his Labour party ally, Shimon Peres, was overthrown as leader of his own party by Amir Peretz.   Peres quit Labour and, faced, with the prospect of being pushed out by Netanyahu, Sharon also quit Likud. Together he and Peres founded the new Kadima ("Forward") party.   Israel will now go to the polls shortly after the Palestinians and the possibility exists that it could elect a Labour government led by Peretz that is ready to open genuine peace talks with Abbas. But the possibility also exists that Hamas and other Islamist radicals will launch another suicide bombing campaign in Israel designed to drive Israelis into the arms of Likud and/or Kadima, and thus avert the threat of a durable compromise peace.   The other potentially epochal event in the region was the opening of talks for Turkey"s membership in the European Union on Oct. 3. It may be a decade or more before these talks conclude, but if they are successful, they will begin to heal a wound that has divided the old classical world around the Mediterranean ever since half of it fell under Muslim rule a millennium ago.   Developments elsewhere in the region were less dramatic.   In Iran"s presidential election in June, more than half the population refused to vote for the heavily vetted list of candidates presented to it by the conservative religious authorities, and a simplistic nationalist and religious radical, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, managed to win the presidency.   The assassination of Lebanon"s former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri in February (probably by Syrian intelligence operatives) triggered a non-violent democratic movement in Lebanon and forced a Syrian military withdrawal from the country. And then there was Iraq.   The "turning points" in Iraq came thick and fast, from elections in January to a new government in May (after four months of negotiations), a new constitution in August, a referendum on the constitution in October, and new elections in December, but no corners were actually turned.   At the end of the year, the resistance was as strong or stronger than it had been at the start, American military dead had passed the 2,000 mark, the U.S.-backed Iraqi army and police were still largely unable or unwilling to fight on their own, and the possibility that the Iraqi state might actually break up had ceased to be mere fantasy. But the impact of the Iraq conflict on the rest of the region has so far been surprisingly limited: heightened anti-American sentiment, some terrorist bombs in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and an upsurge in recruiting for Islamist extremist organizations.   The impact in the U.S. has been considerably greater.   "We will never give in, and we will never accept anything less than complete victory," said President George W. Bush in a speech last month, and he will doubtless continue to tough it out, because admitting that invading Iraq was a ghastly mistake would have huge political consequences for him and his party.   However, American public opinion, long insulated from the reality of failure in Iraq by uncritical media coverage of the war, began to lose faith in the administration when confronted with its arrogant and incompetent response to the disaster of Hurricane Katrina in September. By December, Bush"s rating in opinion polls had reached an all-time low.   With three years of his second mandate still to run, the president does not yet face overwhelming political or popular pressure to change course on Iraq — but he is at risk of becoming a premature "lame duck," seen as an electoral handicap by his own party and therefore unable to command obedience in Congress.   Latin America   The most remarkable result of the Bush administration"s obsession with remaking the Middle East has been Washington"s astonishing failure to pay attention to Latin America. The Free Trade Area of the Americas, once a pet Republican project, has withered as more and more Latin American countries elect left-wing parties that are profoundly hostile to it. But, apart from half-hearted support for a coup that tried to overthrow Venezuela"s President Hugo Chavez two years ago, Washington has not once acted to block or remove these governments.   Well over half the population of Latin America is already ruled by leftist governments whose relations with official Washington are very cool — up from only 10 per cent when Bush first took office — and the proportion might reach two-thirds during this coming year if the Mexican election also swings that country to the left.   Europe   Europe had a relatively uneventful year, apart from the rejection of the new EU constitution in the spring referendums. There were bombs on London underground trains and buses in July, but apart from that Europe remained almost as free from the alleged terrorist threat as the United States itself.   The poorest parts of Paris, and subsequently of other French cities, erupted in riots in November that were widely misrepresented as an uprising by the country"s disadvantaged Muslim minority, but were actually an incoherent, apolitical revolt by all the country"s neglected and discarded minorities, including the bottom end of the old white working class.   British Prime Minister Tony Blair scrambled back into office in a spring election with a majority cut in half because of popular discontent with Britain"s involvement in the Iraq war, but the Irish Republican Army"s decision to destroy its entire arsenal in September, putting a definitive end to the armed campaign in Northern Ireland that it suspended 11 years ago, was a success for Blair"s patient diplomacy.   The premier media event of the year was undoubtedly the death of Pope John Paul II in March and the selection of Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI in April, but it is unlikely that there will be any substantial changes of Catholic doctrine or policy as a result.   And the great new global anxiety, driven by growing numbers of cases of bird-to-human transmission of avian influenza viruses in south-east Asia, was the possibility of an influenza pandemic as lethal as the one that killed 50 million-100 million people in 1918-19. It may not strike in 2006 or even 2007, but most experts are convinced that something very nasty is on the way.   Asia   Bhutan became a world leader by becoming the first nation to ban smoking everywhere outside private homes, the ruling Burmese generals abruptly moved the country"s capital from Rangoon to a sleepy up-country town called Pyinmana, and China revalued the yuan — by a very small amount.   But the most shocking event was the devastating earthquake that struck northern Pakistan. The shock was not that it killed more people than last December"s Indian Ocean tsunami (though it did), but that the international aid was so much less and so much slower to arrive. Now many of the roads are blocked by snow, and unknown numbers of quake survivors are dying of exposure and malnutrition every day in cut-off mountain villages where few buildings remain standing.   Afghanistan held an election of sorts in September, but it mainly served to confirm the power of the regional warlords who took over from the Taliban in most places after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.   Sri Lanka"s long civil war seemed likely to reignite after an election in that same month in which Mahinda Rajapakse, a candidate who vows never to recognize the Tamil minority"s demand for an autonomous region, won the presidency by the narrowest of margins.   On the positive side, the long-running crisis over North Korea"s alleged nuclear weapons came to an apparently satisfactory conclusion in November, when Kim Jong-Il"s regime finally got what it had been after all along: a U.S. commitment not to invade the Stalinist dictatorship, and some foreign aid. But it had always been a fairly implausible crisis anyway, as North Korea had no conceivable use for nuclear weapons except to deter an American attack, which had never been part of the Bush administration"s plans despite all the heated rhetoric.   April saw anti-Japanese riots all over China, in state-encouraged protests against new Japanese textbooks that minimize the crimes committed by Japan when it invaded China in 1937-45.   Junichiro Koizumi"s centre-right government in Tokyo, undaunted by this demonstration of Chinese displeasure, went right ahead with strengthening its military alliance with the United States.   None of this did Koizumi any harm with the voters, and he won a national election in September by a landslide.   The one truly worrisome development of the year, not just for Asia but for the whole world, was the 10-year military agreement between the U.S. and India that was signed in Washington in July.   While not a formal military alliance that commits the two countries to fight together against any foe, it has all the hallmarks of an alliance intended to "contain" China.   Indeed, it looks like the capstone in a series of such alliances and agreements between the U.S. and Asian countries that now virtually encircle China to the east, south and west.   That is certainly how it will be viewed in Beijing, and the concern is that the Chinese will respond to this perception of being surrounded and threatened by racing to build up their own military forces, thereby confirming their neighbours" anxieties and setting up a positive feedback loop. This is, in fact, the way most arms races get started, and the last thing Asia and the world need in the early 21st century is a Cold War between China on one side, and the U.S., India and Japan on the other. But don"t despair. This is just a possibility so far, not a reality.   (Gwynne Dyer is a Canadian journalist based in London whose articles are published in 45 countries).
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