Friday, March 16, 2007

Darfur Mission is Credible and Its Report Must Be Respected

Geneva, — UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer delivered the following statement today before the plenary of the UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva:

Mr. President,

The Darfur Mission asks the Council to recognize what every ordinary citizen already knows: that Sudan bears responsibility for large-scale international crimes.

The world now looks to this assembly. The credibility of this Council is at stake.

The arguments of Sudan are like those of the child who murders his parents and then asks for mercy on the grounds of being an orphan. Sudan refused the Mission entry to Darfur, connived to have their representative on the team resign, and now invokes these as grounds to disqualify the report. Both arguments are hollow and, as stated by Ghana, contrary to prior precedent.

We are also deeply disappointed by comments made by the Arab League, the OIC, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, China, Cuba and many others, challenging the legitimacy of the mission and treating its work as a “non-report.” The country that invoked the Most Compassionate and Merciful showed neither compassion nor mercy for the victims of Darfur. A great power acted not with greatness, but out of Olympic-sized commercial interests.

UN Watch urges these parties to recognize that the Mission and its report are eminently credible, and not to ignore the following basic facts: Read more >>>

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