Children in Syria innocent victims (Courtesy photo – edu.only)

By  John J. Metzler  - UNITED NATIONS — Decrying a rising death toll and an escalation of violence, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly called yet again for progress towards a political transition to defuse Syria’s civil war, now in its third year. Though the resolution strongly condemns the Syrian government of Bashar Assad for its increased use of heavy weapons, it equally condemns “widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms,” on all sides.

The Assembly vote, not surprisingly, saw 107 in favor of the resolution which saw support from most of the Arab world, the United States and Europe and much of Asia.

Twelve countries opposed the resolution including Russia and Mainland China, the Assad regime’s staunchest backers as well as the Islamic Republic of Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela. There were 59 abstentions including nearby Lebanon, and states such as Brazil, India, South Africa (the BRICS) and Singapore. The resolution is non-binding.

As Syria’s violence spirals, the country is splitting along sectarian fault lines; the Sunni Muslim majority is supported by Turkey as well as most Arab states, the Assad family dictatorship’s Alawite minority is supported by Iran, Iraq and elements in Lebanon’s ethnic patchwork. Syria’s embattled Christian minority looks to Lebanon as an escape route. Indeed the sectarian bloodbath has taken in excess of 80,000 lives. Ethnic enclaves and fiefdoms are forming and being reinforced by militias.

General Assembly President Vuk Jeremic, himself a Serbian, warned, “Violence is begetting more violence; hatred, more hatred, carving deeper and deeper wounds into Syria’s society.” He added, “If we are unable to do anything to stop this tragedy, then how can we sustain the moral credibility of this Organization…it is high-time to say ‘enough is enough.’ ”

Jeremic warned, “Succumbing to the despondency of the status quo is a prescription for a disastrous future” of multiplying crisis in Syria and the wider Middle East region.”

Let’s look at the human cost to Syria so far; 80,000 mostly civilians killed, more than a million refugees living in camps in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq. Over four million people have been internally displaced inside the country; in other words forces from their homes but still living inside Syria.

Days earlier Navi Pillay, UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights advised, “We should not reach the point where people become numb to the atrocious killing of civilians…the increasingly brutal nature of the conflict makes international efforts to halt the bloodshed imperative.” She decried human rights violations from both sides in the conflict.

The humanitarian aid and human rights mechanisms such as the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) perform a notable humanitarian service to the displaced, but let’s face it, the UN only solves the symptom, not the problem. The problem is political. Sadly Syria’s fractious opposition confronting the Assad dictatorship are fragmented, factionalized and shadowed by fundamentalist factions tied to Al Qaida.

Desultory diplomatic efforts towards dialogue have fallen on Syria’s hard scrabble and rocky earth; both sides have entrenched their position while outside powers become entwined in this bouillabaisse of factions. The Russians and Iran back Assad. The Arabs, especially Qatar and Saudi Arabia support the rebels largely on sectarian grounds. Neighboring Turkey, which hosts 400,000 refugees and fears spillover of the war, needs a solution sooner rather than later.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov have agreed to support renewed peace talks between notable factions of the government and the rebel opposition. Washington and Moscow are wise to defuse this political bomb in Damascus before the crisis widens and threatens to bring Syria to the brink of failed state.

Trying to create a stable and pluralist Syria (remember this was a secular Arab regime), sadly borders on the realm of political fantasy. The primary issue is stopping the violence before it spreads into Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey or before Syria implodes into a frenzy of wider killing, refugees, and the morbid fascination of Al Qaida violence.

Syria borders six countries: Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Iran. Barring a credible ceasefire, the conflict will spill-over and create additional regional instability.

This is not a call for the USA to intervene militarily in another Mideast conflict, but an attempt to help midwife a long-overdue serious political transition through creative diplomacy to pull Syria back from the brink.

John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He writes weekly for WorldTribune.com.

UN Building in New York – (Photo by Hajat Avdovic – Webpublicapress)

By Thalif Deen – UNITED NATIONS, (IPS) - When Egypt’s onetime Foreign Minister Boutros Boutros-Ghali was running for the post of U.N. secretary-general in late 1991, he had to contend with the candidature of Bernard Chidzero, then foreign minister of Zimbabwe.

As the campaign began to intensify, Boutros-Ghali recounted a brief encounter with Chidzero, a longstanding friend, at a conference in Africa, a continent which at that time claimed the job of U.N. chief on the basis of geographical rotation.

Chidzero, who hailed from an English-speaking country and was backed by the UK and the 54-member Commonwealth of mostly ex-British colonies, was in conversation with Boutros-Ghali when he suddenly switched from English to French.

Having picked up the subtle message, Boutros-Ghali said he put his arms around Chidzero and jokingly remarked, “Bernard, if you want the approval of France, you must not only speak French, but also speak English with a French accent.”

France, a veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council, has been so passionately protective of its language that it may well have exercised its veto on any candidate who did not speak French.

And no one who aspires to be the secretary-general of the United Nations can expect to be elected to office if he or she does not have a working knowledge of French – or at least promises to master the language – because France considers it the “language of international diplomacy”.

Over the last 66 years, the two working languages of the United Nations have been primarily English and French, although there are four other official languages recognised by the world body: Chinese, Arabic, Spanish and Russian.

Boutros-Ghali, who was fluent in English, Arabic and French, held “the world’s most impossible job” from January 1992 through December 1996.

Last week the 132-member Group of 77 developing countries complained “that the disparity among the use of the (six) official languages on the U.N. website has continued to deepen.”

Ambassador Peter Thomson of Fiji, the current G77 chair, told the Committee on Information that despite the efforts of the Department of Public Information (DPI) to improve the multilingual contents of the U.N. website, the shortcomings continue.

“The Group reiterates its request that content-providing offices in the U.N. Secretariat translate all English language materials and databases into all official languages and make them available on the respective language websites,” he implored.

Last month the DPI took the initiative to pilot the translation of press releases into Spanish during the meeting of the Commission on Population and Development.

Currently, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations is the only U.N. website in all six languages.

Asked for a response, U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq told IPS that as for press releases, the two regular units are the ones that put out press releases in English and in French, the two official working languages of the United Nations.

“However, we have radio services in many more languages, including the six official languages, and we translate the secretary-general’s messages into a large number of languages, including those six, once they are disseminated,” he said.

Haq said simultaneous interpretation is therefore not the only instance where the U.N. uses all six languages.

Another example is U.N. documents, including resolutions, the secretary-general’s reports, exchanges of letters and so forth, which are translated into all six languages, he added.

Asked about the language skills of the current secretary-general, Haq said Ban Ki-moon speaks three of the six languages (English, French and Chinese), along with Korean.

“When he travels, he also tries to use his grasp of other languages,” Haq said. “That also answers your other question, since Boutros Boutros-Ghali was not the only secretary-general fluent in three languages: Javier Perez de Cuellar (of Peru) was fluent in English, French and Spanish.”

Asked for her response, Ambassador Lyutha Sultan Al-Mughairy of Oman, chair of the Committee on Information, told IPS her committee, for the first time, underlined the responsibility of the Secretariat in mainstreaming multilingualism in all its communication and information activities, “within existing resources on an equitable basis”.

“It is thus a reference that is not limited to DPI. That said, the new under secretary-General for DPI, Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal, has offered innovative ideas in this regard,” she added.

A pilot project was launched in issuing press releases in Spanish for meetings of a major commission last month.

And the website of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali is in all six languages, she pointed out.

With the support of U.N. Volunteers, the introductions to chapters of the most recent Yearbook of the United Nations have been translated into all official languages.

“So I believe there is much that is creatively possible and I believe we have a leadership in DPI which wishes to do its best,” said Ambassador Al-Mughairy.

UN Security Council meeting (Photo by Hajat Avdovic – Webpublicapress)

By Thalif Deen – UNITED NATIONS,  (IPS) - Israel, which has launched three air strikes inside Syria since January this year, has escaped scrutiny or condemnation by a Security Council which remains sharply divided.

The continued air attacks have escalated tensions in the region and threatened a wider regional conflagration, according to reports from the Middle East.

He said the consequence has been – as it so often is in the Arab-Israel conflict – that the institutions charged with preserving international peace and security, first and foremost the U.N. Security Council, are once again caught with their pants down.

“And they have been prevented by Washington from formulating an effective response,” he added.

Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press, whose coverage of the United Nations includes a daily blow-by-blow account of Security Council activities, told IPS, “I’m not surprised they haven’t agreed on any statement.”

He said this happened after a car bombing by the opposition in Damascus, and when Russia proposed to condemn it, the U.S. (and other Western powers) wanted to add to the statement a condemnation of the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

“That would surely happen on any statement about Israel’s air attacks,” he said.

But no one has even requested a meeting of the type the Arab Group requested, and got, during Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense aka Pillar of Cloud.

“I’d say that’s because the Arab Group, with the exception of Algeria and Iraq and the ‘dis-association’ of Lebanon, is seeking the transfer of power away from Assad,” Lee said.

The Arab Group, currently dominated by Gulf majority Sunni – or Sunni-ruled, like Bahrain – countries, had to write to the Security Council to have done at least as much as the 120-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) chaired by Iran.

“Actually, an Arab Group diplomat argued with me that while NAM only issued a statement, the Arab Group wrote to the Security Council and Ban Ki-moon: that’s the level of competition,” said Lee.

“But the Arab Group does not want a meeting in which Assad’s Syria would be portrayed as a victim,” he added.

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov have agreed to convene an international conference on Syria. But whether all of the warring parties would participate in such a meeting remains in doubt.

Rabbani told IPS the silence of the Security Council, for all practical purposes, constitutes an international green light to Israel to continue with its new policy and military aggression.

That Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has, despite his unambiguous extremism, been less inclined to launch a major armed conflict than each of his predecessors, and is more susceptible to U.S. pressure, provides little solace, he added.

Having done this once and gotten away with it, his government and security establishment are almost certain to do so again, probably sooner rather than later, even while staring the potential Israeli disaster of war with Syria and/or Hezbollah – and perhaps a wider regional conflagration – straight in the face, said Rabbani, who is also a contributing editor to the Middle East Report.

Stephen Zunes, professor of politics and coordinator of Middle Eastern studies at the University of San Francisco, told IPS he cannot recall of any precedent of the Security Council remaining silent on air attacks on a sovereign country.

“But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any,” he said, pointing out that, “It appears that the Syrian regime has become an even bigger international pariah than Israel.”

Rabbani told IPS the Israeli explanation for its recent bombings of Damascus is that these were launched solely to prevent the transfer of advanced weaponry to Hezbollah in Lebanon and do not represent an Israeli intervention in the Syrian crisis. It is an explanation that is difficult to take seriously, he said.

Israel may indeed have acted to interdict weapons supplies to its foes in Lebanon. But more importantly, it acted to change its relationship with Syria and test the international response to this change of policy, he argued.

Specifically, said Rabbani, Israel was sending a clear message to the world’s capitals that henceforth it will act at will within Syria to promote its interests.

Resources and activities within sovereign Syrian territory previously considered immune from Israeli attack, such as military infrastructure and the transport of weapons systems to Lebanon, is no longer so.

In other words, Israel will henceforth retain the freedom to act, and act systematically, to degrade Syria’s military capabilities, Syrian support of guerrilla movements beyond its borders, and, further down the line, regimes and organisations within Syria it considers actively hostile, Rabbani said.

“It is a policy that bears numerous similarities to Israel’s approach to Lebanon, particularly southern Lebanon, during the late 1960s and 1970s,” he added.

More importantly, this new pattern of Israeli aggression is certain to make the Syrian crisis more difficult to resolve and even more catastrophic than it already is, Rabbani said. He added that Israel is determined to degrade Syria and keep it weak, and while internal Syrian matters may not have figured prominently or perhaps not even at all in its most recent actions, they eventually will.

And if this new policy is permitted to stand – perhaps even form an important motivation for Israeli policy, as was the case in Lebanon from the mid-1970s onwards.

UN Gun Control Treaty negotiations are on the way in New York, 18. March 2013 (Photo file – WPP)

By Thalif Deen — UNITED NATIONS,  (IPS) - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is one of the most vociferous advocates of a world free of nuclear weapons.

Still, the Group of 77, the largest single coalition of 132 developing countries, implicitly accuses the United Nations of falling short in its efforts to publicise a meeting on nuclear disarmament scheduled to take place Sep. 26.

Ambassador Peter Thomson of Fiji, the G77 chair, last week described the upcoming talks as “the first-ever high level meeting of the General Assembly on nuclear disarmament.”

He said the meeting is of importance to developing nations, and therefore, all efforts should be made to give it timely and wide publicity.

A G77 delegate told IPS the conference is not getting the advance publicity it should, probably because three of the big powers, the United States, UK and France, are not supportive of the meeting.

“We have not seen anything on the high level meeting so far,” he added.

The lack of coverage stands in contrast to the strong public stand taken by the secretary-general, who has consistently called for the total elimination of nuclear weapons.

Asked about the significance of the upcoming meeting, Dr. John Burroughs, executive director of the New York-based Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, told IPS the meeting is a chance for world leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama and others, to give direction to the nuclear disarmament enterprise, “which is now drifting aimlessly despite much rhetoric over the past five years.”

“Of course they should reassert that the global elimination of nuclear weapons is a shared aim of the international community,” he said.

But they can and should do more, he said, specifically to set in motion concrete, multilateral processes to achieve that objective.

“If there can be a Nuclear Security Summit process, focused on securing nuclear materials, why can there not be a Nuclear Disarmament Summit Process?” he asked.

Or definitive action could be taken to overcome the 16-year deadlock in the Conference on Disarmament, if necessary by establishing a separate process, Dr Burroughs said.

The resolution calling for the high-level meeting, which was sponsored by Indonesia and the 120-member Non-Aligned Movement, was adopted last December in the General Assembly by a vote of 179 to none against, with four abstentions (Israel, and three of the five permanent members of the Security Council, namely France, UK and the United States).

The other two permanent members, China and Russia, voted for the resolution.

All five permanent members are the world’s five declared nuclear powers, with India, Pakistan, Israel, and more recently North Korea, outside the P-5 nuclear club.

In an explanation of his country’s decision to abstain on the vote, Guy Pollard, deputy permanent representative of the UK, told delegates last December, “We question the value of holding a high-level meeting (HLM) of the General Assembly on nuclear disarmament when there are already sufficient venues for such discussion.”

He cited the General Assembly’s First Committee (on Disarmament), the U.N. Disarmament Commission, and the Conference on Disarmament.

“We are puzzled about how such a HLM will further the goals of the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) Action Plan that was agreed by consensus in 2010,” Pollard said.

“In our view,” he said, “this roadmap of actions offers the best way of taking forward the multilateral nuclear disarmament agenda, along with related issues.”

“We continue to believe that nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament are mutually reinforcing and therefore regret that this high level meeting doesn’t treat both of these aspects in a balanced manner,” Pollard said.

Meanwhile, in a new study released last month, George Perkovich, director of the Nuclear Policy Programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, points out one of the few ways that President Obama could restore confidence in U.S. intentions would be to update the declaration of the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. security policy, including in defence of its allies.

“In his searching Nobel Peace Prize speech (in December 2009), Obama recognised the occasional inescapability of war and the imperative of waging it justly,” Perkovich said.

So, too, Obama now could examine how the ongoing existence of nuclear arsenals, even if temporary, can be reconciled with the

UN Gun Control Treaty negotiations are on the way in New York, 18. March 2013 (Photo file – WPP)

moral-strategic imperative to prevent their use, says the study titled “Do Unto Others: Toward a Defensible Nuclear Doctrine.”

“The president could articulate a limited framework for the legitimate use of nuclear weapons that the United States believes would be defensible for others to follow as long as nuclear weapons remain,” it says.

Such a nuclear policy, says Perkovich, could then be conveyed in the U.S. Defence Department’s Quadrennial Posture Review, which is due later this year.

Dr. Burroughs told IPS that non-nuclear weapon states have been doing their best to create opportunities to set a clear course on disarmament.

At the initiative of Austria, Mexico and Norway, the General Assembly in 2012 established an open-ended working group on taking forward proposals on multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations, scheduled to meet for three weeks this summer in Geneva.

Norway hosted a conference in Oslo in March on the humanitarian impact of nuclear explosions.

And Indonesia and the Non-Aligned Movement proposed the resolution last year that scheduled the September high-level meeting on nuclear disarmament.

“However, the P-5 in the Security Council have been recalcitrant. So far they have said they will not participate in the open-ended working group,” said Dr. Burroughs.

They also declined the invitation to participate in the Oslo meeting. And last year the UK, the United States, and France, along with Israel, abstained on the resolution scheduling the high-level meeting, expressing doubt as to its value, he added.

“So the personal engagement of heads of state/government and foreign ministers is clearly necessary,” Burroughs said.

At lower levels, the Permanent Five officials have been floundering, he added.

“Unless there is a change of tune coming from the very top, the September meeting will turn out to be a fruitless exercise,” he said.

The crisis on the Korean peninsula should be a wake-up call.

The nuclear threats exchanged by North Korea and the United States have once again laid bare an often underappreciated fact, the unacceptable risks arising from reliance on nuclear weapons.

In September, P-5 leaders and other governments possessing nuclear arsenals should seize the moment to signal clearly, to their own governments as well as to the world, that they will now engage constructively with non-nuclear weapon states on a process for the global elimination of nuclear weapons, he said.

Parliamentarians, mayors, and civil society groups working for a nuclear weapons-free world should also take advantage of this global platform, which surprisingly is the first time a General Assembly high-level meeting will be held on nuclear disarmament, Dr Burroughs said.

Ban Ki-moon the Secretary General of the UN (Webpublicapress)

By Thalif Deen — UNITED NATIONS, (IPS) - As the world continues to turn digital, so does the United Nations – slowly but steadily. 

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says the world body is increasingly drawing on social media tools, including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Flickr, as well as other innovative communications technologies, to broaden its reach to the world at large.

In a report to the U.N. Committee on Information, which concluded its current sessions Friday, Ban said that efforts to harness the power of social media “have yielded impressive results in terms of reaching new audiences around the world.”

The U.N. Visitor’s website, launched in 2010, received 343,679 page views while its Facebook page has increased to over 5,800 fans and its fan base on Google Plus reached over 700,000.

Currently, the U.N. archives has over 3.7 million documents, most of them waiting to go digital.

The U.N.’s primary agenda focuses on three key issues: development, human rights and peace and security, intertwined with gender empowerment, counter-terrorism and sustainable development, among others.

Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal, under-secretary-general for communications and public information, says that the U.N. libraries in New York and Geneva have processed around 340,000 documents, comprising 3.5 million pages.

“The timeline for completing the task, using current resources and methods, would be approximately 20 years,” he said.

At the same time, the United Nations has an additional 13 million official documents, mostly background reports and working papers, which are also up for digitisation.

“That might take another 60 years,” he told the Committee last week.

Still, traditional media is still the primary means of communication, especially among developing countries where internet coverage remains sparse.

Asked whether the United Nations was on the right track in harnessing social media as against traditional media, the newly-

elected chair of the Committee on Information, Ambassador Lyutha Sultan Al-Mughairy of Oman, told IPS, “I believe it is, but I do

not want to suggest social media is ‘against’ traditional media.”

“We need all forms of media to communicate, in the context of who our audience is and what form of communication each audience is comfortable with.”

At the session just concluded, she said, the Committee on Information has proposed that the 193-member General Assembly request the secretary-general to report to it at its next session “on the structure of the Organisation’s presence in social networks, and its strategy and guidelines for their use.

“We believe this information will be important in assessing the track we are on, and how best, as you say, to harness the power of

social media”.

She said the Department of Information must tackle a number of challenges and cater to new audiences “in a worsening budgetary climate”, doing more with fast-dwindling resources.

Currently, the world body has about 63 U.N. Information Centres (UNICs) reaching out to the public at large.

Asked about the importance of UNICs in the context of the U.N.’s current austerity drive to eliminate some, or most, of these centres, Ambassador Al-Mughairy told IPS the Committee has consistently emphasised the importance of the network of UNICs in enhancing the public image of the United Nations.

And more so, in disseminating messages to local populations, especially in developing countries, bearing in mind that information in local languages has the strongest impact on local populations, and in mobilising support for the work of the United Nations at the local level.

She said her Committee has also stressed the importance of rationalising the network of UNICs, and, in this regard, requested the secretary-general to continue to make proposals, including through the redeployment of resources where necessary.

The Committee has been assured by the Department that communications and public information needs would not suffer as a result of any realignment of UNICs or their functions.

She said the Committee has also welcomed the support of some member states, including developing countries, in offering, among other things, rent-free premises for UNICs, bearing in mind that such support should not be a substitute for the full allocation of financial resources for the information centres in the context of the programme budget of the United Nations.

Meanwhile, the secretary-general’s report also says that by the end of 2012, more than 850 institutions of higher learning and research centres worldwide, have joined Academic Impact, described as a global university initiative launched in 2010 to align such institutions with the United Nations.

Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein (right), Permanent Representative of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to the UN, Munira Subasic (centre, at podium), President of Mothers of Srebrenica, flanked by Murat Tahirovic (left) & Nikola Findrik of the Association of Witnesses & Survivors of Genocide at the UN press conference regarding Mr.Jeremic’s panel on International justice and reconciliation. (Photo by Webpublicapress 2013)

By Eric Gordy – London – The ‘thematic debate’ held in the UN General Assembly on April 10 carried low expectations from the beginning. General Assembly president (and former Serbian foreign minister) Vuk Jeremic wanted to get some political positions on the record following a disappointing decision by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY appeals chamber. Serbian president Tomislav Nikolic wanted, apparently, to get a deal regarding where people convicted by ICTY serve their sentences.

Other diplomatic missions from around the world seemed to regard the event either as a chance to declare a political position or as a distraction. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon probably expressed the general surrounding sentiment best when he made his obligatory welcoming statement and then got up and left.

Leaving the machinations behind the event aside, though, there was probably no good reason for it not to be held. In the first place it would be difficult to dispute that it is proper for the UN General Assembly to discuss the efficacy of UN institutions, while it is certainly also true that there is much to discuss.

In the second place, the theme of the ‘Role of International Criminal Justice in Reconciliation’ is so clearly important, as well as being interesting in its own right, that a public debate on the topic ought to be welcomed.

Unfortunately, aside from a few moments, the event saw little serious debate and a lot of posturing. It did less than it could have to advance understanding of international criminal justice and reconciliation, and probably did more to hurt than to help the interests of Serbia, whose senior representative in the UN organised the debate.

Claims of victimhood

Probably enough attention has already been paid to the main attraction, the address by Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic, that it is not necessary to go into detail here. In a highly rhetorically-charged speech penned by his adviser Oliver Antic, Nikolic rehearsed a litany of claims of victimhood, some historical and some contemporary, some actual and some imaginary, that sounded more like an exhortation given to a 1990s political rally than a statement delivered by a head of state to a global diplomatic body. Neither Serbia nor Mr. Nikolic will derive any advantage from his appearance before the UN.

As for the participants who were brought to advance the position of the country from which the president of the General Assembly hails, they largely said what they were expected to say.

In a few instances what they had to say was a bit bizarre. The former Canadian general Lewis MacKenzie gave a rambling address in which he principally spoke about himself. Lawyer Matthew Parish spoke passionately not so much about the instruments of international justice as about international justice in principle, which he described repeatedly as a “mess”.

Similarly, writer John Laughland argued not so much about particular institutions as about the principle of prosecuting perpetrators of human rights violations at all, which he contrasted unfavourably with what he represented as a time-honoured tradition of “forgetting” and “amnesty”.

The two participants brought over from Serbia to contribute to the discussion offered little more. Historian Cedomir Antic of the

Munira Subašić (Courtesy photo – edu.only)

SANU Balkan Institute and former Krajina politician Savo Strbac gave political speeches that represented the state of the art in domestic research poorly.

It seemed a bit of a shame for these presenters to be put forward as the principal representatives of intellectual engagement on the issue of “the role of criminal justice in reconciliation” when there is no shortage of serious and credible researchers able to offer contributions on the question. While the UN General Assembly is of course not a scholarly institution, this was a case where high quality scholarly contributions could have been valuable and useful.

An opportunity wasted

On the positive side, there were interesting things to learn for people who followed the entire event and had an interest in learning interesting things. Charles Chernor Jalloh of the University of Pittsburgh offered an informative defence of the Organisation for African Unity’s proposal for a regionally-based court to complement the work of the ICC in Africa. John Ciorciari of the University of Michigan gave a detailed analysis and critique of the operation of hybrid tribunals, drawing heavily on his own experience in south-east Asia.

Some presenters who spoke on institutions directly related to the region were also serious and substantive. William Schabas of Middlesex University provided a balanced assessment of the experience and variety of ad hoc tribunals, and in several instances cautioned against exaggerated interpretations and extreme conclusions. Janine Clark of the University of Sheffield addressed problems of reconciliation directly, proposing measures to determine whether reconciliation has taken place and offering an interpretation of where institutions like the ICTY may be thought to have failed or succeeded.

These scholarly contributions were sadly overshadowed by the posturing for which the ‘thematic debate’ was designed. They offered an indication of the kind of understanding that could become available if the UN General Assembly or other public bodies were to engage with questions like justice and reconciliation genuinely, and regularly seek consultation with scholars and practitioners rather than with politicians and lobbyists.

Considering the low yield that this event is likely to generate for Serbia, which damaged its own credibility and the UN’s at the same time, it might be the case that this “thematic debate” will not be regarded as the most successful one in the GA’s history and that the effort will not be made again. This would be a shame. The four scholars who presented substantive papers offered an indication of the kind of discussion that could take place on questions of genuine global interest when the proceedings are not subordinated to a publicity stunt.

Scholars from the countries where international criminal justice initiatives are operating, and over which they have oversight, have a great deal to offer in terms of advancing understanding, and would have done so had they been invited (preferably to an event not poisoned in advance by political calculation). On this count there is a lot that the Serbian politicians engaged with the UN could do to help, once they decide to stop hurting themselves.

Eric Gordy is a senior lecturer at University College London.

Republished with the permit of author and BIRN (Balkan News Insight)

UN Envoy Ambassador Matthew Nimetz (WPP Photo archive)

(Webpublicapress/New York) – Gornja Republika Makedonija je možda buduće ime Makedonije, a tokom ovog mjeseca, a najkasnije do sredine idućeg, Makedonija i Grčka bi trebalo dati konačne odgovore da li su suglasne s ovim kompromisom.
To ime bi trebalo da zamjeni naziv Bivša Jugoslovenska Republika Makedonija – BJRM, u narednih najmanje sedam do osam godina, koliko je predviđeno da traju pregovori za članstvo u EU, javio je danas web portal Nova TV iz Skoplja, pozivajući se na diplomatske izvore uključene u pregovore s Grčkom oko imena Makedonije.

Prijedlog posrednika UN u pregovorima, veleposlanika Matthewa Nimica, kako se navodi, je da se ime Gornja Republika Makedonija koristi sve dok traju pregovori Makedonije za članstvo, po čijem bi se okončanju građani Makedonije na referendumu izjasnili po dva pitanja: da li su za članstvo u EU, i da li su za prihvaćanje imena Gornja Republika Makedonija.

Pozitivan odgovor na pitanje bi značio da Gornja Republika Makedonija postane i ustavno ime nakon što zemlja postane članica EU.

Dipolomatski izvori za Novu kažu da je ovo prijedlog oko kojega su se obje strane približile na nedavnim pregovorima u New Yorku. Proces bi se realizirao u nekoliko faza, od kojih je prva da obje strane daju suglasnost za prijedlog Gornja Republika Makedonija, odnosno da prijedlog Gornja bude ispred Republika Makedonija, na čemu inzistira makedonska strana, a Grčka bi zauzvrat dobila garancije da će se ovo ime unijeti u makedonski Ustav.

Druga faza je da obje strane postignu sporazum o osjetljivim pitanjima identiteta – o nazivima nacija i jezika, a kada se to učini ime Gornja Republika Makedonija ulazi u upotrebu svugdje gdje se sada koristi termin BJRM. Treća faza, kako navodi Nova, je da Grčka dozvoli Makedoniji da s ovim imenom postane članica NATO i počne pregovore za članstvo u EU.

Zauzvrat, Makedonija će u Ustav unijeti amandman u kojemu će pisati da će od dana kada zemlja postane članica EU njezino međunarodno ime biti Gornja Republika Makedonija i da će se ono upotrebljavati na svim jezicima, osim na zvaničnim jezicima u samoj Makedoniji.

Ovo su, kako navodi Nova, osnove najnovijeg prijedloga o kojemu se pregovara, a u tijeku narednih dana moguće su i izmjene. Tijekom ovog mjeseca, a najkasnije do sredine idućeg, Makedonija i Grčka bi trebale dati konačne odgovore da li su suglasne s ovim kompromisom.

Inače, sam prijedlog je, kako dodaje Nova, izrađen podrškom administracije komesara za proširenje EU Štefana Fuelea u konsultaciji s pregovaračkim stranama, kao i uticajnim međunarodnim faktorima, kao što su SAD i druge države. Oko same osnove ovog prijedloga u rujnu prošle godine konsultirani su i makedonski premijer Nikola Gruevski i lider opozicijskog Socijaldemokratskog saveza Makedonije (SDSM) Branko Crvenkovski, tvrdi Nova.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague at the United Nations in New York (Photo by Hajat Avdovic © Webpublicapress)

By William Hague – Too often, the world seeks to end a conflict and rebuild war-torn societies without addressing the very issues that make reconciliation so difficult and which contribute to renewed violence. Wartime rape and sexual violence is one of those issues.

Two weeks ago I visited the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and was handed a photograph of a five-year-old girl who had been raped. As I moved from refugee camps, to hospitals, and meetings with people fighting for justice, I heard more and more appalling stories of lives destroyed, women ostracized from their loved ones, families broken and victims given life-threatening illnesses after being attacked when foraging for firewood. And all this while the perpetrators continue their lives under the cover of shameful impunity.

In many of the major conflicts of the past 20 years, from Bosnia to Rwanda and from Libya to Sierra Leone, rape has been used as a deliberate weapon to scar political opponents or entire ethnic or religious groups. The scars inflicted do not easily heal, and never disappear. Instead they often destroy families and corrode communities.

Sadly the same story is being repeated again in Syria today, where there are horrific reports of civilians being raped and tortured, and violations being committed with the deliberate intention of terrorizing political opponents.

Responding to this challenge is our responsibility as political leaders of democratic states that believe in human dignity. We must try and stop this abhorrent crime that has affected so many, and work to eradicate the use of rape as a weapon of war.

This is not an easy task and there are many obstacles.

First, there is the fear and shame of the victims themselves. Understandably, often they are reluctant to come forward because of the stigma attached to being raped. This reluctance is then made worse by the lack of sensitive physical and psychological support available to victims.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague at the United Nations in New York (Photo by Hajat Avdovic © Webpublicapress)

Second, there is the difficulty of gathering evidence that can be used in court cases, which means that few successful prosecutions are ever mounted. Since 1996 as many as 500,000 women have been raped in the DRC alone, and only a tiny fraction of these cases end up in court. This only reinforces the culture of impunity.

Third, rape tends to be treated as a secondary issue by the international community when responding to conflict. As a result, survivors are neglected, funding is insufficient or simply withheld, and perpetrators roam free.

Finally, there is not enough support for the UN agencies, local organizations and human rights defenders, who are assisting the survivors on the ground. As a result they are severely underfunded and face real difficulties in responding effectively.

All of these are barriers which can and must be surmounted.

This week I will be asking my fellow G8 foreign ministers to adopt a historic political statement that sets out our shared determination to work to end sexual violence in armed conflict, to tackle the lack of accountability that exists for these brutal crimes, and to ensure comprehensive support for victims.

I am seeking a wide set of practical commitments that include recognizing that rape and serious sexual violence are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions; greater funding and long-term support for survivors; and support for a new international protocol that will set out agreed standards for investigating and documenting wartime sexual violence.

These measures are designed to improve evidence gathering and lead to more prosecutions, they will empower survivors to come forward, and they will ensure that victims receive the long-term support that they need to rebuild their lives with dignity. I am hoping for an ambitious agreement in London on Thursday.

But this is only a beginning. We will use the support from the G8 as a foundation to build a strong international coalition against wartime rape and sexual violence in conflict at the UN and more widely.

The G8 represents some of the world’s largest economies, with huge international reach and combined influence. When its members come together in common endeavour, they are capable of bringing about real and lasting change in the world.

This week, that lasting change will be to begin a process aimed at ending one of the most devastating aspects of modern warfare, and addressing one of the main reasons why it is so difficult for communities to come back together after conflict. It is our duty as political leaders of free countries and human beings to shatter impunity for those who use rape as a weapon of war, and ensure that its victims are never again abandoned.

Source: National Post

William Hague is the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon delivered a strong speech contra Jeremic’s approach on UN justice (Photo by Erol Avdovic – Webpublicapress © 2013)

By Erol Avdovic – WebPublicaPress – UNITED NATIONS, NY - President of the UN General Assembly Mr. Vuk Jeremic of Serbia held the panel on international justice and reconciliation on April 10, 2013. However, the panel didn’t meet the expectations: It didn’t address the legitimate questions on the work of international criminal court for former Yugoslavia. Rather, it reminded on the pain of the victims of the Bosnian war, endured, particularly to those from Srebrenica.

Munira’s pain

Mrs. Munira Subasic from “Mothers of Srebrenica” NGO lost over 20 members of her family in Srebrenica genocide in 1995, yet she was denied the right to speak at Jeremic’s UN panel, although she applied to do so. Instead she was expelled from the the panel’s room because she got t-short with label: “Srebrenica – Justice is Slow but Reachable” and transparent saying “Republica Srpska – genocidal”; (Photo by Erol Avdovic – Webpublicapress © 2013)

Mr. Nebojsa Radmanovic, member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina delivered mild and well balanced statement at the UN panel (Photo by Erol Avdovic – Webpublicapress © 2013)

“Day and night, soldiers came to the house taking two to three women at a time. They were four to five guards at all times, all local Foca Serbs. The woman knew the rapes would begin when ‘Mars na Drinu’ was played over the loudspeaker of the main mosque. (‘Mars na Drinu,’ or ‘March on the Drina’, is reportedly a former Chetnik fighting song that was banned during the Tito years.)While ‘Mars na Drinu’ was playing, the women were ordered to strip and soldiers entered the homes taking the ones they wanted. The age of women taken ranged from 12 to 60. Frequently the soldiers would seek out mother and daughter combinations. Many of the women were severely beaten during the rapes.” (Seventh Report on War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia: Part II: Abuse of Civilians In Detention Centers July-August 1992. See here the Original Report by US State Department)

(Photo above: Chosen company – from right to left: Nebojsa Radmanovic, member of the Bosnian State Presidency, Mirsada Colakovic Bosnian permanent representative to the UN, Feodor Starcevic, Serbian permanent representative to the UN, Tomislav Nikolic president of Serbia and Ivan Mrkic, Serbian foreign minister /Photo by Erol Avdovic – Webpublicapress © 2013)

According to Mrs. Subasic the UN Secretary General apologize to her later on in a meeting saying UN did not have a control over Mr. Jeremic’s panel. She said Mr. Ban stressed UN supports the work of the ICTY (International Court for Former Yugoslavia), as he said in his speech at the General Assembly.

Ban did a right move

“The Secretary General made right decision when he left before president of Serbia started to speak, since Nikolic denied genocide in Srebrenica, does not recognize our pain. If Mr. Ban wouldn’t do it it would be the same scandal like with ‘Marš na Drinu’ song”, she said.

“We did not have anything by this Jeremic’s panel but inflicting us with additional pain and reminding us to our loss”, Mrs. Subasic said to Webpublicapress. She added, that during Mr. Tomislav Nikolic’s speech she felt like in 1995: “powerless and humiliated”, and that is why she showed transparent “Genocidal Republica Srpska” (original in Bosnian: “Republika Srpska – Genocidna!”), she added.

Indeed one would wonder what Mr. Jeremic indeed wanted to do with his panel beside playing to the nationalistic tune? And weather he ever had a single glance: could it political agenda hurt those who are already hurt enough, like thousands mothers of Srebrenica, and every single mother no matter of place and nationality. He probably did not!

UN General Assembly (WPP photo by Hajat Avdovic)

By Thalif Deen — UNITED NATIONS,  (IPS) - When the 193-member General Assembly voted overwhelmingly for a long outstanding Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) last week, there was a lingering question left unanswered: how long will it take to reach the 50 ratifications necessary for the treaty to be legally binding?

Asked for his prediction, Ambassador Palitha Kohona, a former head of the U.N. Treaty Section, told IPS, “It is difficult to tell when this treaty will enter into force.”

Katherine Prizeman, international coordinator/disarmament programme at Global Action to Prevent War (GAPW), was more optimistic.

She told IPS that in terms of ratification and entry-into-force (EIF), the ATT formulation of 50 is actually quite achievable within the next few years despite the political struggles inherent in national government ratification processes.

“I would say it is very likely that EIF will occur in less than five years,” she predicted.

Adopted by a vote of 154 (Angola has since switched from “abstain” to “yes” making it 155 countries supporting the treaty) to three against (Iran, Syria and North Korea), the ATT will be open for signature on Jun. 2.

But ratification of the treaty, mostly by legislative or executive bodies of each of the member states, could be a long drawn-out process.

The 23 abstentions, not surprisingly, included some of the world’s key arms exporters and manufacturers (China, Russia, India) and leading arms buyers (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain).

Kohona said some important countries, including China, Russia and India, have expressed serious reservations about the ATT text. Others may have to overcome domestic difficulties, he added.

“You will recall that the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), adopted by vote in September 1996 in the General Assembly, after failing to obtain consensus in the Commission on Disarmament, has still not satisfied the conditions necessary for entry into force (17 years after adoption),” said Kohona, who is also Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, and who abstained on the vote.

Asked whether General Assembly approval is only a political and moral obligation on the part of member states, and with no legal force, Kohona said under the Law of Treaties, a treaty on signature creates certain limited obligations for the signatory states.

“Adoption, per se, does not. It is on ratification/accession and entry into force that a treaty imposes binding legal obligations on the parties,” he explained.

Prizeman said taking into consideration the wide and robust support for the ATT across Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the European Union, it is likely that 50 states would ratify the treaty within the next few years.

The majority of states – reflective of the 155 votes in favour of the resolution – have expressed relatively categorical support for the ATT, if not calling for even more robust provisions than what is found in the text, she added.

Last week, a coalition of about 50 U.S. senators said they will oppose ratification, amid an anti-ATT campaign spearheaded by the National Rifle Association (NRA), one of the most powerful pro-gun lobbies in the United States.

Widney Brown, senior director of International Law and Policy at Amnesty International, told IPS, “The key to enforcement is transparency and peer pressure.”

She pointed out that the important elements of enforcement are that all exports must be reported to the Secretariat and that information will be shared with other states.

“If one state thinks another is failing to comply with the terms of the treaty, there will be a dispute mechanism to address the issue. But peer pressure to conform will be strong,” she added.

Secondly, even if China (currently about number six on the list of arms exporters) does not ratify, “I think we will see what we saw during the negotiations” — there will be strong pressure from African states on China to support the treaty, Brown said.

Russia, she said, is more problematic — particularly as it is trying to regain lost market share.

Brown said India did not play a helpful role in the negotiations, but like other emerging powers wants to be seen as a key player on the international stage and may be vulnerable to pressure to adhere to the treaty, even if it does not ratify.

“The United States, as you know, voted for the treaty although ratification is unlikely, but I think we will see significant compliance,” she said.

Where it will get tricky will be in decisions regarding transfers to Washington’s Gulf allies such as Bahrain, said Brown.

Prizeman told IPS that previous iterations of the ATT text had featured higher formulations (65), which would have, of course, elongated the EIF process.

The ATT “supportive” states were keen to lower the EIF formulation so that the ATT would not become a victim of the perpetual “waiting-to-enter-into-force limbo” that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) endures.

Moreover, also unlike the CTBT model, additional EIF obstacles such as qualitative provisions, including a requirement that the 10 largest exporter states ratify the treaty before EIF, ultimately did not make it into the final ATT text – although such proposals were supported by a group of states, mostly the emerging importer states concerned over potential manipulation of the treaty’s provisions, she added.

Brown said, “As someone who has worked primarily with human rights treaties, it has been quite interesting to understand the dynamics of what is in part a trade treaty.

“As you know,” she pointed out, “the agreed figure that is bandied around is that the current market for arms is about 70 billion dollars annually.” But in the next few years that is expected to increase to 100 billion dollars annually.

“Also remember that there are only about 40 countries that actually do trade in arms, ammunition and parts and components, but the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (the UK, United States, France, China and Russia) plus Germany account for the vast majority of those transfers. So the remaining 36 states account for perhaps 30 percent of all transfers.”

If one state does its assessment and finds under the terms of the treaty that the transfer should not happen and another state swoops in a grabs that deal – the second state is going to be called out by the first state, Brown said.