Between the lines, a pattern emerges

The two major battles in Room XVII will be on country resolutions and on rationalisation of the CHR

THE Commission is in its fourth week. It has inched it way through the agenda. It has not done too badly in terms of the time constraints. The battle lines are also being drawn more clearly. It is evident that the two great battles of this Commission will be the debate on country resolutions and the issue of the rationalisation of the work of the CHR. The Asian and African member states of the CHR perceive that most of the country resolutions emanate from the European Group. They feel that Europe is using country resolutions to browbeat them on other issues. Many from Nairobi to Teheran, from Tripoli to Jakarta feel that this is part of intrusive diplomacy threatening their national sovereignty concerns. As the analysis on page two reveals, that perception is not well grounded.  Slaying imaginary dragons is more difficult than dealing with real ones.

The Europeans believe that they are running many more of the resolutions as the United States which ran quite a few in the past seems to have outgrown this role or has just worked out a strategy which has not been spelt out clearly enough even to its allies. In fact, Europe has taken over the briefs on resolutions that the United States ran in the past. For example, Europe took over the resolution on South Eastern Europe from the Americans. The present EU resolution on the Sudan was a brief that was earlier run by the United States.

Coupled with the reluctance to run resolutions, the US has not been too helpful with many of the EU initiatives. The Italian draft resolution on Afghanistan is a case in point. The US would like it buried. Setting precedents for post conflict situations given the realpolitik of a post conflict Iraq is clearly not kosher in Washington's eyes.

The EU resolution on Sudan is clearly also seen as lost. (see story: Will the CHR give up on Sudan?) The Special Rapporteur on the Sudan has bent over backwards to placate Khartoum. Oil interests ranging from India to the United States are helping to lift the siege on Khartoum.

Khartoum, in the meanwhile, has been on a diplomatic offensive and broken out of its sense of earlier isolation. It has intelligently melded the support from the African Regional Group with that from the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) with the new found voice of the Non Aligned Movement that is willing to tilt at a number of windmills with a quixotic Malaysia at its helm. The South Africans have been key to building the African consensus around Sudan, in contrast to their abstention on this issue last year. It is diplomatic footwork emanating from Pretoria that has firmed up many in Francophone Africa who would have otherwise gone along with the EU resolution. (see box: The writing on the wall…)

The EU resolution on Chechnya also seems to be doomed to fail. The Russians are not even willing to recognise that there is a very real human rights dimension to the conflict there. Zimbabwe, riding on the coattails of South Africa and Kenya has also done its arithmetic better than the Europeans. However, Europe sees the longer-term political advantages of going down fighting on this one. This issue of the HRF elsewhere throws light on the abominable human rights situation in Zimbabwe and all right minded people must worry that impunity seems to be the order of the day for the worst violators thanks to the geographical phalanxes that are here to stay. (see story: Zimbabwe – It’s just not cricket)

Beijing is now confident that the traditional China resolution brought by the US will be a memory. It is the fourth week of the Commission and Washington seems to be still undecided as to what to do on this issue. They are yet to broach the subject to their EU interlocutors. A Cuba resolution is however on the anvil.

The EU will be putting forward a draft on North Korea and it will be interesting to see the line-up in Asia on that resolution. The EU's draft on Turkmenistan could not be more timely as we reveal elsewhere in this HRF. Niyazov thinks he is the lord of Tartary and all that he surveys. (see story: In Niyazov’s iron fist)  

It is right that last year most country resolutions emanated from the EU.  But this is not the full story. For that one has to look carefully at the voting on the 10 African and Asia Group member mandates reviewed at the 58th session, dealt with in detail in this HRF. Of the six African Group member drafts, only one (Sudan) was adopted by a marginal vote of one, three were adopted by consensus (Burundi, DRC and Sierra Leone), and one was dropped (Equatorial Guinea), with the Europeans abstaining. Of the four Asian Group member drafts, two were adopted without a vote (Afghanistan and Mynamar), one dropped on a marginal vote (Iran) and one with a vote (Iraq). Thus, only the EU resolutions on Sudan and Iraq remain truly contentious. As for imaginary dragons, they ultimately have to face the cold hard lance of fact, maybe then we can turn back to the real ones.