UNITED
NATIONS -- The United States lost its seat Thursday
on the UN Human Rights Commission, which Washington
has used for a half-century as a platform to blast
alleged violators of conventions designed to protect
individuals from persecution and uphold social
justice
In
secret balloting in the Economic and Social Council,
of which the commission is a subsidiary body, the
US received 29 votes, to 52 for France, 41 for
Austria and 32 for Sweden. Those three were elected,
each for a 3-year term.
Also
elected was Sudan, which was defeated last
year when
it ran for a Security Council
place and is still widely regarded as an egregious
violator of human rights. Iran, sometimes labeled
a "rogue state' by Washington, lost its
bid for an Asian seat.
Shock waves ran through the UN as word of
the US defeat spread, but James Cunningham,
the interim chief delegate pending confirmation
of a successor to Richard C. Holbrooke, shrugged
off the snub, saying only that it looked like
a case of too many candidates for too few seats.
Some diplomats wondered privately why the Western
Group had allowed this to happen, instead of
settling the matter by offering only three
candidates.
Cunningham,
the Security Council President this month,
stressed that the US would pursue
its rights agenda in other bodies. Still, Kishore
Mahbubahni, the ambassador of Singapore and
a Security Council member, called the result "a
stunning development."
A question now could arise whether it might
create another obstacle in the Congress to
the settlement of US arrears. A promised payment
of $582 million still is held up by political
arguments in the House. When the US was kicked
off the UN advisory committee for administrative
and budgetary questions, the Congress made
reinstatement a condition for paying off arrears.
An American representative now is back on the
panel. Ironically, Secretary General Kofi Annan
was scheduled to address a group of present
and former US delegates at a New York lunch
while the ECOSOC votes were being counted.
In his prepared remarks, he praised Holbrooke's
contribution to settling the US arrears question
-- which was done at the cost of reducing America's
assessment and requiring higher payments by
several other member states.
In some circles, Holbrooke's victory was called
arm twisting and yesterday the same term was
used by a Western European delegate -- but
this time in the context that the purported
twisting had failed in its purpose.
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