Novos (velhos) hábitos

A Nações Unidas decidiram acabaram com o sua desacreditada Comissão de Direitos Humanos e criaram um novo Conselho de Direitos Humanos que, supostamente, iria, recuperar a credibilidade da ONU em matérias de defesa dos direitos humanos.

Se a constituição do Conselho já não augurava nada de muito brilhante (China, Cuba, Federação Russa, Arábia Saudita são alguns dos seus membros actuais), as práticas do dito vêm confirmar que a credibilidade do novo Conselho é igual a zero. Porquê? Segundo reporta The Jerusalem Post:

The new UN Human Rights Council voted Friday to make a review of alleged human rights abuses by Israel a permanent feature of every council session.

The resolution, which was sponsored by Islamic countries, was passed by a vote of 29-12, with five abstentions. It effectively revives a practice of the UN's dissolved Human Rights Commission, which also reviewed alleged Israeli abuses every time it met.

Israel protested Friday's vote, calling it a perpetuation of "the old infamous habits" of the widely discredited commission.

The resolution requires UN investigators to report at each council session "on the Israeli human rights violations in occupied Palestine."

The resolution also said the council "decides to undertake substantive consideration of the human rights violations and implications of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and other occupied Arab territories at its next session and to incorporate that issue in its following sessions."

Parece este Conselho Israel é o maior problema de direitos humanos do mundo. Provavelmente os membros deste Conselho nem sequer sabem onde é o Darfur (ou então acham que é coisa pequena que não interesa a ninguém). Aliás, a cobertura feita pela Human Rights Watch destaca exactamente estes dois pontos: a credibilidade e selectividade.

On the last day of the session, the council adopted a resolution on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which calls for existing human rights experts to report on Israeli human rights violations at its September session and for consideration of this situation at subsequent sessions. Based on a request by more than one-third of the council’s members, the council will also hold a special session on the situation in the occupied territories, possibly next week. Human Rights Watch agreed that the deteriorating situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories should be considered by the council, but urged it to look at international human rights and humanitarian law violations committed by Palestinian armed groups as well.

Human Rights Watch called on the council to avoid the selectivity that discredited its predecessor and urged it to hold special sessions on other urgent situations, such as Darfur. The council’s ability to take up such situations quickly and send in human rights experts to do fact-finding should be a valuable tool in tackling violations.

"The council’s singling out the Occupied Palestinian Territories for special attention is a cause for concern,” said Hicks. “The human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories deserves attention, but the new council must bring the same vigor to its consideration of other pressing situations.”

Enfim os velhos hábitos demoram a perder-se. Mas, como de costume, eu também não espero nada de bom desse órgão perfeitamente inútil que dá pelo nome de ONU (não quer dizer que não defenda a existência de um organismo internacional que reúna as nações, mas não nos termos em que existe a actual ONU, nem sequer alguma coisa que tenha pretensão a um governo mundial - ideia utópica e totalitária).