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The United Nations Human Rights Council decided last year to follow up its first World Conference Against Racism (WCAR), held in Durban 2001.
Canadian Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, will have carriage of the new conference, which has been dubbed Durban II.
Arbour earned her credentials during a stellar career that includes her time as chief prosecutor of war crimes at the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. She indicted Slobodan Milosevic, the first sitting head of state to be brought before an international tribunal for war crimes.
Durban II has already earned severe criticism from Israel, the U.S. and the Harper government because of anti-Semitic rhetoric from some government officials at the last WCAR.
But, if you listen to the ranting of Jason Kenney, Conservative MP and secretary of state for multiculturalism and Canadian identity who referred to the WCAR as a “circus of intolerance,” you would swear Arbour had gone over to the dark side and is now actively trying to undo her life’s work of defending human rights worldwide.
There is no question Durban I had a serious problem with respect to vile anti-Semitic rhetoric being spewed by some participants. However, the solution is not to try and shut down a world forum that’s intended to address human rights violations the world over. We should be working to ensure Durban II is a tolerant and inclusive experience for all who seek social justice.
Listening to Jason Kenney or reading National Post editorials leaves the impression the only issue discussed at Durban I was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the subsequent walkout by Israel and a junior delegation from the U.S. In fact, the bulk of the first WCAR dealt with issues of significant importance to millions of people around the world — issues like African descendants, migrant workers, HIV/AIDS, refugees, indigenous people, gypsies, poverty, marginalization, and globalization.
Abandoning this country’s role in shaping how the world addresses human rights issues is a major blow to the millions of Canadians who have fled despotic regimes around the world. How can a country that has lived through the shame, abuse and violence of residential schools for native children not have the stomach for the gut-churning discourse that accompanies a world human rights conference?
The primary rationale advanced by the Harper government for boycotting Durban II is the pre-planning committee will be chaired by Libya. This has provided lots of fodder for those who want to hammer away at the credibility of Arbour and her human rights commission.
But wait a second. Yes, this is the Libya, headed up by mass murderer and terrorist dictator Moammar Khadaffy, that recently admitted to blowing up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland killing 270 innocent men, women and children.
Yet, is he not the same terrorist Tony Blair visited in his tent in the Libyan desert only last year? Is this not the same mass murderer Blair embraced and promptly sold British weapons of mass destruction? Where was the moral outrage from Harper’s government, Israel and the Post at this affront to human rights? Not a word of remorse was spoken about the 270 innocents murdered by Khadaffi in the skies over Scotland.
Isn’t it curious that the U.S. and U.K. governments embrace a known and admitted mass murderer and sell him weapons of mass destruction, along with a $900-million British Petroleum oil exploration deal and we don’t hear a peep?
But, place a Libyan bureaucrat on an obscure 19-member pre-planning committee for a UN sponsored World Conference Against Racism and the wrath of nations is brought down on the shoulders of Louise Arbour, her human rights commission and human rights activists the world over.
Canada, Israel and the U.S. cannot have it both ways. Libya is either their new-found friend on the world stage or a pariah state led by a despotic mass murderer. Either way, it’s the height of hypocrisy to trash Libya when it suits the purpose of shutting down the WCAR, but remain silent while praise and weapons of mass destruction are heaped upon the despot because he promised not to blow up any more planes.
