[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index ][Thread Index ]

UN Human Rights Discuss E-Timor< Bu



Subject: UN Human Rights Discuss E-Timor< Burma and Rwanda

                    Copyright 1997 Deutsche Presse-Agentur  
                            Deutsche Presse-Agentur

                       March  10, 1997, Monday, BC Cycle 
                          14:18 Central European Time


HEADLINE: U.N. human rights commission to discuss E. Timor,  Burma,  Rwanda Eds 
updating

DATELINE: Geneva

 BODY:
    The 53rd meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Commission opened Monday
in Geneva with a moment of silence for five U.N. employees who were killed in
Rwanda in February.

    Human rights commissioner Jose Ayala-Lasso called the five United Nations
employees "martyrs in the cause of human rights".

    In a statement, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan urged the 53 member states
of the commission "to renew your determination to take action to give concrete
meaning to human rights".

    Among the topics for the six-week meeting are conditions in East Timor,
 Burma,  Israeli-occupied territories and Rwanda. The commission will also
discuss the violation of children's rights through pornography and prostitution.

    A group of several hundred exiled Tibetan demonstrated outside the United
Nations building in Geneva Monday to protest Chinese human rights violations.
They want to hand over to the commission Monday documentation on human rights
violations in Tibet.

    The commission is expected to hear a report Tuesday on the human rights
situation in the Israeli-occupied territories. The U.N. special envoy is to
present a report critical of both the Israeli settlements policy in the occupied
territories and the Israeli practice of sealing off Palestinian areas.

    The delegations named the Czech representative Miroslav Somol as new
chairman of the commission. 
    Somol, who asked the conference for their cooperation, was realistic about
what the conference could achieve.

    "We have to understand our partners, on the one hand, to accept that the
situation of human rights in many countries is influenced by factors which
cannot be overcome completely in the near future, without accepting on the other
hand that these factors can serve as an excuse for a policy of disregarding or
neglecting human rights," Somol said.

    The U.S. and other countries have in the past five years attempted to launch
a resolution condemning Chinese human rights violations at the annual
conference. In each case, the resolution in question did not receive a majority 
among the 53 member countries.

    Western countries have said they will attempt to get a resolution condemning
the People's Republic passed this year.

    But Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen said he was optimistic that any
resolution blasting Beijing would not gain the delegates' support this year
either. 
    Human rights watchdog Amnesty International has critcised the fact that some
countries never get blasted by the U.N. Human Rights Commission as influential
commission members have in the past been able to block such resolutions citing
trade ties or geopolitical considerations.  dpa cro pt

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

LOAD-DATE: March 10, 1997