By Amanuel Biedemariam,
It is hard to see or believe the UN as a warring entity for it is supposed to be the embodiment of neutrality, fairness, impartiality and judiciousness. It is supposed to be free from serving the agendas of one nation at the expense of another.
The UN is not supposed to take sides between warring nations. The UN is only supposed to work, when it is called for, (as in the cases of Rwanda that it terribly failed) at the behest of member nations. However, as the recent actions of UN rapporteur on Eritrea led by Ms. Sheila Keetharuth demonstrated the UN has effectively taken side and is aiding Ethiopia’s war efforts against Eritrea in pursuit of greater Western agenda led by US.
The UN has for decades been instrumental to the destruction of Eritrea that led to the suffering, displacement of millions and the death of thousands of Eritreans. After World War II, to ensure US’s strategic interest, while Africans were handed their independence, Eritrea was forced to occupation by Ethiopia under the auspices of the United Nations.
The UN misjudgment that led to occupation caused the people of Eritrea untold harm. Over 60, 000 Eritrean youth perished in a quest to vacate Ethiopia from Eritrea. Ethiopian planes mowed Eritrean villages regularly using cluster bombs provided by the US and the Soviet Union both permanent members of the Security Council. Millions were displaced and hundreds of thousands of Eritreans were forced to seek refuge in Sudan and other nations. As a result, Eritreans are scattered all over the world, forced to be separated from their families and loved ones.
Eritrean kids were malnourished, starved, sickly and hopeless. Rich and proud farmers that relied on their farms for sustenance were forced to look for handouts. The cry of Eritrean mothers that witnessed the killing of their husbands, sons, daughters and neighbors was ignored. Cry of mothers that experienced complete disintegration of their families, mothers that lost their livelihoods and shattered-homes was ignored. Rampant torture of Eritrean youth at the hand of Ethiopian authorities meant nothing to the UN. The plea to stem the plight of Eritreans was ignored by the UN.
Eritrea has been free for the last 22 years rebuilding one village at a time, educating, treating and nurturing the once shattered community, building infrastructures and positioning the nation for the future.
It is therefore ironic that the United Nations thinks it is high time to fight for the rights of Eritreans after the fact. It is particularly perplexing when one considers that the UN is accusing the people that fought for the human rights of Eritreans for human rights violations.
To the world and the casual observer, when the UN talks human rights it could appear as though there is a genuine concern. That however is a deception designed to hoodwink the international community into accepting intervention in countries of interest in this case, Eritrea.
In the case of Eritrea the UN is simply violating the human and national rights of the people of Eritrea. The UN is violating its own charter to further the agendas of NATO countries. It is undermining due process, fairness, impartiality and other principal tenets of international justice. In simple terms the UN is violating the rights of the international community thus becoming instrument to death, destruction and mayhem.
No one believes that the UN is a model of justice. There exists no due process, court, judge or, legal systems whereby one can litigate a case or defend accusations. There exists no mechanism for law-making and legal standards, thus no accountability for damages that UN decisions brings about to nations or individuals. No legal accountability for defamation, libel, recourse for false accusations or actions. No legal standards or process for litigation; no mechanism to ascertain viability of cases. No way to question the credibility of witnesses. In short no way to fight UN legally when they bring cases against nations, groups and individuals.
What is even more ominous is the fact that the UN is making cases based on phantom sources. Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) are embedded on nearly all cases making the core of the cases and providing the language that the UN uses as guideline to pursue resolutions against a given nation. Moreover, there is no way to make these groups accountable. HRW and AI have used many questionable characters including criminals to make cases. In effect, the HRW and AI have taken-away peoples voices.
The UN is a fragmented body that is used as a tool in pursuit of US and Western global hegemony. It is not an entity accountable to its constituency; nor is it an international body accountable to the world community. The lofty goals of global peace, security and stability are tools. Terrorism, human rights, press and other freedoms are used to further agendas. It is designed to demonize, penalize and justify actions against targeted nations. The so called UN charters or mandates are not geared to serve the greater good. It is therefore the perfect cover without accountability the US created to further its agenda.
Libya, Iraq, Somalia and other nations provide good examples on how the UN was used to destabilize them. These instabilities are deliberate with the sole aim of extracting the resources and gaining geopolitical advantages. Once destabilized the human and security rights of the people in these nations is ignored.
For a long time, the people and government of Eritrea have been targeted by these forces. The UN has a department called the UN Human Rights Council. Through this department, the UN appointed an agent it calls rapporteur, Ms. Sheila Keetharuth to investigate the human rights situation in Eritrea.
Ms. Sheila Keetharuth made it clear of what her report was going to look like before she even started the investigation. The outcry of the government of Eritrea of her biased approach meant nothing as Ms. Keetharuth forged ahead with collecting data to fill in the gaps in order to buttress the case against Eritrea. Ms. Keetharuth collected all the data she needed from declared enemies of Eritrea unashamedly without concern for appearance of bias, fairness or truth.
Ms. Keetharuth went interviewed criminals that have recently ransacked Eritrean embassies in UK and other places. She interviewed agents of Ethiopia, individuals that claim to be Eritrean with no proof that they are Eritreans. These people have met with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and are working openly to change the government of Eritrea.
Ms. Keetharuth forged ahead with her gathering ignoring the plea of Eritrean communities worldwide. These are the legitimate representative Eritrean communities in the Diaspora. The Organization of Eritrean Americans (OEA) and the world wide E-Smart campaign wrote Ms. Keetharuth, expressed their views, and concern and appealed to her to speak with them. She ignored them completely.
Ms. Keetharuth then went to Djibouti and Ethiopia, countries at war with Eritrea, and gathered information to indict from the belly of the enemies of Eritrea. Ethiopia is a country that ethnic cleansed 80,000 Eritreans from Ethiopia, a country with records of genocide, massive forced displacement of populations, and millions languishing in prison …. Ethiopia is at the forefront working day and night to dismantle Eritrea’s independence. Yet Keetharuth found it appropriate to conduct investigation protected by Ethiopian authorities.
After gathering information to indict Eritrea from Djibouti and Ethiopia, she presented her case to The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) with recommendations in a sense playing the investigator and prosecutor. The setting where she presented the case was neither a courtroom nor a panel discussion to argue the matter. It was a lynch mob designed to make a case and hung Eritrea. Caucasian men representing NATO block nations stood one after another and read similar statements accusing Eritrea of human rights violations and all recommended that the UN continue cooperating with Ms. Keetharuth and asked to extend her mandate.
To make matters worse, the UNHRC stating that Somalia, Nigeria and Djibouti tabled a resolution to extend the mandate expanded the scope and range of the guidelines to hasten the lynching. This is also a ploy to continue the illegal sanctions by making it humanitarian issue rather than what they initially accused Eritrea of arming Somalis.
The question what it means to “table” a resolution? Are Somalia, Nigeria and Djibouti accusing Eritrea of human rights violations? What standard governed that these nations table a resolution? Why were they selected? Did they volunteer? If so, where they openly questioned of their motives…
Somalia, Nigeria and Djibouti possess no moral high ground above any nation in Africa. Nigeria is the most corrupt and worst human rights violator in the world. Somalia is barely alive as nation and Djibouti has turned into a military base for NATO member countries. France has long been there, there are estimated 10,000 US troops based in Djibouti. It is laughable that they were allowed to be in a position to table a decision. However, that is the on-your-face message Western block nations want to send to African nations that want to breathe independently.
Somalia, Nigeria and Djibouti are not presenting cases; they are not prosecutors, solicitors or accusers they are simply giving their African names to validate the crimes of the West covered in the name of human rights.
Conclusion
The UN Human Rights Council’s decisions are directed by the West. They have no genuine interest for the well-being of the people of Eritrea or Africa. What the above injustice demonstrates is that the rights of Africans, in this case Eritrea, are violated in a manner worse than before African nations became independent. The process of re-enslavement of Africans is in full force. This time however, the safety-net that Africans hoped for when they received the title for nationhood is being stripped. The template for the new dark era for Africans is engraved deep and threatening to take hold brazenly in the open.
There exists no concern for humanity today. The humanitarian interventions of the West today mean millions dead and millions displaced. When targeted, the destiny of that target-nation is fragmentation based on religious, ethnic and other cracks that they crate.
One can disagree with what Eritrea is doing. But what is being done to Eritrea at the UN is lynching of the highest form that all justice loving people need to concern with. If the Westerners have interest on peace the first order of business should be to urge Ethiopia to vacate Eritrean territories and restore normalcy. This will open doors for cooperation, trade and stability That is how they can start helping the human rights situation not just on Eritrea but the entire region.
The way the UN is conducting business represents the worst of what world community offers and thus a recipe to the undoing of the UN.
The writer is an Eritrean-American activist and can be contacted through [email protected]
