By Aman Nebiat,
Is the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) really an organization created to investigate & bring about justice & freedom to individuals or is it a tool devised skillfully to promote to block countries from creating true democracy, to promote oppression, starvation, injustice & chaos among populations in the world to benefit and advance US hegemony?
On its home page, OHCHR describes itself as:
“The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) represents the world’s commitment to universal ideals of human dignity. We have a unique mandate from the international community to promote and protect all human rights.”
These are very heavy and glossy words for an organization that has little to show for it.
If promoting and protecting human rights is the unique mandate that OHCHR stands and exists for, why has it been silent then for the last 12 years and continues to be silent now when the basic human rights of Eritreans are violated as they are displaced and uprooted from their land due to Ethiopia’s aggression and illegal occupation of sovereign Eritrean territories in defiance of EEBC ruling and Algiers Agreements?
Or is it also its mandate to have two sets of standards one by which the human rights of populations of countries like Eritrea are not worthy enough to protect while the rights of human rights violators like Ethiopia and sponsor nations are protected?
Furthermore, why hasn’t OHCHR made it its daily task to perform rigorous and objective investigations and challenge the UN, EU, AU and the US for failing to shoulder their responsibility to pressure Ethiopia to accept and implement the rulings of the EEBC unconditionally as it signed the Algiers agreement in the presence of these guarantors? Why the silence and refuse to apply the same representation of the world’s commitment to universal ideals of human dignity? Contrary to this, ever since the Ethiopia-Eritrea between 1998 ~ 2000, OHCHR has been engaging in various acts of bullying by fabricating claims and stories to defame Eritrean authorities.
If OHCHR truly wants to promote human dignity, it needs to start by looking at the conditions of the internally displaced Eritreans during the 1998~2000 Ethiopia-Eritrea war and all the efforts and steps the Eritrean government took to rehabilitate these war victims without any help from the outside world.
In addition to displacing Eritreans, the war also had a negative effect on Eritrea’s economy as normally any war do. This too became the burden of the Eritrean government and people in which they took many brave and revolutionary actions not only to heal the wounds of the unnecessary and costly war but to dramatically improve the infrastructure, man power, education, healthcare, political and social fabric of the Eritrean society in which many successes have been registered.
However, despite all of the recognition and praise that Eritrea has garnered in its progress, it’s achievements are purposely ignored by OHCHR and all of the sworn enemies of Eritrea for various reasons such as to derail the return of Eritrea’s annual growth to the pre 1998~2000 war of approximately 7%, to prevent Eritrea from becoming an economic and technological hub in the Horn of Africa, to rob Eritreans the chance of creating a true democratic system which others can emulate, to weaken Eritrea militarily and to force Eritrea to become darling of the vast aid industry so that foreign multinational companies can get easy access to its natural resources just a few among the many other reasons.
It is very well documented in the leaked Wiki-Leaks documents that all of these un-warranted criminal actions against a peace loving Eritrean people are designed in Washington and facilitated by the client and puppet Ethiopian government and shame on OHCHR for not calling a spade a spade and holding these destabilizing factors accountable for their unjust actions.
Unfortunately, OHCHR, HRW nor Amnesty International has a vested interest in respecting and protecting the human rights of the Eritrean people or anyone in the world other than their fat checks, vacations homes, retirement funds, investments and the costly wining and dining that they afford themselves with tax payer’s money. Contrary to what they preach they stand for, they are just simply a tool to facilitate the injustices and abuses of human rights committed by the US and other world powers.
In their recent meeting with Eritrean government officials, OHCHR members informed the Eritrean Government “further engagement would depend on the Government allowing access to all Eritreans across the country, including all detainees in all places of detention, as well as the Military Training Centre in Sawa.” The US representative Peter Mulrean told the assembly on Monday that “The government of Eritrea’s “widespread violation of human rights and the lack of prospects for participatory democracy contribute to large numbers of Eritreans fleeing the country” respectively.
As long as OHCHR, the UN or any other party are standing by the side lines quietly or they are active participants in the grave injustices committed against the Eritrean people they have no moral grounds to educate the Eritrean people on what freedom, rule of law and justice is all about. All of those entities that are pretending to care for the plight of the Eritrean people and shedding crocodile tears must first and foremost stop their illegal and violent actions against the Eritrean people and secondly, they must shoulder their responsibility to force Ethiopia to abide by the EEBC rulings and allow the demarcation of the border without any preconditions.
Finally, just like any other nation, Eritrea has full rights to own and foster a functioning military force to protect its population and defend itself from any aggression and SAWA is that salvation. It is here and it will exist as long as the Eritrean people need it.
The Eritrean people have given up long ago expecting the UN, OHCHR and of those self-appointed human rights defenders to respect their rights and stand up against all forms of aggression against them.
The Eritrean people are also very well aware of the repeated crimes committed by these entities starting from the 1952 speech of John Dulles Foster’s unjust stand to decide the fate of Eritreans to every single criminal and unjust actions taken since then are not to the interests of the Eritrean but people to victimize them.
Whether you like it or not, Eritreans have a functioning, participatory democracy where every Eritrean regardless of their ethnic, religious, gender or economic standing are afforded equal opportunity to participate in all areas that affect their lives and in deciding the future of Eritrea.
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The writer Aman Nebiat can be reached through iguskemambesa_at_gmail.com
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