Sudan’s election to the UN Human Rights Council is all but certain, after it emerged that the Sudanese candidate has the full backing of the African Group in the UN.
Although Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, a war lord from his regime is set to take a seat on the panel.
Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, has compared it to putting “Jack the Ripper in charge of a women’s shelter,”
The Geneva based NGO has called on High Commissioner Navi Pillay to denounce the near-inevitable election of Sudan to the council.
Neuer said Pillay should be a “moral voice” and urge other African nations to call for “unequivocal opposition to Sudan’s scandalous” bid for the election that will add 18 member nations in all.
“Just a year after the human rights council sought to exorcise the ghosts of its past by suspending Col. Muammar Qaddafi’s Libya — which infamously chaired the body in 2003, and was reelected a member in 2010 — it is now set to replace him with a tyrant wanted for genocide by the International Criminal Court. For how long must we have the inmates running the asylum?”
Neuer said the reputation of the previous human rights commission “never recovered” after Libya its chair in 2003.
“The UN and the cause of human rights will be severely damaged if and when Al-Bashir’s Sudanese regime wins a seat,” he said.
US authorities have also slammed the development.
"Sudan, a consistent human rights violator, does not meet the Council’s own standards for membership," said Kurtis Cooper, deputy spokesman for the United States Mission to the United Nations.
"It would be inappropriate for Sudan to have a seat on the Council while the Sudanese head of State is under International Criminal Court indictment for war crimes in Darfur and the government of Sudan continues to use violence to inflame tensions along its border with South Sudan."
