Shirking our responsibility to protect
Share
18
The Guardian, Tuesday 19 April 2011
Article history
When, in the context of their commitment to protect civilians from the bloodbaths and massacres perpetrated by despotic and brutal regimes (Cluster munitions fired by Tripoli regime – witnesses, 16 April), will the UK and the US honour their pledge to protect the 3,400 defenceless Iranian exiles who live in Camp Ashraf in Iraq, the desert town that has been their home for over a decade? These are officially "protected persons" under the fourth Geneva convention, and the UK and the US have clear obligations in international law towards them. Far greater, actually, than their responsibilities to the people of Libya, yet they remain silent, while these innocent men and women, under siege for the last two years, are being murdered, and all survivors now threatened with deportation to torture and death in Iran, a regime infamous for its horrific treatment of its critics and protesters.
Their silence and refusal to take action could lead to their prosecution at the ICC for violating international humanitarian law, yet the UK press has so far not adequately covered these ongoing atrocities.
Margaret Owen
London
• Regarding Hillary Clinton's comments on the use of cluster bombs by Gaddafi's forces, she should be reminded that the US is the world's largest producer of cluster bombs, with a stockpile of millions. In August 2010 the Obama administration refused to sign the world convention banning the use of cluster bombs. In 1999, during her husband's presidency, the US dropped cluster bombs on several Serbian villages, killing dozens of Serb civilians. The world agrees that the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas is a war crime. Yet Obama, who holds the Nobel peace prize, refused to sign the convention banning their use. Another example of US actions not living up to its words.
George D Lewis
Brackley, Northamptonshire
• The start of the UN security council negotiations on Western Sahara this week raises questions. Namely, why the security council has been quick to act in the name of democracy and human rights in Libya and Ivory Coast, yet allowed 20 years of repression in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara to continue unabated?
Not only has the security council failed to resolve the Western Sahara conflict, but it has also neglected its duty to protect the human rights of the Saharawi people. For the last two years France has opposed calls for the UN mission in Western Sahara to monitor human rights, leaving it the only contemporary UN mission without a human rights component.
For two decades UN peacekeepers have watched in silence as the Saharawi people have faced horrific forms of torture. During the current renewal of the mission, the security council has the opportunity to condemn France's indefensible position in the strongest terms, monitor abuse and take swift, decisive action to resolve this conflict.
Mark Williams MP All-party parliamentary group, Western Sahara, Jeremy Corbyn MP Parliamentary human rights group, Dave Prentis General secretary, Unison, Natalie Sharples Western Sahara Campaign, Stefan Simanowitz Free Western Sahara Network
• If the foreign secretary does not heed the UN security council's arms embargo on Libya (Arab world and west unite to back rebels, 14 April), there's a real risk that UK tax payers' pounds could end up putting guns into the hands of children. The supply of small arms could not only provide the Libyan people with the means to defend the civilian population, as William Hague argues, but increase the easy use of arms by children and, therefore, the use of children as combatants.
The foreign secretary must be mindful not to aggravate the use of child soldiers by supplying arms; and put measures in place to prevent arms reaching the estimated 300,000 child soldiers already engaged in conflict around the world. We urge Mr Hague to signal the UK's commitment to this issue by renewing the previous (Labour) government's strategy on children affected by armed conflict.
David Thomson
Director of policy and programmes, World Vision UK
Slid bar
The Occupation We Choose to Ignore’
Do you know who I am? I am a Sahrawi. The land to which I refer is what is known today as the non-self-governing territory ofWestern Sahara. My country was colonized by the Spanish and the French between 1884 and 1975, divided in two and occupied by Moroccan and Mauritanian forces thereafter, and has been ruled exclusively by the Kingdom of Morocco from 1979 until the present.
The Western Sahara: forgotten first source of the Arab Spring
this is one part of the Arab Spring that western governments don't want to talk about. And their silence, and the UN's complicity in it, is why that repression continues, and a terrible injustice is perpetuated.
ISS - News - The Western Sahara and North African People’s Power
Respect the right of individuals to peacefully express their opinions regarding the status and future of the Western Sahara and to document violations of human rights
King of Morocco to be biggest benefactor of EU trade agreement - Telegraph
it has emerged that the single biggest beneficiary of the deal will be the King of Morocco, who is head of one of the three largest agricultural producers in the north African country and lays claim to 12,000 hectares of the nation's most fertile farmland.
North African Dispatches Africa’s Forgotten Colony
Oblivion it seems is the current reality for the arid North African territory of Western Sahara; often referred to as Africa’s ‘Last Colony’. In my opinion, it would be more accurate to describe it as ‘Africa’s Forgotten Colony’.
0 comments:
Post a Comment