U.S. will protest Libya's chairing UN rights body By Richard Waddington
GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States plans to break with tradition and force a vote at the U.N.'s top human rights body in a bid to stop Libya taking the chair at the March annual session, Western diplomats said Monday. They said that Washington would take the unusual step of demanding a ballot at a Jan. 20 preparatory meeting of the Geneva-based Human Rights Commission, which probes abuses around the world, despite the fact it was sure to lose. "They intend to call a vote and to vote against Libya," one Western diplomat told Reuters. Officials at the U.S. mission in Geneva declined to comment. Washington has in the past accused Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi of backing terrorism, and while relations have been improving, it was not ready to see Libya take over such a sensitive post unopposed, diplomats said. The chairmanship of the Commission, whose annual session in Geneva runs from March 17-April 25, is traditionally awarded by rotation, with the right to name the candidate falling each year to one of the body's five regional groupings. Never since the Commission was launched in 1947 has a regional choice of chairman been put to a ballot, even in the depths of the Cold War, U.N. officials said. This year it was Africa's turn and despite intense international pressure, not just from the United States, African countries have stuck by Libya as their candidate. PROVOCATIVE CHOICE "It was certainly a provocative choice," said another Western diplomat. The United Nations is pressing Libya to accept responsibility for the 1988 airliner bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, in which 270 people died and for which a Libyan agent was jailed by a special Scottish court in 2001. Human rights activists have also long accused Libya of detaining government opponents, prohibiting political parties and muzzling the press. Western diplomats said that nobody expected Washington to come close to mustering the majority needed on the 53-member Commission to block Libya. "They are just trying to make a point," said another diplomat. Asia and Middle Eastern states are increasingly opposed to the singling out of states for criticism during the annual sessions and would reject any bid to stop African countries using their right to name the chairman, diplomats said. Even the European Union, which has seven representatives on the body, had not yet reached a common position on the issue, they added. Leading EU member Italy, which is not currently on the Commission, has close commercial ties to the North African state and was a leading campaigner for the lifting of U.N. sanctions imposed on Libya for Lockerbie. The sanctions have been suspended but not formally removed. U.N. officials said that Human Rights Commissioner Sergio Vieira de Mello would cut short a tour of three African countries in order to be back in Geneva for next week's meeting because of the controversy the vote was likely to cause. 01/13/03 11:05 ET
