U.S. will protest Libya's chairing UN rights body
By Richard Waddington
GENEVA, Jan 13 (Reuters) - The United States said on Monday it will try to
prevent Libya from chairing the U.N's top human rights body, breaking with
tradition and demanding a vote on the issue because it accuses Tripoli of
human rights abuses.
Washington plans to take the unusual step of calling for 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 is widely expected to
lose.
"Libya's record as an abuser of human rights is well known. It is also a
country under U.N. sanctions because it has yet to fulfill the conditions
related to the bombing of Pan Am 103," U.S. State Department spokesman
Richard Boucher said, referring to the 1988 airliner bombing over Lockerbie,
Scotland.
"We cannot reward such terrible conduct with a leadership position," Boucher
told reporters in Washington.
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 in Geneva.
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 a 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.
In Washington, the State Department rejected Gaddafi's suggestion in a
Newsweek-Washington Post interview published over the weekend that the United
States contribute to a fund to compensate relatives of the victims.
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.
Asked if Washington was likely to prevail, a senior State Department official
in Washington said: "We're pushing hard, but it's a steep hill."
Asia and Middle Eastern nations 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 with 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 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 16:19 ET
