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HRC Election Only a Measure of External Trade of Each Candidate!

Dilrook Kannangara

Another human rights disaster caused by extreme hypocrisy unfolds at the HRC. If there is an election funnier than an Iraqi Presidential election under Saddam Husain, it must be the Human Rights Council's (HRC) election held recently. While a number of well-to-do countries have refrained from even considering their entry to the HRC including Singapore, a few seats became vacant in the 47 member Council. In the Asian region, six (6) nations were competing for four (4) vacancies. The four contenders with the largest worth of external trade secured their seats while the two smallest nations, in terms of external trade, missed out. This was the case in every regional election; the volume of external trade decided the winners. The only exception was the defeat of Czech Republic. This is the reality right across the HRC. Its elections are all about economic ties and have nothing whatsoever to do with human rights. Large scale human rights violators have made it to the Council without a problem either thanks partly due to their importance as trade partners relative to the few contestants and partly due to the very few number of nations wanting to join the Council.

Replacing the Human Rights Commission with the Human Rights Council two years ago has not solved the problem. The problem lies not in the name, the composition or the election, but in the sheer hypocritical disposition of the entity that looks into alleged human rights violations from a dictatorial point of view. Purported human rights concerns has become a tool for political and military interference in sovereign nations. This is only a change in the modus operandi of the colonial greed which aims to get rich and powerful at the expense of others. This is amply visible in the manner human rights agencies function with total disregard for fundamental rights of citizens of sovereign nations. Fundamental rights are legally enforceable rights of citizens of a country. These rights exist only until the sovereignty of the country in question remains in tact. As an example, Iraqis and Afghans seem to have no fundamental rights whatsoever as decision makers of their own countries where their puppet governments work for the betterment of the invaders. Destroying sovereignty and thereby destroying fundamental rights of a nation in order to advance human rights is worse than robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Human rights agencies must learn to co-operate with democratically elected governments. They must also understand and accept the priorities of the whole population. Often human rights is the second priority when safety is threatened. In such a situation, overreacting to human rights issues only jeopardizes national security.

Some NGOs are trying to put the cart before the horse in an attempt to stop Sri Lanka advancing in the right direction. Sri Lanka's first priority should be annihilation of Tamil Tiger terrorists so that its twenty million citizens can live in a law abiding society. Protecting human rights of a few thousand should not be the priority to the extent that it stands in the way of achieving a terror-free state for all.

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