UNITED NATIONS, Dec 8: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday warned nations against violating human rights in the fight against terror, saying governments that abandon the moral high ground play into the hands of terrorists.
Addressing a meeting organised by the Human Rights Watch, Mr Annan questioned whether he had succeeded, after 10 years in office, in making the United Nations into an effective defender of human rights.
“To judge by what is happening in Darfur, our performance has not improved much since the disasters of Bosnia and Rwanda,” Mr Annan said. “Sixty years after the liberation of the Nazi death camps, and 30 years after the Cambodian killing fields, the promise of ‘never again’ is ringing hollow.”
In his last speech in honour of the International Human Rights Day to be observed on December 10, Mr Annan marks his farewell to the post he has held for two terms. He used the occasion to set out steps that UN members and the incoming secretary-general should take to improve the situation, starting with the need to build upon the “momentous doctrine,” agreed by world leaders last year, of the responsibility to protect against crimes against humanity.
“We must develop the responsibility to protect into a powerful international norm that is not only quoted but put into practice, whenever and wherever it is needed,” Mr Annan said.
It is vital, Mr Annan said, to take action before genocide is under way. He urged UN members and his successor, Ban Ki-Moon, who will be inaugurated next week, to push through an action plan for prevention of genocide.
In his speech, Mr Annan was sharply critical of the methods used by Washington to conduct its “war on terror,” and warned against “abandoning the moral high ground and playing into the hands of terrorists.”
“We need an anti-terrorism strategy that does not merely pay lip-service to the defence of human rights but is built on it,” Mr Annan said. “That is why secret prisons have no place in our struggle against terrorism, and why all places where terrorism suspects are detained must be accessible to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Leading promoters of human rights undermine their own influence when they fail to live up to these principles.”
In a parting shot clearly directed at the Bush administration, Mr Annan also warned against making exceptions to the rules on torture.
“Once we adopt a policy of making exceptions to these rules or excusing breaches of them, no matter how narrow, we are on a slippery slope. The line cannot be held half way down. We must defend it at the top.”
