I wanted to take a quick look at the newest nonpermanent members of the UNSC. These are Azerbaijan (Former USSR), Guatemala (unable to control its own territories), Morocco (one of Obama's Arab Spring countries), Pakistan (Soviet ally), and Togo (a tiny and twisted nation).
The bottom line up fromt is that these countries are rife with human traficking, sex slave sales, oppression of their own people to include in the case of Pakistan ethnic cleansing against religious minorities under and Islamic rule, enforced disappearances, and many other crimes against humanity, I can say that last one as, under the UN description of crimes against humanity, these charges apply. These are crimes that the ICC has charged 29 people from six African nations. With twwo more allies on the UNSC I can confidently state that the US will have even less impact on the Council and with resolutions/sanctions than before. This is not good for US interests and activities abroad.
That being said, read through some of the exerpts and summaries below. The links I used to collect this information are included at the end.
Azerbaijan
In Azerbaijan it is easy enough to find human trafficking for sex and forced labor, restricions on media even the elimination/disappearance of stations and bloggers critical of the government. Victims are sent abroad into the UAE and Turkey for those who can afford to buy human flesh.
Governmental brutality goes hand in hand with enforced disappearances. Both of these rmain to be common occurances.
The State Department in 2009 reported
"Azerbaijan is a source, transit, and limited destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Women and children from Azerbaijan are trafficked to Turkey and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. Men and boys are trafficked to Russia for the purpose of forced labor. Men and women are also trafficked to Iran, Pakistan, and the UAE for purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labor. Some men are trafficked within Azerbaijan for the purpose of forced labor and women and children are trafficked internally for forced prostitution and forced labor, including forced begging.- U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009[full country report]"
Now Clinton refers to Azerbaijan as venerable.
Guatemala
Drug trafficking, drug violence that is at the top of extreme, official corruption, and an array of human rights violations including perpetrators at the higest levels of governemtn make Guatemala, in my opinion, nothing that I would want to see with any say on international laws or restrictions.
Aside from the severe police brutality and drug violence, the people of his country have to deal daily with the MS-13 and other severely violent international organizations.
Even the UN itself states that along drug routtes the murder rates are among the highest in the world.
The US Department of Treasury has added two persons and 24 entities to their watchlist under the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
Amnesty International wrote the below so well I am including it verbatim
"Guatemala's 36-year armed conflict ended in 1996. The goal of the December 1996 Peace Accords was a state based on the rule of law, but today Guatemala continues to be crushed by the rule of impunity, as well as extreme social inequality, and one of the highest levels of violent crime anywhere in Latin America."
Amnesty International lists
"Unbridled impunity threatening the rule of law, including failure to prosecute former president Efraín Rios Montt and other high officials for hundreds of massacres and other human rights crimes committed during the 1960-1996 civil conflict"
Over 2500 brutal killings since 2001, and the failure to investigate and prosecute these and other violent crimes against women and continues today. Assaults, death threats, and killings of human rights activists continues. Assaults, death threats, and killings of witnesses, members of the judiciary, forensic anthropologists, and others involved in investigations of human rights crimes continues. Social cleansing; killings by state and private security forces, targeting street children, LGBT people, sex workers, alleged youth gang members, and other crimes continue today.
Tacit state support of clandestine, illegally armed organizations linked to state agents and organized crime, and failure to support the UN-backed Commission for the Investigation of Illegal Bodies and Clandestine Security Apparatus
Why the UN failed to read its own reports on Guatemala (U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime estimates) before putting it into the SECURITY Council I will never understand. Unless it is raw, unmitigated corruption, then I will not understand.
Morocco
Morocco is, like a number of other UNSC members, is a source, destination, and transit country for victims of human trafficking. Victimology includes men, women, biys, and girls. Internally ans internationally girls and women are bought and sold for sex slaves. Men and boys are sold for labor. External countries where buyers are located include both the EU and the Middle East. Some even wind up in Nigeria as slaves to the Nigerian drug gangs and terroristic groups.
Morocco does not comply with standards ro eliminate trafficking. This may change to some degree since the Arab Spring
Responding to the pro-democracy Arab Spring movements and to pro-reform demonstrations in Morocco, King Mohammed VI proposed in June constitutional amendments with substantial human rights guarantees but few significant curbs on the monarch’s own powers. The electorate voted the amendments into law in July.
The new constitution recognizes Amazigh, the Berber language, as an official language and prohibits torture, inhuman, and degrading treatment; arbitrary detention; and enforced disappearances. It also requires any person who is arrested to be informed “immediately” of the reason for his arrest, and to enjoy the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial. However at this writing the amendments had yet to transform Morocco’s decidedly mixed human rights performance. But, I doubt it will change much.
There is not much data I could find about Morocco from November 2011 on.
Pakistan
Arbitrary detention, torture, deaths in custody, forced disappearances, and extrajudicial execution are rampant. The government of Pakistan has failed to protect individuals – particularly women, religious minorities and children – from violence and other human rights abuses committed in the home, in the community, and while in legal custody, according to Amnesty International. Pakistan’s human rights situation deteriorated significantly in 2011 as the military, which operates with impunity,
A dramatic increase in killings across the southwestern province of Balochistan was recorded as were at least 800 politically motivated killings in the southern city of Karachi.
Enforced disappearances prior to 2009 remain unsolved and the victims unlocated; however, 134 missing persons, interestingly all of these cases are people who recent were disappearance (in 2009-2010).
Pakistan is officially Muslim and Islam is its official religion. All other religions remain as viable targets of private and state sponsored violence. While Syria is busy killing its Sunni population, Pakistan focuses its angst on the Shi'ite, other religions, and school girls.
As it began its term as a nonpermanent member of the UNSC, human trafficking saw a sharp increase. Many fear that the trend will increase.
In Balochistan, reports include the following quotes
“Even if the president or chief justice tells us to release you, we won’t. We can torture you, or kill you, or keep you for years at our will. It is only the Army chief and the [intelligence] chief that we obey.”– Pakistani official to Bashir Azeem, the 76-year-old secretary-general of the Baloch Republican Party, during his unacknowledged detention, April 2010
“Disappearances of people of Balochistan are the most burning issue in the country. Due to this issue, the situation in Balochistan is at its worst.”– Supreme Court Justice Javed Iqbal, commenting on the establishment of the Commission of Inquiry for Missing Persons on May 4, 2010.
“One of them pointed his gun at Abdul Nasir and shouted, ‘Get up!’ As soon as Abdul Nasir got off the ground the man walked him to their car. Since that time I have not seen Abdul.”– Witness to enforced disappearance of Abdul Nasir, June 2010
How is anyone going to benefit from this abuser of its own people, ethnic cleansing ally of Russia being on the UNSC?
Togo
What can I say about this tiny strip of land in West Africa? In short, more of the same reports of violence, oppression, police brutality, trafficking in children for servitude or sex,
Even though Togo has recently held a reasonably fair election there still is execessive use of security force, torture, life threatening prison conditions, official impunity, governmental corruption, and the like.
Togo, a small country with small reports, led by small people who paracitically live off their countrymen as hosts.
http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/guatemalaWorld Report 2012: Guatemala
http://sanctionswiki.org/Guatemala
http://sanctionswiki.org/Togo
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,FREEHOU,,AZE,,4fd5dd33c,0.html
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/21/watch_list
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/03/08/another_disputed_election_another_crackdown
http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2011/af/186252.htm
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/06/18/postcards_from_hell_2012#39
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2011/07/28/we-can-torture-kill-or-keep-you-years
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95117/PAKISTAN-Sharp-rise-in-human-trafficking-in-Sindh-Province
http://www.hrw.org/asia/pakistan
http://www.statehoodandfreedom.org/en/moroccan-occupation/moroccan-human-rights-abuses
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Morocco
http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/morocco-and-western-sahara
World Report Chapter: Guatemala
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_Morocco
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_Togo
The bottom line up fromt is that these countries are rife with human traficking, sex slave sales, oppression of their own people to include in the case of Pakistan ethnic cleansing against religious minorities under and Islamic rule, enforced disappearances, and many other crimes against humanity, I can say that last one as, under the UN description of crimes against humanity, these charges apply. These are crimes that the ICC has charged 29 people from six African nations. With twwo more allies on the UNSC I can confidently state that the US will have even less impact on the Council and with resolutions/sanctions than before. This is not good for US interests and activities abroad.
That being said, read through some of the exerpts and summaries below. The links I used to collect this information are included at the end.
Azerbaijan
In Azerbaijan it is easy enough to find human trafficking for sex and forced labor, restricions on media even the elimination/disappearance of stations and bloggers critical of the government. Victims are sent abroad into the UAE and Turkey for those who can afford to buy human flesh.
Governmental brutality goes hand in hand with enforced disappearances. Both of these rmain to be common occurances.
The State Department in 2009 reported
"Azerbaijan is a source, transit, and limited destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Women and children from Azerbaijan are trafficked to Turkey and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. Men and boys are trafficked to Russia for the purpose of forced labor. Men and women are also trafficked to Iran, Pakistan, and the UAE for purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labor. Some men are trafficked within Azerbaijan for the purpose of forced labor and women and children are trafficked internally for forced prostitution and forced labor, including forced begging.- U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009[full country report]"
Now Clinton refers to Azerbaijan as venerable.
Guatemala
Drug trafficking, drug violence that is at the top of extreme, official corruption, and an array of human rights violations including perpetrators at the higest levels of governemtn make Guatemala, in my opinion, nothing that I would want to see with any say on international laws or restrictions.
Aside from the severe police brutality and drug violence, the people of his country have to deal daily with the MS-13 and other severely violent international organizations.
Even the UN itself states that along drug routtes the murder rates are among the highest in the world.
The US Department of Treasury has added two persons and 24 entities to their watchlist under the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
Amnesty International wrote the below so well I am including it verbatim
"Guatemala's 36-year armed conflict ended in 1996. The goal of the December 1996 Peace Accords was a state based on the rule of law, but today Guatemala continues to be crushed by the rule of impunity, as well as extreme social inequality, and one of the highest levels of violent crime anywhere in Latin America."
Amnesty International lists
"Unbridled impunity threatening the rule of law, including failure to prosecute former president Efraín Rios Montt and other high officials for hundreds of massacres and other human rights crimes committed during the 1960-1996 civil conflict"
Over 2500 brutal killings since 2001, and the failure to investigate and prosecute these and other violent crimes against women and continues today. Assaults, death threats, and killings of human rights activists continues. Assaults, death threats, and killings of witnesses, members of the judiciary, forensic anthropologists, and others involved in investigations of human rights crimes continues. Social cleansing; killings by state and private security forces, targeting street children, LGBT people, sex workers, alleged youth gang members, and other crimes continue today.
Tacit state support of clandestine, illegally armed organizations linked to state agents and organized crime, and failure to support the UN-backed Commission for the Investigation of Illegal Bodies and Clandestine Security Apparatus
Why the UN failed to read its own reports on Guatemala (U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime estimates) before putting it into the SECURITY Council I will never understand. Unless it is raw, unmitigated corruption, then I will not understand.
Morocco
Morocco is, like a number of other UNSC members, is a source, destination, and transit country for victims of human trafficking. Victimology includes men, women, biys, and girls. Internally ans internationally girls and women are bought and sold for sex slaves. Men and boys are sold for labor. External countries where buyers are located include both the EU and the Middle East. Some even wind up in Nigeria as slaves to the Nigerian drug gangs and terroristic groups.
Morocco does not comply with standards ro eliminate trafficking. This may change to some degree since the Arab Spring
Responding to the pro-democracy Arab Spring movements and to pro-reform demonstrations in Morocco, King Mohammed VI proposed in June constitutional amendments with substantial human rights guarantees but few significant curbs on the monarch’s own powers. The electorate voted the amendments into law in July.
The new constitution recognizes Amazigh, the Berber language, as an official language and prohibits torture, inhuman, and degrading treatment; arbitrary detention; and enforced disappearances. It also requires any person who is arrested to be informed “immediately” of the reason for his arrest, and to enjoy the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial. However at this writing the amendments had yet to transform Morocco’s decidedly mixed human rights performance. But, I doubt it will change much.
There is not much data I could find about Morocco from November 2011 on.
Pakistan
Arbitrary detention, torture, deaths in custody, forced disappearances, and extrajudicial execution are rampant. The government of Pakistan has failed to protect individuals – particularly women, religious minorities and children – from violence and other human rights abuses committed in the home, in the community, and while in legal custody, according to Amnesty International. Pakistan’s human rights situation deteriorated significantly in 2011 as the military, which operates with impunity,
A dramatic increase in killings across the southwestern province of Balochistan was recorded as were at least 800 politically motivated killings in the southern city of Karachi.
Enforced disappearances prior to 2009 remain unsolved and the victims unlocated; however, 134 missing persons, interestingly all of these cases are people who recent were disappearance (in 2009-2010).
Pakistan is officially Muslim and Islam is its official religion. All other religions remain as viable targets of private and state sponsored violence. While Syria is busy killing its Sunni population, Pakistan focuses its angst on the Shi'ite, other religions, and school girls.
As it began its term as a nonpermanent member of the UNSC, human trafficking saw a sharp increase. Many fear that the trend will increase.
In Balochistan, reports include the following quotes
“Even if the president or chief justice tells us to release you, we won’t. We can torture you, or kill you, or keep you for years at our will. It is only the Army chief and the [intelligence] chief that we obey.”– Pakistani official to Bashir Azeem, the 76-year-old secretary-general of the Baloch Republican Party, during his unacknowledged detention, April 2010
“Disappearances of people of Balochistan are the most burning issue in the country. Due to this issue, the situation in Balochistan is at its worst.”– Supreme Court Justice Javed Iqbal, commenting on the establishment of the Commission of Inquiry for Missing Persons on May 4, 2010.
“One of them pointed his gun at Abdul Nasir and shouted, ‘Get up!’ As soon as Abdul Nasir got off the ground the man walked him to their car. Since that time I have not seen Abdul.”– Witness to enforced disappearance of Abdul Nasir, June 2010
How is anyone going to benefit from this abuser of its own people, ethnic cleansing ally of Russia being on the UNSC?
Togo
What can I say about this tiny strip of land in West Africa? In short, more of the same reports of violence, oppression, police brutality, trafficking in children for servitude or sex,
Even though Togo has recently held a reasonably fair election there still is execessive use of security force, torture, life threatening prison conditions, official impunity, governmental corruption, and the like.
Togo, a small country with small reports, led by small people who paracitically live off their countrymen as hosts.
http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/guatemalaWorld Report 2012: Guatemala
http://sanctionswiki.org/Guatemala
http://sanctionswiki.org/Togo
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,FREEHOU,,AZE,,4fd5dd33c,0.html
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/21/watch_list
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/03/08/another_disputed_election_another_crackdown
http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2011/af/186252.htm
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/06/18/postcards_from_hell_2012#39
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2011/07/28/we-can-torture-kill-or-keep-you-years
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95117/PAKISTAN-Sharp-rise-in-human-trafficking-in-Sindh-Province
http://www.hrw.org/asia/pakistan
http://www.statehoodandfreedom.org/en/moroccan-occupation/moroccan-human-rights-abuses
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Morocco
http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/morocco-and-western-sahara
World Report Chapter: Guatemala
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_Morocco
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_Togo
Wow. Just... wow. I've known folks from some of these countries over the years who have come to the US to get a chance at a life of some sanity. One girl left Guatemala with her family during the war because her brother barely escaped abduction into military service; he was 12 at the time. Another is a young lady working as a missionary in one of these lands, who has personally witnessed the execution of men, women and children for questioning the truth of Islam.
ReplyDeleteThe United Nations, once a beautiful dream of light and hope to a world weary of war, has become increasingly a podium for dictators and a private club for nations that despise peaceful coexistence. How long before we wake up and come out of this dream-turned-nightmare?
It is tragic that an organization of once hope and promise allows these things to happen. Look up my older posts regarding the UN.
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