In his final official communication to Volker Turk, the High
Commissioner for Human Rights at Palais Wilson, Geneva, Craig Mokhiber, the
Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, has
expressed deep concern over ongoing human rights violations in Gaza. Mokhiber,
a veteran human rights lawyer with over three decades of experience, laid out his
profound worries and outlined a ten-point plan to address the critical
situation.
In the letter, Mokhiber began by, ‘This will be my last
official communication to you as Director of the New York Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights.’
He wrote, ‘I write at a moment of great anguish for the
world, including for many of our colleagues. Once again, we are seeing a
genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the Organization that we serve appears
powerless to stop it. As someone who has investigated human rights in Palestine
since the 1980s, lived in Gaza as a UN human rights advisor in the 1990s, and
carried out several human rights missions to the country before and since, this
is deeply personal to me.’
Mokhiber drew parallels between the current situation in
Palestine and past genocides, including those against the Tutsis, Bosnian
Muslims, Yazidi, and Rohingya. He lamented the failure of the international
community, including the United Nations, to effectively prevent mass atrocities,
protect vulnerable populations, and hold perpetrators accountable. He argued
that successive waves of murder and persecution against the Palestinians have
occurred throughout the UN's existence.
Mokhiber strongly asserted that the ongoing situation in
Palestine constitutes a textbook case of genocide. He pointed to the European,
ethno-nationalist, settler colonial project in Palestine as entering its final
phase, aimed at the expedited destruction of the last remnants of indigenous
Palestinian life in Palestine. Furthermore, he criticized the complicity of the
United States, the United Kingdom, and much of Europe in supporting the Israeli
government's actions through arms sales, economic and intelligence support, and
diplomatic cover.
He also said, ‘In concert with this, western corporate
media, increasingly captured and state-adjacent, are in open breach of Article
20 of the ICCPR, continuously dehumanizing Palestinians to facilitate the
genocide, and broadcasting propaganda for war and advocacy of national, racial,
or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility,
and violence. US-based social media companies are suppressing the voices of
human rights defenders while amplifying pro-Israel propaganda. Israel lobby
online-trolls and GONGOS are harassing and smearing human rights defenders, and
western universities and employers are collaborating with them to punish those
who dare to speak out against the atrocities. In the wake of this genocide,
there must be an accounting for these actors as well, just as there was for
radio Milles Collines in Rwanda.’
‘In such circumstances, the demands on our organization for
principled and effective action are greater than ever. But we have not met the
challenge. The protective enforcement power Security Council has again been
blocked by US intransigence, the SG is under assault for the mildest of
protestations, and our human rights mechanisms are under sustained slanderous
attack by an organized, online impunity network.’
In the letter Mokhiber said, Decades of distraction by the
illusory and largely disingenuous promises of Oslo have diverted the
Organization from its core duty to defend international law, international
human rights, and the Charter itself. The mantra of the “two-state solution”
has become an open joke in the corridors of the UN, both for its utter
impossibility in fact, and for its total failure to account for the inalienable
human rights of the Palestinian people. The so-called “Quartet” has become
nothing more than a fig leaf for inaction and for subservience to a brutal
status quo. The (US-scripted) deference to “agreements between the parties
themselves” (in place of international law) was always a transparent
slight-of-hand, designed to reinforce the power of Israel over the rights of
the occupied and dispossessed Palestinians.
Mentioning the High Commissioner he said, I came to this
Organization first in the 1980s, because I found in it a principled, normbased
institution that was squarely on the side of human rights, including in cases
where the powerful US, UK, and Europe were not on our side. While my own
government, its subsidiarity institutions, and much of the US media were still
supporting or justifying South African apartheid, Israeli oppression, and
Central American death squads, the UN was standing up for the oppressed peoples
of those lands. We had international law on our side. We had human rights on
our side. We had principle on our side. Our authority was rooted in our
integrity. But no more.
‘In recent decades, key parts of the UN have surrendered to
the power of the US, and to fear of the Israel Lobby, to abandon these
principles, and to retreat from international law itself. We have lost a lot in
this abandonment, not least our own global credibility. But the Palestinian
people have sustained the biggest losses as a result of our failures. It is a
stunning historic irony that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was
adopted in the same year that the Nakba was perpetrated against the Palestinian
people. As we commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the UDHR, we would do well to
abandon the old cliché that the UDHR was born out of the atrocities that
proceeded it, and to admit that it was born alongside one of the most atrocious
genocides of the 20th Century, that of the destruction of Palestine. In some
sense, the framers were promising human rights to everyone, except the
Palestinian people. And let us remember as well, that the UN itself carries the
original sin of helping to facilitate the dispossession of the Palestinian
people by ratifying the European settler colonial project that seized
Palestinian land and turned it over to the colonists. We have much for which to
atone.’
Mentioning that the path to atonement is clear he said, we
have much to learn from the principled stance taken in cities around the world
in recent days, as masses of people stand up against the genocide, even at risk
of beatings and arrest. Palestinians and their allies, human rights defenders
of every stripe, Christian and Muslim organizations, and progressive Jewish
voices saying “not in our name”, are all leading the way. All we have to do is
to follow them.
‘Yesterday, just a few blocks from here, New York’s Grand
Central Station was completely taken over by thousands of Jewish human rights
defenders standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people and demanding an
end to Israeli tyranny (many risking arrest, in the process). In doing so, they
stripped away in an instant the Israeli hasbara propaganda point (and old
antisemitic trope) that Israel somehow represents the Jewish people. It does
not. And, as such, Israel is solely responsible for its crimes. On this point,
it bears repeating, in spite of Israel lobby smears to the contrary, that
criticism of Israel’s human rights violations is not antisemitic, any more than
criticism of Saudi violations is Islamophobic, criticism of Myanmar violations
is anti-Buddhist, or criticism of Indian violations is anti-Hindu. When they
seek to silence us with smears, we must raise our voice, not lower it. I trust
you will agree, High Commissioner, that this is what speaking truth to power is
all about.’
‘But I also find hope in those parts of the UN that have
refused to compromise the Organization’s human rights principles in spite of
enormous pressures to do so. Our independent special rapporteurs, commissions
of enquiry, and treaty body experts, alongside most of our staff, have
continued to stand up for the human rights of the Palestinian people, even as
other parts of the UN (even at the highest levels) have shamefully bowed their
heads to power. As the custodians of the human rights norms and standards,
OHCHR has a particular duty to defend those standards. Our job, I believe, is
to make our voice heard, from the SecretaryGeneral to the newest UN recruit,
and horizontally across the wider UN system, insisting that the human rights of
the Palestinian people are not up for debate, negotiation, or compromise
anywhere under the blue flag.’
‘What, then, would a UN-norm-based position look like? For
what would we work if we were true to our rhetorical admonitions about human
rights and equality for all, accountability for perpetrators, redress for
victims, protection of the vulnerable, and empowerment for rights-holders, all
under the rule of law? The answer, I believe, is simple—if we have the clarity
to see beyond the propagandistic smokescreens that distort the vision of
justice to which we are sworn, the courage to abandon fear and deference to powerful
states, and the will to truly take up the banner of human rights and peace. To
be sure, this is a long-term project and a steep climb. But we must begin now
or surrender to unspeakable horror. I see ten essential points:
1. Legitimate action: First, we in the UN must abandon the
failed (and largely disingenuous) Oslo paradigm, its illusory two-state
solution, its impotent and complicit Quartet, and its subjugation of
international law to the dictates of presumed political expediency. Our
positions must be unapologetically based on international human rights and
international law.
2. Clarity of Vision: We must stop the pretense that this is
simply a conflict over land or religion between two warring parties and admit
the reality of the situation in which a disproportionately powerful state is
colonizing, persecuting, and dispossessing an indigenous population on the
basis of their ethnicity.
3. One State based on human rights: We must support the
establishment of a single, democratic, secular state in all of historic
Palestine, with equal rights for Christians, Muslims, and Jews, and, therefore,
the dismantling of the deeply racist, settler-colonial project and an end to
apartheid across the land.
4. Fighting Apartheid: We must redirect all UN efforts and
resources to the struggle against apartheid, just as we did for South Africa in
the 1970s, 80s, and early 90s.
5. Return and Compensation: We must reaffirm and insist on
the right to return and full compensation for all Palestinians and their
families currently living in the occupied territories, in Lebanon, Jordan,
Syria, and in the diaspora across the globe.
6. Truth and Justice: We must call for a transitional
justice process, making full use of decades of accumulated UN investigations,
enquiries, and reports, to document the truth, and to ensure accountability for
all perpetrators, redress for all victims, and remedies for documented
injustices.
7. Protection: We must press for the deployment of a
well-resourced and strongly mandated UN protection force with a sustained
mandate to protect civilians from the river to the sea.
8. Disarmament: We must advocate for the removal and
destruction of Israel’s massive stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and biological
weapons, lest the conflict lead to the total destruction of the region and,
possibly, beyond.
9. Mediation: We must recognize that the US and other
western powers are in fact not credible mediators, but rather actual parties to
the conflict who are complicit with Israel in the violation of Palestinian
rights, and we must engage them as such.
10. Solidarity: We must open our doors (and the doors of the
SG) wide to the legions of Palestinian, Israeli, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian
human rights defenders who are standing in solidarity with the people of
Palestine and their human rights and stop the unconstrained flow of Israel
lobbyists to the offices of UN leaders, where they advocate for continued war,
persecution, apartheid, and impunity, and smear our human rights defenders for
their principled defense of Palestinian rights.’
He said that, ‘This will take years to achieve, and western
powers will fight us every step of the way, so we must be steadfast. In the
immediate term, we must work for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the
longstanding siege on Gaza, stand up against the ethnic cleansing of Gaza,
Jerusalem, and the West Bank (and elsewhere), document the genocidal assault in
Gaza, help to bring massive humanitarian aid and reconstruction to the
Palestinians, take care of our traumatized colleagues and their families, and
fight like hell for a principled approach in the UN’s political offices.’
‘The UN’s failure in Palestine thus far is not a reason for
us to withdraw. Rather it should give us the courage to abandon the failed
paradigm of the past, and fully embrace a more principled course. Let us, as
OHCHR, boldly and proudly join the anti-apartheid movement that is growing all
around the world, adding our logo to the banner of equality and human rights
for the Palestinian people. The world is watching. We will all be accountable
for where we stood at this crucial moment in history. Let us stand on the side
of justice.’
At the very last of the letter Mokhiber wrote, ‘I thank you,
High Commissioner, Volker, for hearing this final appeal from my desk. I will
leave the Office in a few days for the last time, after more than three decades
of service. But please do not hesitate to reach out if I can be of assistance
in the future.’
Comment
American and British forces carried out a fresh wave of strikes Saturday against 18 Huthi targets in Yemen, following weeks of unrelenting attacks on Red Sea shipping by the Iran-backed rebels.
The strikes "specifically targeted 18 Huthi targets across eight locations in Yemen" including weapons storage facilities, attack drones, air defense systems, radars, and a helicopter, a joint statement said.
It was co-signed by Australia, Bahrain, Denmark, Canada, the Netherlands and New Zealand, who gave unspecified "support" to the new round of strikes, the second this month and fourth since the rebels began their attacks on ships in the region.
"The Huthis' now more than 45 attacks on commercial and naval vessels since mid-November constitute a threat to the global economy, as well as regional security and stability, and demand an international response," the statement said.
Huthi-run Al-Masirah television reported "a series of raids on the capital Sanaa," while AFP correspondents in the rebel-controlled city in western Yemen said they heard several loud bangs.
"The United States will not hesitate to take action, as needed, to defend lives and the free flow of commerce in one of the world's most critical waterways," Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said in a separate statement after the strikes.
"We will continue to make clear to the Huthis that they will bear the consequences if they do not stop their illegal attacks, which harm Middle Eastern economies, cause environmental damage, and disrupt the delivery of humanitarian aid to Yemen and other countries."
Huthi military spokesman Yahya Saree was defiant, vowing in a social media statement that the rebels would "confront the American-British escalation with more qualitative military operations against all hostile targets in the Red and Arab Seas."
The UK Ministry of Defence said four Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR4s targeted "several very long-range drones, used by the Houthis for both reconnaissance and attack missions," on Saturday, at a site north-east of Sanaa.
Saturday's operation comes after several merchant vessels were struck this week in the region, including the fertilizer-filled Rubymar, whose crew had to abandon ship after it was hit Sunday and began taking on water.
Apart from the joint operations with Britain, the United States has also carried out unilateral strikes against Huthi positions and weaponry in Yemen, and downed dozens of missiles and drones in the Red Sea.
- Anti-ship missile downed -
Earlier on Saturday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that an American Navy ship had shot down an anti-ship ballistic missile "launched into the Gulf of Aden from Iranian-backed Huthi controlled areas of Yemen."
The missile "was likely targeting MV Torm Thor, a US-Flagged, owned, and operated chemical/oil tanker," CENTCOM said on X, formerly Twitter.
US forces on Friday also shot down three attack drones near commercial ships in the Red Sea and destroyed seven anti-ship cruise missiles on land, CENTCOM said.
The Huthis say they are targeting Israel-linked vessels in support of Palestinians in Gaza, which has been ravaged by the Israel-Hamas war.
Following previous US and UK strikes, the Huthis declared American and British interests to be legitimate targets as well.
The Huthis will "persist in upholding their religious, moral and humanitarian duties towards the Palestinian people, and their military operations will not stop unless the aggression stops and the siege on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is lifted," military spokesman Saree said.
Anger over Israel's devastating campaign in Gaza -- which began after an unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7 -- has grown across the Middle East, stoking violence involving Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Comment
Israel launched air strikes Thursday on southern Gaza's Rafah after threatening to send troops into the city, where around 1.4 million Palestinians have sought shelter from around the territory.
Global powers trying to navigate a way to end the Israel-Hamas war have so far come up short, but a US envoy was expected in Israel on Thursday to try to secure a truce deal.
International concern has spiralled over the high civilian death toll and dire humanitarian crisis in the war sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack against Israel.
More than four months of relentless fighting and air strikes have flattened much of the Hamas-run coastal territory, pushing its population of around 2.4 million to the brink of famine, according to the UN.
International concern has in recent weeks centred on Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah, where more than 1.4 million people forced to flee their homes elsewhere in the territory are now living in crowded shelters and makeshift tents.
The last city untouched by Israeli ground troops, Rafah also serves as the main entry point via neighbouring Egypt for desperately needed relief supplies.
Israel has warned it will expand its ground operations into Rafah if Hamas does not free the remaining hostages held in Gaza by next month's start of the Muslim holy month Ramadan.
- 'My daughter' -
The war started when Hamas launched its attack on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Hamas militants also took about 250 hostages -- 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 30 presumed dead, according to Israel.
Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 29,313 people, mostly women and children, according to the latest count by the Hamas-run health ministry in the territory.
War cabinet member Benny Gantz said Israel's operation in Rafah would begin "after the evacuation of the population", although his government has not offered any details on where civilians would be evacuated to.
In the early hours of Thursday, AFP reporters heard multiple air strikes on Rafah, particularly in the Al-Shaboura neighbourhood.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said early Thursday that 99 people had been killed around Gaza during the night, most of them women, children and elderly people.
Abdel Rahman Mohamed Jumaa said he lost his family in recent strikes on Rafah.
"I found my wife lying in the street," he told AFP. "Then I saw a man carrying a girl and I ran towards him and.... picked her up, realising she was really my daughter."
He was holding a small shrouded corpse in his arms.
- 'Possibility of progress' -
Brett McGurk, the White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, was expected to arrive in Israel Thursday -- his second stop in the region after Egypt as part of US efforts to advance a hostage deal and broker a truce.
Hamas's chief Ismail Haniyeh was in Cairo for talks as well, according to the group.
Israel's Gantz said there were efforts to "promote a new plan for the return of the hostages".
"We are seeing the first signs that indicate the possibility of progress in this direction."
Matthew Miller, US State Department spokesman, said Washington was hoping for an "agreement that secures a temporary ceasefire where we can get the hostages out and get humanitarian assistance", but declined to give details on ongoing negotiations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted the army will keep fighting until it has destroyed Hamas and freed the remaining hostages.
Israel's parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly backed a proposal by Netanyahu to oppose any unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state.
The vote came days after the Washington Post reported that US President Joe Biden's administration and a small group of Arab nations were working out a comprehensive plan for long-term peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
It included a firm timeline for the establishment of a Palestinian state, the report said.
Separately, a report by an Israeli group that fights sexual violence said Hamas's October 7 attack also involved systematic sexual assaults on civilians, based on witness testimonies, public and classified information, and interviews.
The report came the same week UN rights experts called for an independent probe into alleged Israeli abuses against Palestinian women and girls -- which Israel rejected as "despicable and unfounded claims".
Israeli officials have repeatedly alleged the militants committed violent sexual assaults during the attack -- something Hamas has denied.
- 'Waiting for death' -
Combat and chaos have stalled sporadic aid deliveries for civilians in Gaza, while in Khan Yunis -- a city just north of Rafah -- medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said an Israeli tank had fired on a house sheltering their employees and families.
Two relatives of MSF staff were killed and six others injured, it said, condemning the strike in the "strongest possible terms".
When contacted by AFP about the incident, the Israeli army said its forces had "fired at a building that was identified as a building where terror activity is occurring", adding that it "regrets" harm to civilians.
In the same town, the Palestinian Red Crescent said another hospital was also hit by "artillery shelling".
Israel has repeatedly said Hamas militants use civilian infrastructure including hospitals as operational bases -- claims that Hamas has denied.
Comment
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today stressed the need for expanding business between Bangladesh and India using their own currencies.
"We can do our business through exchanges of Bangladeshi Taka and Indian Rupee. It has already started, but we have to expand it further so that we can increase our businesses," she said while Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar paid a call on the Prime Minister.
The meeting was held at Hotel Bayerischer Hof, the conference venue, here on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference (MSC) 2024, this morning.
Foreign Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud briefed newsmen about the outcome of the meeting upon its completion.
The Foreign Minister said the Bangladesh Premier and Jaishankar attached importance to doing business between the two friendly countries through their own currencies to reduce dependency on other currencies like the US dollar.
He said Bangladesh and India have excellent bilateral relations and it has elevated to another height under the leadership of the prime ministers of the two countries.
"The relations between the countries are getting stronger day by day," he said, adding that the two leaders discussed the issues during the meeting.
Quoting Jaishankar, Hasan said, "Our relations will further be closer in the days ahead."
Bangladesh Ambassador to Germany Md Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan and PM's Deputy Press Secretary Md. Noorelahi Mina were present during the briefing.
Bangladesh Prime Minister arrived in Munich on February 15 evening on a three-day official visit to join the Munich Security Conference 2024.
Upon completion of the tour, Sheikh Hasina will leave Munich tomorrow night and is scheduled to reach Dhaka on February 19.
(BSS)
Comment
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has called upon all concerned to find ways to stop Russia-Ukraine war while holding a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy here.
"Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina always says we are against all kinds of war. Today, she discussed time and again about how the war can be stopped while holding talks with Zelenskyy," said Foreign Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud at a news briefing after the meeting.
The meeting between the two leaders was held at Hotel Bayerischer Hof here on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference (MSC) 2024, this morning.
Hasan also said that they also discussed how the attacks on innocent men and women in Gaza can be stopped.
The Premier reminded all that war can't bring wellbeing for any one.
"Others can be benefitted from the war. But the war cannot bring welfare for the countries involved in war and their people have to be affected by the war," said Sheikh Hasina.
In this connection, the Prime Minister recollected her memories about the sufferings of the countrymen and she herself faced during the Great War of Liberation in 1971.
She recalled her inhuman sufferings and the birth of her only son Sajeeb Wazed Joy under the captivity of the Pakistani occupation forces during the War.
"Bangladesh's foreign policy - 'Friendship to all, malice to none’ - prominently came up in the discussion between Prime Minister and Zelenskyy," the foreign minister said.
Replying to a query, Hasan said the friendly relations between Bangladesh and Russia which got foundation during the Liberation war , will not hamper at all.
"Our relationship with Russia is very wonderful. Russia stood beside us during the Liberation War and played a pivotal role in rebuilding Bangladesh after the war," he said.
He said they only discussed how to stop the war.
Bangladesh Ambassador to Germany Md Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan and PM's Deputy Press Secretary Md. Noorelahi Mina were present during the briefing.
Bangladesh Prime Minister arrived in Munich on February 15 evening on a three-day official visit to join the Munich Security Conference 2024.
Upon completion of the tour, Sheikh Hasina will leave Munich tomorrow night and is scheduled to reach Dhaka on February 19.
(BSS)
Comment
Comment
American and British forces carried out a fresh wave of strikes Saturday against 18 Huthi targets in Yemen, following weeks of unrelenting attacks on Red Sea shipping by the Iran-backed rebels. The strikes "specifically targeted 18 Huthi targets across eight locations in Yemen" including weapons storage facilities, attack drones, air defense systems, radars, and a helicopter, a joint statement said.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today stressed the need for expanding business between Bangladesh and India using their own currencies. "We can do our business through exchanges of Bangladeshi Taka and Indian Rupee. It has already started, but we have to expand it further so that we can increase our businesses," she said while Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar paid a call on the Prime Minister.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has called upon all concerned to find ways to stop Russia-Ukraine war while holding a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy here. "Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina always says we are against all kinds of war. Today, she discussed time and again about how the war can be stopped while holding talks with Zelenskyy," said Foreign Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud at a news briefing after the meeting.