In a 112 to 72 vote, Bosnia defeated Belarus to join Slovenia on the UN Human Rights Council.
The news was welcomed by the US State Department, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett and various human rights groups.
Speaking on the election, UN Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch Steve Crawshaw, noted that while Bosnia's human rights record is far from perfect; Belarus' human rights record is simply in a "league of it's own."
According to this article Bosnia's Ambassador to the UN, Milos Prica, has called Bosnia's election to the Council a "huge achievment" and hoped the country could share the lessons it has learned from its own war torn past.
Not, everyone was so impressed. Sudan's Ambassador Abdalmahmood Mohamad seemed upset that his personal trip to the UN to vote for Belarus was for naught.
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3 comments:
Sudan votes to get Belarus on the Human Rights Council? It figures.
ironic huh ? ;-)
Unfortunately, if the Human Rights Council has performed any way like it has in the past; and I hope to GOD that it doesn't; than Mr. Ambassador will not have too much to worry about, given the previous HRC off hands approach to Sudan/Darfur.
Milos Prica, who currently represents Bosnia at the United Nations, was in the news a few months ago. On his own initiative, without bothering to ask the foreign ministry in Sarajevo, Ambassador Prica sent a letter to the Swedish foreign ministry last fall,
asking that former RS President Biljana Plavsic be set free immediately, "for the sake of human understanding and compassion." In December 2002, Plavsic was sentenced by the ICTY to 11 years in prison after having pled guilty to crimes against humanity. Before he became Bosnia's UN ambassador, Mr. Prica had served as Plavsic's chief of cabinet during her tenure as head of the Republika Srpska. After due consideration, to their credit, the Swedish government turned down the request for early release.
Post-Dayton Bosnia being what it is, perhaps it is only to be expected (but ironic all the same) that Mr. Prica is still representing Bosnia-Herzegovina in the UN - and now in the UN Human Rights Council.
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