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UN Advised to Screen Peacekeepers for Torture, Laxity on Myanmar Allows Mass Evictions, Nukes

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, October 24 -- The UN should screen prospective peacekeepers to make sure they are not implicated in torture, UN human rights expert Manfred Nowak told Inner City Press on Friday. Nowak added that many UN peacekeepers come from countries with questionable human rights records -- he named Pakistan and Nepal -- and end up, during peacekeeping missions, engaged in sexual exploitation and abuse. This damages the UN's reputation, Nowak said. Video here.  Inner City Press later on Friday at Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson's noon briefing asked for any UN response to Nowak's comments, but five hours later no response had been provided.

  Inner City Press asked Nowak about torture in a range of nations, from Sri Lanka to Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea to Uzbekistan, and two countries in which the UN has country-specific human rights rapporteurs, Myanmar and North Korea. On Sri Lanka, Nowak praised the government for letting him in, but criticized the police's use of torture particularly against Tamils, and conditions in its jails.  In Zimbabwe, he said, MDC activists had been tortured in the run up to this year's elections. Equatorial Guinea to Uzbekistan he has yet to visit, but he told Inner City Press after his briefing that while the European Union has lifted its sanctions on Uzbekistan, it did so with the expectation that Nowak would be allowed in.

  A day after the UN's rapporteur for Myanmar, Tomas Ojea Quintana, told the Press that "restoration of full democracy cannot happen overnight; it will take generations. In the meantime.... I am appealing to you all to assist the government of Myanmar," torture expert Nowak said that he would only ask on complaints of torture in Myanmar after conferring with his colleague Quintana. This leads one to wonder whether a torture victim in Myanmar might be worse off because of the country-specific rapporteur than without on, and whether torturing countries, rather than fight the appointment of a rapporteur for their country, oughtn't to welcome such country-specific posts, as long as they get to chose the occupant.


India's Ved Malik on Friday at UN, views on torture and North Korea not shown

   On Myanmar, the UN's Rapporteur on the Right to Housing, Raquel Rolnik, later on Friday told Inner City Press that she is concerned that some of those displaced after Cyclone Nargis will not be allowed back. There are reports of mass clearance in order to build ports and even resorts. She too said she would only act on Myanmar after consulting with Quintana. Whether he is wittingly helping the Than Shwe government is not known. On housing, Ms. Rolnik said that foreclosures are increasing in for example Spain, especially "in subprimes." Video here.

  On North Korea, Inner City Press on Friday asked the four panelists produced by the EastWest Institute to comment on North Korea's on-again, off-again approach to stopping its nuclear program. That didn't come up, Indian general Ved Malik said. Video here. On the EastWide Institute's Board of Directors is Sandy Weill, who as head of Citigroup exported subprime and predatory lending beyond the U.S. to, among other places, Spain. And to it goes.

Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on UN, bailout, MDGs

and this October 17 debate, on Security Council and Obama and the UN.

* * *

These reports are usually also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.

Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund.  Video Analysis here

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