As
US Trashes
"Evil 8" on
Human Rights,
Nothing on Sri
Lanka,
Bahrain, S.
Sudan
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
November 6 --
It was US
election day
when the US
Mission to
the UN got its
chance to
speechify on
human rights
in the General
Assembly's
Third
Committee. Its
turn came
right after
Venezuela,
which raised
the specter of
"killer
drones."
The
US, which is
running for a
second term on
the UN Human
Rights
Council, did
not address
the drone
critique in
its speech, a
hard
copy of which
it did not,
unlike
Australia,
pass out to
the audience
including
Inner City
Press. Rather,
it chose eight
countries to
criticize, and
one to mostly
praise:
Myanmar, or as
the US said
it,
Burma.
The
Evil Eight in
the US speech
- our term,
not the US
speaker's --
were in order
Syria, Iran,
North Korea,
Sudan,
Belarus,
Eritrea, Cuba,
China. Not
mentioned,
among others,
were US ally
Bahrain, which
recently
prohibited
even peaceful
demonstrations,
and Sri Lanka,
which after
what the UN
said were
40,000
civilians
killings in
2009, has not
punished
anyone.
In
Geneva, the US
spoke about
Sri Lanka. But
in its New
York speech,
not
at all.
Likewise,
while earlier
on Tuesday the
US criticized
South
Sudan for
throwing out
the UN's human
rights
officials,
this was not
mentioned in
its Third
Committee
speech.
Of
course there
are
priorities.
Perhaps these
"minor" issues
-- Sri Lanka
with its
40,000 dead,
Bahrain, even
South Sudan --
are
mentioned in
the longer,
written
version of the
speech.
But some hope
that the
alongside the
railing
against
countries over
which it has
little
"soft power,"
the US applies
some human
right
standards to
its friends,
at least
behind the
scenes. Watch
this site.
, 
