RNA - That’s the bad news. The good news is that many countries which were forced by the United States to make the immoral decision to back Saudi Arabia’s second membership bid on the Council, particularly on a UN committee on women’s rights, have had a change of heart. The latest being Belgium.
Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel says he has regrets over a decision by his country to back Saudi Arabia on the UN Committee on Women’s Rights. In his words, “If we could do it again and if we would have the chance to discuss it at government level, I of course would have argued that we not approve this. I regret the vote.”
While briefing the parliament on Thursday, Prime Minister Michel went on to make clear that the diplomat representing Belgium in the UN was forced into a hasty decision and that he had not properly consulted the government in Brussels.
It is said forget regret, or life is yours to miss. Belgium and several other governments which were forced to back Riyadh’s profane UN bid now have the chance to make the most of their regrets. They should never smother their sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a global and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh. And to live afresh is to change course:
1) It’s never too late to kick a war criminal and violator of human rights out of the UN Human Rights Council. International Law and International Human Rights Law make that absolutely clear. The Council is responsible for promoting and protecting human rights around the world. Its seats should be filled by those who defend and adhere to this universal principle; not those like Saudi Arabia which violate it in broad daylight and in contravention to International Human Rights Law.
2) This basic understanding of the Council’s responsibility is mutual for the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. They also on several occasions have called on the UN General Assembly to immediately suspend Saudi Arabia’s membership rights on the Council. They say, a two-thirds majority of the General Assembly can and should suspend the membership rights of Saudi Arabia because “it is engaged in gross and systematic violations of human rights.”
3) This same view is shared by numerous international aid workers and agencies that are active on the ground in Yemen. Based on their numerous reports, “Saudi Arabia has amassed an appalling record of violations in Yemen while a Human Rights Council member, and has damaged the body’s credibility by its bullying tactics to avoid accountability. UN member countries should stand with Yemeni civilians and suspend Saudi Arabia immediately.”
The only calibration that now counts is how much heart the international civil society, chiefly those who say they were bullied to back the Saudi membership vote like Belgium, are willing to invest, and how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out, or coerced by Washington and the House of Saud’s petro-dollar cash. They should live boldly enough, and they should invest enough heart in this new humanitarian get-up-and-go. Seeing that because of international inaction innocent people are still suffering and dying in Yemen in Saudi-led, US-backed bombing campaign, nothing else really counts at all.
The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that say this is an impossible thing. Precisely because it is possible, the desire for what could be done now, and the dissatisfaction with Riyadh’s seat at the Council, this bitter reality, this hypocrisy at the UN is all the world community needs right now to no longer waste its time in anger, shame, regret, worry, and grudges.
It’s already getting too late to save the people of Yemen. As maintained by Belgian Prime Minister Michel, the world made a mistake to endorse Saudi Arabia’s Council membership bid. The world now regrets this terrible thing it did in the past. But the world is not its mistakes, and the world is not its struggles. The people of good conscience and the governments of good conscience are here NOW with the power to force the Saudis to end their war of choice on Yemen and help its people shape their own future. All that’s really needed is to repeal their regretful votes at the General Assembly.
Otherwise the regret will just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it's like chasing clouds. The people of Yemen are dying out there. It is time to remove Saudi Arabia form the Council. This will send a powerful diplomatic message to the Wahhabi absolute monarchy that the world is no longer fine with your war on Yemen and that the world is no longer willing to stand and watch while you support your Al-Qaeda and the genocidal fascist ISIL proxies in Syria.
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