Wednesday - November 02, 2005

More United Nations Silliness

What started as a simple resolution to create a Holocaust Commemoration Day by the United Nations rapidly degenerated into a US-bashing session by the howling monkeys. First, Egypt wanted to make sure it included all victims of genocide since the beginning of time. I assume this was only to make sure the Jews weren’t being given some “special” treatment. Then, the representative from Venezuela decided that the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also victims of genocide. I’m only surprised they didn’t blame the extinction of the dinosaurs on the US ...

U.N. to Create Holocaust Commemoration Day
NEW YORK (AP)

The U.N. General Assembly adopted a landmark resolution Tuesday that will create the first international day of commemoration for the six million Jews and other victims of the Nazi Holocaust. The International Day of Commemoration will be held every year on Jan. 27. Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman thanked the 191 members of the General Assembly “at this unique and historic moment ... for adopting this unprecedented resolution.”

Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the annual commemoration will serve as “an important reminder of the universal lessons of the Holocaust, a unique evil which cannot simply be consigned to the past and forgotten,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. There was no vote on the resolution. Instead, General Assembly President Jan Eliasson banged the gavel signifying consensus after asking whether there were any objections and hearing none.

But after the vote, Egypt’s U.N. Ambassador Maged Abdelaziz complained that the day should commemorate all victims of genocide—“without discrimination on the basis of religious or ethnic background”—and not be limited just to victims of the Holocaust. “We believe that no one should have the monopoly of suffering,” he said.

Venezuela’s Ambassador Imeria Nunez de Odreman also expressed concern that it did not encompass other recent genocides including those in Cambodia, Rwanda and Kosovo. She also pointed to the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasiki in World War II as examples of “devastating destruction” that occurred “with no justification” and should be included in the resolution’s stance against human atrocities.

The resolution emphasizes both “the duty to remember” and “the duty to educate” future generations about the mass slaughter ordered out by Adolf Hitler, Germany’s wartime Nazi leader. It rejects any denial of the Holocaust, condemns discrimination and violence based on religion or ethnicity, and calls for the U.N. to establish an outreach program to encourage the public to engage in Holocaust remembrance activities.

The resolution was sponsored initially by Israel, the United States, Australia, Canada and Russia. Gillerman said after Tuesday’s vote that it had 104 co-sponsors.

Posted by The Skipper     on 11/02/2005 at 07:07 AM   
Filed Under: • United-Nations •  
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