Monday, March 03, 2008

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights leaving?

While having some tea, we (myself and my colleagues Jinan and Hussein) were watching a documentary film report about her Majesty the Queen of Netherlands. The report showed some historical events about the royal family and how the members of the family suffered from the Nazis occupation. Then the report showed clips of the daily life of the royal family nowadays including some clips inside the palace. I was surprised to know how simple their life is although they are the royal family. I started to compare between their life and the life of the Iraqi officials. The members of the Royal family go everywhere in Holland alone or with two cars convoy while any general director in Iraq moves inside Baghdad with a very long convoy with guards who keep shouting all the road and waving with their hands to the other cars not to get close and of course they do their best to show the guns they carry.

That's a section of "Her Majesty the Queen," written by an Iraqi correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers and posted at their blog Inside Iraq. While the US selected thugs of the puppet government lead their lavish and protected lifestyles, the Iraqi people suffer and they may be about to lose one of their strongest international advocates. Martha notes Colum Lynch's "U.N. Human Rights Chief to Leave Post" (Washington Post):

Louise Arbour, the top U.N. human rights official, will step down on June 30, according to sources close to her, ending a four-year term that has been highlighted by confrontation with the Bush administration over the Iraq war, the death penalty and U.S. efforts against terrorism.
Arbour, 61, declined to confirm whether she will leave the post of U.N. high commissioner for human rights. But in an interview Friday, she said the U.S.-led counterterrorism struggle has set back the cause of human rights by "decades" and has exacerbated a "profound divide" between the United States, its Western allies and the developing world. "The war on terror has inflicted a very serious setback for the international human rights agenda," she said.

Reuters reports a discovery of a mass grave in Samarra containing 14 corpses believed to have been "either Iraqi police of members" of one of the "Awakening" Councils while Alexandra Zavis (Los Angeles Times) reports that violence in Baghdad (specifically bombings) have already claimed 24 lives today and left at least sixty people injured.

And Borzou Darahi's "On Iraq trip, Ahmadinejad cites common history" (Los Angeles Times) details the visit of the Iranian leader to Iraq:

Iran's president began a historic visit here Sunday, decrying the presence of foreign troops and subtly criticizing American allies.
In meetings with Iraqi leaders, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad outlined his nation's plans to consolidate economic ties with Iraq, speaking within earshot of roaring U.S. helicopters taking off from Landing Zone Washington in the nearby Green Zone.
Nearly five years after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, Ahmadinejad's visit underscored the realignment of Iraq from a country that once fought Iran in a grinding war to one increasingly within Tehran's economic, political and cultural orbit of influence.
In his appearances, Ahmadinejad conveyed a message of friendship and warm ties between Iran and Iraq, despite the presence of more than 150,000 U.S. troops here.
"Iran and Iraq are two friendly nations," Ahmadinejad said at one of several appearances before the media. "Both have common history and civilization. Both of them have deep, intimate sentimental and social relations."
Iran, the United States' chief antagonist in the Middle East, and Iraq are both dominated by Shiite Muslim majorities. Iran hopes to solidify its gains in Iraq by weaving together the two country's economies.

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