Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-02-16-Speech-3-120"
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"en.20000216.8.3-120"2
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"Mr President, the principle of universal human rights is undoubtedly one of the most important political legacies of the 20th century. The holocaust, fifty years ago, led to the need to lay down a number of fundamental rights and freedoms. Since the end of the cold war, compliance with human rights has also become a condition for international cooperation. Leaders violating these principles now face international criticism, sanctions and are even brought to trial, such as ex-dictators like Mr Pinochet have experienced.
These developments are encouraging but do not detract from the fact that the situation of human rights in the world remains very disquieting. Especially in situations of war, civilians are given less consideration all the time. It seems contradictory. Never before in history has humanitarian right been so well developed. Never before have so many international treaties been ratified by so many countries. Yet the most basic rules of conduct are being flouted on a massive scale and there are more civilian victims than there were a century ago.
Women are systematically raped. Children are conscripted by force and deployed in battle. Excesses are no longer the exception, they have unfortunately become the rule. This applies today to no fewer than thirty conflicts worldwide. Too late, too selective and too fragmented: this is how one could describe the human rights policy of the international community. First of all, the policy comes too late. Both in Rwanda and Kosovo, the UN, despite the many warnings, appeared to be overtaken by events and stood by as a helpless observer of the massacres, as President Havel pointed out this afternoon.
Fifty years later, we are still unable to prevent genocide. We should therefore direct more attention to monitoring and conflict prevention as a matter of urgency. Control of the arms trade and improved media control are essential in this.
The human rights policy is also too selective. The months of NATO bombardments of Kosovo and the mediation attempts in the Middle East are in stark contrast to international apathy with regard to the conflicts in Africa. I cannot shake off the impression that, when it comes to human rights, despite all the rhetoric, Africa does not feature on top of the agenda of the Portuguese Presidency. This is something which I very much regret.
The impression that Africans get, namely that they are inferior world citizens, is not unfounded. I would like to warn against a blurring of standards in the assessment of human rights situations in Africa, where violations are viewed as a necessary evil. But above all, the human rights policy is too fragmented. We are unable to draft a common strategy within the international communities or Europe.
Take Sudan. The international community is sending conflicting messages to this country. Britain has re-opened its embassy in Khartoum. Canada has invited the Sudanese for peace talks. Europe puts the rebels in the South under pressure to negotiate and at the same time, Americans isolate the regime and support the rebels at military level.
There is a need for more coordination, more exchange of information and a more coherent approach whereby any raised bids are avoided. Only then can we follow in the footsteps of the founders of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."@en1
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