Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary General of the United Nations, has issued a 1-1/2 page report to the General Assembly on the progress in the implementation of the Goldstone Report. This is his response to General Assembly resolution 64/10 calling upon Israel and the Palestinians to carry on internal investigations of the violations of international law documented in the Goldstone Report. (1) The substance of the report is contained in 4 paragraphs on pages 2-3. Under the subheading of “Observations”, the gist of the 4 paragraphs is:

1) At the beginning of 2009 he “visited both Gaza and South Israel in order to help end the fighting and to show my respect and concern for the deaths and injuries of so many people during the conflict in and around Gaza.” He goes on to say he was and remains, “deeply affected by the widespread death, destruction and suffering in the Gaza strip, as well as moved by the plight of civilians in southern Israel…”

2) He believes, as a matter of principle, international humanitarian law needs to be fully respected and civilians must be protected in all situations and circumstances….” To this end he has “called upon all of the parties to carry out credible domestic investigations” and he hopes “such steps will be taken wherever there are credible allegations of human rights abuses.”

3) It is his hope that “GA resolution 64/10 has served to encourage investigations by the Government of Israel and the Palestinian side that are independent, credible and in conformity with international standards.”

4) He notes that “processes initiated by the Government of Israel and the Government of Switzerland are ongoing”, and that the “Palestinian side initiated its process on 25 January 2010.” His conclusion from this is “no determination can be made on the implementation of the resolution by the parties concerned.”

The document containing these 4 paragraphs includes 70 pages of appendices. The first Annex, Annex I, starts on page 4. This Annex is material submitted by Israel. The submission from the Palestinian authority, Annex II starts on page 63. Annex III from the Government of Switzerland begins on page 70. The fact that the report is contained in pages 2-3, and the rest of the 72 pages of the document are appendices from the parties involved appeared to even confuse some news agencies, which in their initial reports appear to have mistook the lengthy appendix from Israel as Ban Ki-moon’s report. (2) For example, an AP account referred to Israel’s response, but mistakenly attributing it to the Secretary General, erroneously reported, “Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says in a 72-page report Thursday night to the General Assembly that Israel followed up on every allegation.” Ban Ki-moon’s 4 paragraphs of observations made no such claim.

The General Assembly in its request to the Secretary-General asked for a report, “with a view to considering further action, if necessary, by the relevant United Nations organs and bodies, including the Security Council.”

The Secretary-General’s report, however, does not offer an analysis of the information submitted to his office. Nor does it make any recommendations about what further action should be considered. The original recommendation in the Goldstone Report that the Security Council establish “an independent committee of experts in international humanitarian and human rights law to monitor and report on any domestic legal or other proceedings undertaken by the Government of Israel in relation to the aforesaid investigations” appears to have been ignored by the Secretary-General, the Security Council and the General Assembly.

Similarly, the Secretary-General’s report doesn’t comment on the original proposal in the Goldstone report that the Security Council set up a similar independent committee of experts to monitor and report of the proceedings undertaken by the Palestinians.

The Secretary-General’s report is silent about the lack of action on the part of the Security Council regarding the Goldstone Report. More attention to this problem was needed given the voting record of the permanent members of the Security Council in their votes regarding GA resolution 64/10. Of the five permanent members of the Security Council, only one voted to send the Goldstone Report to the Security Council, while three permanent members abstained and one voted in opposition to sending it to the Security Council.(3)

While it appears that the Secretary-General has failed to do more than literally respond to the request of the General Assembly for a report on the progress of the recommendations made in the Goldstone Report, it appears that Israel is testing the waters to see whether it will have to treat the Goldstone Report seriously. A Haaretz reporter, referring to advice to Israel from an American official, writes , “The United States has suggested to Israel that easing the Gaza blockade would help counter the fallout from the Goldstone report on alleged war crimes during Operation Cast Lead a year ago.” The reporter explains, however, that, “Sources at the Prime Minister’s bureau said yesterday that the plan is first to see how the deliberations at the UN proceed, and to gauge the reactions to the secretary general’s report.”(4)

Notes:

(1) General Assembly A/64/651 “Follow-Up to the Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict: Report of the Secretary-General”, 4 February 2010.

(2) “UN Chief Praises Israel Probe of Its Gaza Actions”
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, February 4, 2010, article in “New York Times”
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/02/04/world/AP-UN-UN-Israel.html
BBC quoted from AP article.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8499655.stm

(3) Ronda Hauben, “UN General Assembly Debates Goldstone Report
Report on Israeli action in Gaza transmitted to the Security Council”,
November 25, 2009, OhmyNews International
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=385816&rel_no=1

Ronda Hauben, “Goldstone Report Transmitted to UN Security Council
Part II - Goldstone Report Recommendations to Security Council”, November 27, 2009
OhmyNews International.
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=385817&rel_no=1

(4) Barak Ravid, “U.S.: Easing Gaza siege would help counter Goldstone”, February 5, 2010, Haaretz.com.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1147463.html

Reading through some of the more than 1000 comments on the Facebook page titled “Hope for Alexandra Duguay” it is clear that Alexandra was a person who touched the lives of many people. One person who wrote a tribute called her the UN’s Angel in Haiti.

Alexandra, or Alex as she was known by friends and colleagues, was a spokesperson at the UN’s Headquarters in Haiti. Her office was in the Hotel Christopher, which served as the United Nations Headquarters Building in Port au Prince. She was in the building when the earthquake struck on Tuesday, January 12 at 4:53 pm.

The hotel, which was the work site of over 200 people, collapsed in the earthquake. While a few people were rescued and another few bodies were recovered in the days just after the earthquake, the colleagues, friends and families of many of the others who had been in the building, waited in agony for word of their family and friends.

UN officials had included her among the many they categorized as ”not accounted for” for almost a week. Finally, on Tuesday, a week after the earthquake struck, her mom, Marie-Dominique Bedard let friends know that the family had just been notified that Alex’s body had been found in the rubble of the collapsed headquarters building.

For many, both in Haiti and around the world, it has been a time of waiting, of hoping and then of grieving.

During the time of not knowing what had happened to Alex, friends and family set up a Facebook page titled “Hope for Alexandra Duguay”. After Alex’s mom’s post that Alex had been killed as a result of the collapse of the UN building, the page quickly became filled with tributes in English and French honoring Alex, her life and her deeds.

I met Alex three years ago at the United Nations Headquarters in New York where she worked for several years before going to Haiti. Alex had been one of the UN staff members making sure that needed UN documents were available to journalists. Alex, who was French Canadian, spoke easily in French or English to the journalists who sought her help. She was always available to provide what assistance she could, and with a warmth and encouragement.

One particular memory that stands out for me about Alex was when, as part of a conversation, she mentioned that Samantha Power’s book on the life of Sergio Vieira de Mello was to be the subject of a program at the New York Public Library several days later. (1) What is especially sad to me about this memory is that the UN headquarters in Iraq had had its structural deficiencies, which made it vulnerable to the attack that took Sergio Vieira de Mello’s life.

Similarly, the UN headquarters in Haiti was not prepared to withstand an earthquake. Also, in Haiti, like the Iraq tragedy, after the destruction of the UN building, there was a lack of heavy equipment for digging through the rubble. Reports from some of the UN survivors at the UN headquarters site in Haiti complained that it seemed little was done for days after the tragedy. When journalists at UN headquarters in New York asked about this, they were told there was a lack of heavy construction machinery needed to do such digging.

Another of my special memories about Alex was that when I won an award for journalism about the UN, one of the stories was the story about Sergio Vieira de Mello. In my short public thank you for the award I had intended to thank Alex and the other UN staff who had provided the documents and support, making the life of journalists covering the UN so much easier. In the rush to make a brief statement, I hadn’t gotten to thank the UN staff. I apologized to Alex when I saw her next. I remember her saying that it was ok, and that I should know that she was always there for me.

A little later, I remember learning that Alex was leaving the New York headquarters to go to a field assignment in Haiti. I realized how much I would miss her.

Alex is one example of the dedicated and wonderful people working at the UN who have been the victim of this terrible tragedy. For me, she represents the best of the United Nations, the dedicated staff from around the world, who do their work at the UN as part of their effort to help to build a better world.

In honor of Alex and the other UN staff members who have perished in Haiti, one of the questions that stands out is: Is there some way to encourage the UN to take more seriously its obligation to create safer working conditions for its outstanding staff?

Notes:
1. Ronda Hauben, “UN No Longer Seen as Impartial, Independent: What are the implications of a new book on UN diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello?” Ohmynews International, March 1, 2008.

[Editor's Note: This is the 2nd part of a two part article. Part I is General Assembly debates the Goldstone Report.]

I-UN General Assembly Resolution on the Goldstone Report

The Goldstone Report presents facts and evidence to document that there were substantial humanitarian and human rights violations, especially by Israeli decision makers and military personnel during the 22 day military attack on the people and institutions of the Gaza. The Report concludes that international law requires that criminal investigations be undertaken by both Israeli and Palestinian authorities.(1)

In addition to recommendations for the parties involved in the conflict, the Report makes specific recommendations for action by some of the organs of the United Nations and by the nations to uphold the obligations of international humanitarian and human rights law.(2)

Along with the endorsement for the Report, and the request that the Secretary General transmit the Report to the Security Council, the General Assembly Resolution mandated several additional actions. (3) These actions include:

1. The Resolution “calls upon the government of Israel to take all appropriate steps, within a period of three months, to undertake investigations that are independent, credible, and in conformity with international standards into the serious violations of international humanitarian and international human rights law reported by the Fact-Finding Mission, toward ensuring accountability and justice.”

2. The Resolution “urges . . .the Palestinian side, within a period of three months, to undertake investigations that are independent, credible and in conformity with international standards into the serious violations of international humanitarian and international human rights law reported by the Fact-Finding Mission toward ensuring accountability and justice.”

3. The Resolution recommends to the Government of Switzerland, in its capacity as depository of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, to undertake the necessary steps as soon a possible to reconvene a Conference of High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention on measures to enforce the Convention in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and to ensure its respect in accordance with common article 1.

4. The Resolution requests the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly, within a period of three months, on the implementation of the present resolution, with a view to considering further action, if necessary, by the relevant United Nations organs and bodies, including the Security Council.

5. The Resolution says that the General Assembly will remain seized of the matter, which means that the Report and its Implementation will remain on the General Assembly’s agenda.

The transmission of the Goldstone Report to the Security Council had been vigorously opposed by Israel. The action of the Secretary General carrying out the request to him by the General Assembly contained in UN Resolution A/RES/64/10 to transmit the Report to the Security Council has placed the Report officially before the Security Council. The Security Council is thus in a position to take action on the Goldstone Report in accord with its special obligations under the United Nations Charter.

II-Goldstone Report Recommendations for the Security Council

The Report has several particular recommendations for action by the Security Council.

The Report recommends that the Security Council under Article 40 of the UN charter require that Israel launch the appropriate investigations into the alleged violations that are described in the report and into any other serious violations that may come to its attention.

The Report has a similar recommendation to the Security Council with respect to investigations into violations and legal proceedings to be undertaken by the relevant authorities in Gaza.

The Report recommends that the Security Council establish “an independent committee of experts in international humanitarian and human rights law to monitor and report on any domestic legal or other proceedings undertaken by the Government of Israel in relation to the aforesaid investigations.” (Report p. 423, Para. 1969)

The Committee of Experts would report to the Security Council periodically. At the end of a six month period of time it would assess “the progress, effectiveness, and genuineness” of any Israeli domestic legal proceedings. Its question would be: Has Israel satisfied its obligations under international law to take appropriate action to ensure justice for the victims and accountability for perpetrators of violations?

Similarly, the Goldstone Report recommends that upon receipt of the Report, the Security Council should also require the Committee of Experts to assess any proceedings undertaken by relevant authorities in the Gaza Strip in relation to needed investigations of violations of human rights law. (Report p. 424, Para. 1969)

The Report includes additional recommendations to the Security Council and the General Assembly if the needed investigations are not carried out by Israel or by the appropriate authorities in Gaza, including the referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC), or the exercise of universal jurisdiction by states bound to uphold international human rights and humanitarian law.

Though the Report has been transmitted to the Security Council, the Council has yet to act on any of the Recommendations.

In response to a question about what the Security Council could be expected to do, Thomas Mayr-Harting, the Austrian Ambassador to the UN, who is the President of the Security Council for the month of November, said as soon as he received the Report from the Secretary General, he would circulate it to the members of the Security Council. He was not able to say what would happen after the Report was circulated. Speaking in his national capacity, however, he said he didn’t foresee any immediate action by the Council on the Report. (4)

If the Security Council does not carry out the recommended actions, the Report says that “the General Assembly may consider whether additional action within its powers is required in the interests of justice, including under its resolution 377 (V) on uniting for peace. (p. 425, Para. 1791c) Resolution 377 (V) Uniting for Peace. (5)

III-Uniting for Peace Resolution if Security Council Action Blocked

The Uniting for Peace Resolution notes that the blocking of urgent action by a permanent member of the Security Council does not relieve the members of the UN of their responsibility under the Charter. Under Article 24 of the UN Charter, members of the UN confer “on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and agree that in carrying out its duties under this responsibility the Security Council acts on their behalf.”

In the event that Security Council fails to carry out such duties, the Uniting for Peace Resolution provides for the General Assembly to assume the responsibility. If the General Assembly is in session, a meeting is to be called. If the General Assembly is not in session, there is a procedure to call for an Emergency Session, which is to meet within 24 hours of the request.

IV-Voting Pattern Members of Security Council and General Membership Compared on GA Resolution

A comparison of the general pattern of voting in the General Assembly for the endorsement of the Goldstone Report by the 192 members of the General Assembly with the pattern of votes by the 15 members of the Security Council on the General Assembly resolution provides an indication of the sentiment among the members of the Security Council to act on the recommendations in the Goldstone Report.

The voting pattern of the 15 member Security Council varied greatly from the voting pattern of the 192 member General Assembly on the resolution in the General Assembly endorsing the Goldstone Report. This comparison reveals the sharp divergence between the two organs of the UN.

Compare the following:

General Assembly Voting Results on GA Goldstone Report Resolution (Total membership 192)

To support the Resolution: 114 members

To Oppose the Resolution: 18 members

Abstaining from Voting: 44 Members

Not Voting: 16 Members

Members of Security Council Voting on GA Goldstone Report Resolution (Total Membership SC is 15)

To support the Resolution: 5 members

To Oppose the Resolution: 1 member

Abstaining from Voting: 9 Members

Not Voting: 0 Members

A majority (114) of the 192 UN member states voted Yes for the GA Resolution, but that included only a minority (5) of the 15 members of the Security Council.

The five who voted to support the GA Resolution: China, Turkey, Mexico, Vietnam, and Libya.

The one who voted in opposition: the US

The nine who abstained from voting: Britain, France, Russia, Austria, Croatia, Burkino Faso, Uganda, Costa Rica, and Japan

Given the difference in voting patterns between those member nations who are on the Security Council and those who are not, it is likely that there will be a significant difference between the actions that can be undertaken by a majority of the membership of the General Assembly, as compared with the actions that are likely to be taken in response to the Goldstone Report recommendations by the 15 members of the Security Council.

Though the authors of the Goldstone Report deemed it appropriate that the Security Council be asked to carry out the recommended actions which are within its powers, the Report also refers to alternative processes like “Uniting for Peace” that are available to the General Assembly, if the Security Council remains blocked from carrying out its obligations.

V-Credibility of International Law and the UN at Stake

The debate that has been raging over the issues raised by Operation Cast Lead and subsequently by the Fact-Finding investigation and subsequent Goldstone Report demonstrates that there are significant differences in how the rule of law is regarded by different member nations of the United Nations and how it is practiced in different organs of the UN like the Security Council and the General Assembly.

The Goldstone Report has raised many important issues, but one of the main outcomes it foresees is that, if the international community fails to be able to enforce a credible rule of law, the credibility of the international community and of the United Nations will be called into question. Describing this dilemma, the Goldstone Report explains (p.420-421, Para. 1957):

“The Mission was struck by the repeated comment of Palestinian victims, human rights defenders, civil society interlocutors and officials that they hoped that this would be the last investigative mission of its kind, because action for justice would follow from it. It was struck, as well, by the comment that every time a report is published and no action follows, this ‘emboldens Israel and her conviction of being untouchable’. To deny modes of accountability reinforces impunity, and tarnishes the credibility of the United Nations, and of the international community. The Mission believes that these comments ought to be at the forefront in the consideration by Member States and United Nations bodies of its findings and recommendations and action consequent upon them.”

Notes:

1) The Report is available online. The url is
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/FactFindingMission.htm

2) See pages 422-429, Para. 1967-1979 of the Goldstone Report for the conclusions and recommendations.

3) There are a series of principles that have been established which such an investigation should fulfill. These are “that authorities must act on their own motion, act with independence, be effective and prompt.” (See Report, p. 389. Para. 1809)

4)Media Stakeout: Press statement on the situation in Afghanistan. Informal comments to the Media by the President of the Security Council and Representative of Austria, H.E. Mr. Thomas Mayr-Harting on the situation in Afghanistan and the Middle East, including the Palestinian question. November 6 2009, 5:55 - 7:33.
[Webcast: Archived Video - 10 minutes ]
http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/ondemand/stakeout/2009/so091106pm3.rm

5) General Assembly Resolution A/RES/377(V) A 3 November 1950 377 (V). Uniting for Peace. See Ronda Hauben, “The World Has Been Watching”, OhmyNews International, January 6, 2009.

[Editor's Note: This is the first part of a two part article]

I-Goldstone Report Sent to Security Council

The Goldstone Report is a 575 page document prepared by the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict documenting the results from their investigation of the Israeli military action code named “Operation Cast Lead”. This military action was waged against Gaza from December 27, 2008 thru January 18, 2009.(1)

In the Goldstone Report there are a number of recommendations, several of which are for action by the UN Security Council. (2)

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, in a letter to the President of the UN Security Council wrote, ”I have the honour to transmit the report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict to the Security Council, pursuant to the request by the General Assembly, contained in paragraph 2 of its resolution 64/10 of 5 November, 2009.” (3)

It is via this official communication that the Goldstone Report, as the report is commonly called, was transmitted to the UN Security Council on November 10 for its attention and action.

Ban Ki-moon’s letter and with it the transmission of the Report to the Security Council is the result of an important event that happened in the United Nations General Assembly, an event which received little public attention and only minimal discussion in the mainstream Western media. On Wednesday, November 4, and continuing on Thursday, November 5 there was a debate and then on Thursday a vote in the General Assembly passing Resolution A/64/L.11 endorsing the “Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.” (4) The resolution which passed by a vote of 114 Yes, to 18 No votes, with 44 Abstentions, contained a series of actions toward the implementation of the recommendations contained in the Report.

II-Debate Over Role of International Law

The underlying principle at stake in the United Nations debate over the Goldstone Report is whether Israel is obligated to respect the tenets and obligations of international law. Israel claims it is fighting terrorism and that the need to defend its citizens requires new international laws or it must make its own rules rather than being subjected to the obligations of international law.

The debate in the United Nations over the Report was both passionate and serious. The response of the government of Israel and of the Palestinians were opposite each other. The Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Gabriela Shalev said that the UN is launching “yet another campaign against the victims of terrorism, the people of Israel.” She rejected the findings in the Report, arguing that the Goldstone Report denies Israel the right of self-defense.

Palestinian groups pledged themselves to carry out the mandates of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission report.

During the course of the two days of the General Assembly debate, several nations referred to the issues and events described in the Report. Several of the speakers referred to the importance of studying the Goldstone report.

The Ambassador from Iceland, Gunnar Palsson, said he recognized Israel’s security concerns. “At the same time,” he noted these security concerns, “do not justify the disproportionate use of force or the breaching of international humanitarian and human rights law.”

Bui The Giang, the Vietnamese Deputy Representative, welcomed the Goldstone Report. He noted, however, Israel’s lack of cooperation with the fact-finding mission. He also commented on the many civilian victims of Israeli military actions in Gaza. He said, “We remain preoccupied by the Report’s findings regarding Israeli failure to take precautious measures required by international law to avoid or minimize loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian property, hence flagrant violation of the principle of proportionality and distinction.” Similarly, he noted the concerns in the report that Palestinian launched rocket and mortar attacks on southern Israeli communities were a cause of threat to the civilians of these communities.

The Malaysian Ambassador, Hamidon Ali, observed that “the Goldstone report makes grim reading.” Describing the points made in the report, he proposed that the Israeli military operation in Gaza fits into a continuum of policies, rather than being an exception or aberration.

He noted that, “Operation Cast Lead was qualitatively different from any previous military operation by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory due to its unprecedented severity and its long lasting consequences. The visible destruction of houses, factories, wells, schools, hospitals, police stations and other public buildings, proves that it was the deliberate aim of Israel to inflict as much damage and suffering as possible.”

The Israeli military action, he explained, was “premised on a deliberate policy of disproportionate force aimed not at a specific enemy but at the ‘supporting infrastructure’. In practice, this meant the civilian population in Gaza”, he noted

Another point he makes is that the military action of Israel in Gaza “which led to killings and destroying was carefully planned and executed.” Since it was a deliberate action, he concludes, “all killings must have been conducted in cold blood.”

In his statement, Ambassador Ahmed Al-Jarman, of the United Arab Emirates, noted that the Goldstone report chose to cover only 36 incidents of hundreds that occurred during the Gaza war. “The comprehensive military strikes launched by the Israeli forces,” he observed, “far exceeded any military imperative and did not discriminate between civil and military targets.” The strikes targeted houses, densely populated civilian areas, vital facilities such as hospitals, and facilities and buildings of the United Nations in Gaza being used to shelter hundreds of homeless people and refugees during the war. In addition, he referred to how the restrictions on Gaza, denying the entry of humanitarian assistance and many other goods, and blockading the movement of people in and out of the strip, has and continues to cause great hardship for the people of Gaza.

Ertugrul Apakan, the Turkish Ambassador, noted that though the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1860 about the Gaza war, the resolution has not been implemented by the Security Council.

The South African Ambassador to the UN, Baso Sangqu, said that the “current situation in the Middle East should be understood in the context of the ongoing Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian Territory and other Arab Territories, which dates back to 1967, and the associated denial to the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people.” He added that, “Israel’s track-record of disregarding international law, and the failure of the United Nations Security Council to take any meaningful action in response, is the key contributing factor to the lack of progress in the peace process.”

Jorge Valero, the Venezuela’s UN Ambassador, in his presentation to the General Assembly, said that, “These acts of violence, according to the Report, generate individual criminal responsibility. The authors of the thousands of dead and wounded on the Israeli invasion should be brought to justice.”

“In its conclusions,” Valero said, the Goldstone Report, “emphasizes the multiple and massive violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention, typified as war crimes, committed by the Israeli occupying forces: executions, torture, inhuman treatment, use of human shields, physical and psychological harm to the population.”

The Venezuelan Ambassador explained that, “the international community must recognize the will of the Palestinian authorities to cooperate with the work of the fact finding mission.” This, however, he said was “a stark contrast to the position of the Israeli leaders who, repeatedly, ignore all the resolutions of the principle organs of the United Nations on the issue of Palestine. Also,” he said Israel has, “refused to cooperate with the 23 United Nations fact finding missions that have been appointed since 1947. This shows the gross violation of international law by the Israeli regime.”

Analyzing the position taken by Israel with regard to its obligations to the Palestinians, the Lebanese Ambassador said:

“This is the Israeli notion of a fair deal: We’re entitled to do whatever the hell we want to the Palestinians because, by definition, whatever we do to them is self-defense.”

“They [the Palestinians - ed], however, are not entitled to lift a finger against us [Israel - ed] because, by definition, whatever they do to us is terrorism. That’s the way it’s always been, that’s the way it was in Operation Cast Lead. AND THERE are no limits on our right to self-defense. This is no such thing as ‘disproportionate.’ We can blockade Gaza, we can answer Kassams with F-16s and Apaches, we can take 100 eyes for an eye.”

“We can deliberately destroy thousands of Gazan homes, the Gazan Parliament, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of the Interior, courthouses, the only Gazan flour plant, the main poultry farm, a sewer treatment plant, water wells and God knows what else.”

“Deliberately.”

“After All, we’re acting in self-defense. By definition.”

“And what right do the Palestinians have to defend themselves against this?”

“None.”

Qatar’s Ambassador to the UN, Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, reviewing the multiple previous reports which referred to violations of international law by Israel and the fact nothing had been done to penalize Israel for its violations of the law. He told the General Assembly:

“Goldstone’s report was not the first report which referred to the Israeli violations of International law, but was preceded by numerous inquiries about the latest war in Gaza, such as the Board of Inquiry which was formed by the United Nations Secretary General, the Independent Commission of Inquiry into Gaza which was formed by the League of Arab States, and the reports of the Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.”

Al-Nasser similarly recalled the many previous reports before the Israeli war on Gaza. These included the report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Massacre of Jenin led by Martti Ahtisaari, the report by Archbishop Desmond Tutu on the massacre of Beit Hanoun. The lack of implementation of the recommendations in these reports, the Ambassador said, “have reinforced the sense of Israel as being above the law, and have encouraged it to continue to commit crimes.” These reports drew similar conclusions to those of the Goldstone Report.

Speaking for the Kuwait Mission to the UN, Khalaf Bu Dhhair, the Charge D’Affairs, told the General Assembly that “[A]ny further report issued that is not followed by a strong international preventative measure, shall only make Israel bolder, more arrogant, and more convinced that it is immune and cannot be touched. This fosters the culture of impunity and mars the credibility of the United Nations and of the international community. Are the member states ready to lose the United Nations credibility and its maintenance of international peace and security because of Israel’s intransigence and tyranny?”

Referring to the critical comments about Judge Goldstone in the Western mainstream media condemning the report, Dhhair explained, “If this indicates something, it indicates how much damage to Israel this report does which is considered a special historical document in the history of the Middle East conflict, where Israel is directly condemned and held responsible for violating International Humanitarian Law.”

The General Assembly debate over the Goldstone Report was a serious debate among member states. The majority voted (114 Yes, 18 No, 44 abstentions, 16 not voting) to endorse the Report and to send it to the Secretary General, requesting he transmit it to the Security Council for further action. This effort of the General Assembly is part of a recent revitalization effort of the UN General Assembly. A number of UN member nations are working to strengthen the General Assembly so the UN can fulfill its potential as a truly representative body of the international community.

Notes:

1) The Report is available online. The url is
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/FactFindingMission.htm

The mandate of the Mission was “To investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether before, during or after.”

2) The Report is more commonly referred to as the Goldstone Report, after the South African Justice Richard Goldstone, who headed the fact-finding mission. See especially p. 423-425 Para 1969 of the report for the recommendations to the Security Council.

3)S/2009/586 11 November 2009 Letter dated 10 November 2009 from the Secretary-General addressed to the President of the Security Council (United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict)
http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/unsc_presandsg_letters09.htm

4)Resolution A/64/L.11 “Follow-up to the report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict” http://www.un.org/Docs/journal/asp/ws.asp?m=A/C.6/64/L.11
4 November 09 General Assembly: 35th and 36th plenary meetings.
Report of the Human Rights Council (A/64/53/Add.1) Draft resolution (A/64/L.11).

Morning Meeting:
[Webcast: Archived Video - English Language: 2 hours and 38 minutes ]
http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/ondemand/ga/64/2009/ga091104am.rm

Afternoon Meeting:
[Webcast: Archived Video - English Language: 2 hours and 45 minutes ]
http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/ondemand/ga/64/2009/ga091104pm.rm

5 November 09 General Assembly: 39th plenary meetings.

(A/64/92) 2) Report of the Human Rights Council (A/64/53/Add.1) Draft resolution (A/64/L.11) (continuation).

Afternoon Meeting:
[Webcast: Archived Video - English Language: 2 hours and 32 minute ]
http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/ondemand/ga/64/2009/ga091105pm.rm

“New Media and the Challenge of Reporting from the UN”

[Note: This is a slightly edited version of a talk I presented at "The International Conference on Soft Power" on September 8, 2009, at the Tsinghua International Center for Communication Studies, in Beijing, China.]

I want to share some lessons that have been learned in the three years I have been reporting from the United Nations (UN) as a resident correspondent for the online South Korean newspaper, “OhmyNews International”.

This past December, I won the Silver Award for Excellence in Print and Online Journalism presented by the United Nations Correspondents’ Association in honor of Elizabeth Neuffer, a Boston Globe reporter who died while on assignment reporting from Iraq.

In the brief remarks I made accepting the award I referred to the importance of the judges presenting this award not only for me, but also for other reporters at the United Nations who are willing to write about the issues or viewpoints that are rarely covered by the mainstream western news media.

For example, one of the articles that was the basis for the award was an article about a meeting of the UN Security Council where there was discussion over whether or not to have a public debate about the issue of the Middle East. (1)

The meeting took place on January 30, 2008. The South African Ambassador to the UN at that time, was Dumisani Kumalo. Kumalo told the Security Council, “My delegation believes that silence on the situation in the Middle East is more dangerous than even meetings where there might be a raising of temperatures or heat.”

He was responding to a comment by the British Ambassador Sir John Sawers, who proposed that perhaps it was better not to have debates in the Security Council on the Middle East since these issues brought up expressions of strong differences among the delegates.

These comments followed a week of discussion among delegates marked by different views on Israel’s action closing the border crossings into Gaza. This was a year before the attack on Gaza by Israel in December 2008.

Some member nations of the UN claimed the closure of the border crossings into Gaza was an action contrary to the obligations of Israel as an occupying power in the Gaza Strip. Another member of the Security Council, notably the US, said that the issue was that Israel was under siege and it was not appropriate for the Security Council to condemn Israel’s actions. Instead the US wanted a statement to condemn the rocket attacks being fired into Israel as coming from “terrorists”.

After a number of days of various efforts, it became evident that no agreement on the wording of a statement by the Security Council was possible. This led South Africa’s Ambassador to remind the members of the Security Council that the United Nations “has a special responsibility in supporting a peaceful resolution in the conflict in the Middle East.”

The Indonesian Ambassador to the UN, Marty Natalegawa, agreed with Kumalo, telling the Security Council that its silence on this issue, “is indeed a deafening silence.”

This example of reporting about UN Security Council issues helps to highlight a situation that American journalism professors and media critics have recognized as a problem with the mainstream media in the US. These media scholars explain that much of the US media too often watches to see which side has the most power and represents only that singular view of an issue or phenomenon.

In reporting from the UN, what is interesting is that there are often a range of views from different nations on issues that are being discussed. But too often nations, as in closed meetings or consultations of the Security Council for example, do not make their views on issues available to journalists at the UN. Only when the full range of views is available to the press and the public, is it possible to have a meaningful public discussion to clarify what is in the public interest. The challenge for the media covering the UN is to report on the broad range of views among different nations on various issues, rather than on only the viewpoint of the most powerful nation or nations.

There are a number of examples of issues where there have been different views expressed by different nations, but too often one view continues to dominate mainstream western media coverage. These issues include:

1) What is happening in Darfur.
2) Security Council action regarding North Korea.
3) Security Council action regarding Iran.
4) Security Council action on the listing and delisting of individuals or organizations related to Security Council Resolution 1267.

For example, on the issue of Darfur, the book, “Saviors and Survivors: Darfur Politics and the War on Terror,” by Columbia University Professor Mahmood Mamdani, presents a different narrative of the problem in Darfur than that presented by much of the mainstream western media. (2) The book is based on a five year study of the current conditions and the factors leading up to the current situation.

Mamdani presents significant evidence that the changing weather patterns and environmental conditions in Darfur, along with the role Great Britain played as a colonial power, changed the conditions which formerly had made possible coexistence among the different strata of Darfurian society. This account has been discussed in blogs, in online reviews, and in Youtube videos, as well as in programs aired by the Iranian English language news on Presstv. Journalists familiar with Mamdani’s book had the facts and analysis to determine that what is happening in Darfur is not a genocide but instead a civil war.

Another challenge to the mainstream media narrative is being presented with respect to the reporting about North Korea and the Six Party talks. Some scholars of Korean studies and some media sites on the Internet have presented the frustrations of North Korean negotiators, rather than focusing on the point of view of the American government, as in the reports by the mainstream western media. (3)

The book , “Meltdown” by the former CNN journalist Mike Chinoy, along with articles by US researchers like Leon Sigal and Rob Carlin, also help to make the case that the position the US government presents on the problem related to North Korean nuclear development is a problem that needs to be understood from the perspective of North Korea’s need for a means of defense to protect itself from hostile US actions.

In analyzing the problem with the mainstream media in the US, W. Lance Bennett, Regina G. Lawrence, and Steven Livingston, authors of the book “When the Press Fails”, explain that the “American mainstream news code favors those who wield the greatest power, even when what they say is subject to serious challenge.” (4)

A presentation of different perspectives on international issues is the basis for a better understanding of these issues, than is any single viewpoint. Just as American mainstream media coverage of US related issues is harmed by the fact it is too often limited to one dominant viewpoint, similarly, for an understanding of complex international issues, it is important that various views be presented and debated publicly in the international media and at the UN, rather than only during closed door consultations. This is, I want to propose, a means to develop not only a more accurate understanding of the issue. It is also the basis for a form of journalism that presents a process of debate over the facts and analysis of an issue or phenomenon, rather than just the presentation and acceptance of one viewpoint or one conclusion.

The form of journalism that offers this broader perspective on issues, a journalism that provides for a debate on such issues, I call netizen journalism. Netizens and the new Internet media help to make this broader discussion of issues possible. (5)

Scholars like W. Lance Bennett and his colleagues point out the poor practices of the mainstream US media. In order to be able to develop a form of international media that can present a broader point of view of issues, it is important to understand this critique and encourage the debate over different views. Similarly, when considering the issue of soft power, as has been discussed at this conference, it is important to critique practices used by other nations, rather just adopting what may be poor or deceptive practices. I propose that one goal for journalism is to foster better communication among nations and peoples. A media to facilitate such communication is needed everywhere. Communication between peoples and between nations is based on an equality between those involved in the act of communicating. Thus communication is different from exerting power in the process, whether it be soft power, in the terms advocated by Joseph Nye, or other forms of power.

As one former Tsinghua student, Lili Xiao, who did her master’s degree paper studying netizen discussion of the Tibet riots of March 2008, recently wrote about the goal of netizens and so also, of netizen journalism:

“Maybe in some ways we are part of the netizen family because we want communication to help connect people so there is a better world”.

Notes:

1. Ronda Hauben, Security Council Fails to Act on Gaza Crisis
‘The silence is deafening,’ says Indonesia’s UN Ambassador”, OhmyNews International, February 7, 2008.
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=381689&rel_no=1

2 Ronda Hauben. Untangling the False Narrative of a ‘New Humanitarianism’ for Darfur [Book Review] Mahmood Mamdani’s ‘Saviors and Survivors’”, OhmyNews International, March 31, 2009.
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=385005&rel_no=1

3. Ronda Hauben, US Policy Toward North Korea Fails to Engage [Opinion] UN Security Council should be neutral in its dealings with North Korea”, OhmyNews International, June 6, 2009.
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=385338&rel_no=1

4. W. Lance Bennett, Regina G. Lawrence, and Steven Livingston, “When the Press Fails”, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2007, p. 30.

5. See for example: Ronda Hauben, Netizens Defy Western Media Fictions of China, OhmyNews International, May 9, 2008.
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=382523&rel_no=1

Honoring the Netizen

[Editor's Note: The following talk was presented in Beijing on September 14, 2009 as part of the first national Netizens celebration day sponsored by the Internet Society of China.*]

I would like to thank the Internet Society of China for inviting me to offer brief remarks today. I want also to congratulate the honored guests for their role in helping to make possible the development of the Internet and the emergence of the Netizens.

It is wonderful that China is holding this netizen day, the first ever to be held anywhere in the world. Often there have been events celebrating the origin and development of the Internet but only rarely has there been recognition offered for the netizen, for those online users who have taken on to contribute to the development and spread of the Net and to making possible the better world that more communication among people will make possible.

The concept of netizen comes from the research and writing of Michael Hauben while he was a college student in the early 1990s. Michael was interested not only in how the Internet would develop and spread, but also in the impact it would have on society.

In 1992 he sent out a set of questions across the computer networks asking users about their experiences online. He was surprised to find that not only were many of those who responded to his questions interested in what the Net made possible for them, but also they were interested in spreading the Net and in exploring how it would make a better world possible. Network users with this social perspective, or this public interest focus Michael called Netizens. Thus the Netizen was not all users, but users with a public purpose.

Another aspect is that the Net is international, so that netizenship isn’t a geographically limited concept. To be a netizen is to be not only a citizen of one country but also a citizen of the Net. These users are citizens who were empowered by the Net, or netizens. Based on his research, Michael wrote the article “The Net and Netizens: The Impact the Net has on People’s Lives”. The article and the concept of the Netizen spread around the world via the Internet.

Michael and I included his influential article as part of a book titled “Netizens” which we put online on January 12, 1994. Today’s celebration of Netizen Day in China is for me also a fitting celebration of the 15th anniversary of putting the first edition of the book “Netizens” online.

Though today is the first national netizen day, I have recently seen on the Internet a call for a World Netizen Day. So the importance of establishing a netizen day begun by the Internet Society of China is a proud beginning of what I hope will become a new tradition, recognizing the importance of the contributions made by Netizens to the continuing spread and development of the Internet.

Congratulations not only to those who have been honored here today, but to all netizens in China and to netizens around the world. May the tradition of the netizen, along with the development of the Internet, grow and flourish.

* For a Youku video of part of the talk with the translation into Chinese see http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTE5MTY3OTUy.html

There were a number of online accounts in Chinese of the September 14 event. Here is one url: http://account.wangminjie.cn/celebration/

See also in Chinese http://tech.qq.com/zt/2009/wangminjie09/#top/

Describing the need for a new financial grouping to challenge the G8 and G20, John Hiliary, in an article in the Guardian (UK) writes, “It is not just that they [G8 and G20] are exclusive, invitation-only forums where deals are drawn up behind closed doors. It is the fact that both the G8 and G20 have championed the same free-market fundamentalism that served the interests of their corporate backers but brought the world economy to the brink of collapse. It is the tune that needs changing, not just the band.” (1)

Such a new economic grouping, which some have called the G192, recently held its first meeting at the United Nations in New York. The meeting, which took place from June 25 - June 30 was officially titled “Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development.” (2)

Referred to as the G192 because it includes all 192 member nations of the United Nation, the meeting provided a sharp contrast to the more exclusive meetings of the G8 and G20 that the major economic powers have convened. The UN meeting provided a glimpse into how a more democratic process can lead to a better understanding of the global financial and economic crisis now plaguing the nations of the world.

A number of the talks presented at the UN meeting did indeed represent a substantial change from the kind of guiding ideology that has dominated grouping like the G8 and G20. In offering such a change in perspective, the UN conference provided a means of considering both the problem represented by the current global economic and financial architecture, and the means that are being attempted to make a change.

Dr Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, who served as co-facilitator for the outcome document approved during the conference, credited Venezuela for proposing the idea for such a conference in November 2008. Gonsalves said (3):

“I also applaud the vision of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela which first conceptualized a formal United Nations conference on this crisis in a draft resolution tabled last November.”

Calling the current moment, “a crisis of capitalist globalization, of international capitalism in crisis,” Gonsalves depicted the crisis as “reflective of the triumph of neo-liberal ideology, which sought to roll back any interventionist role of the democratic state.” According to the set of ideological tenets he saw as setting off the crisis, “the organs of the State, so the neo-liberal thesis went, were to be minimalist; the international capitalist system driven by ‘the market’ was best left to be self-regulatory, according to the neo-liberal ideologues.”

The result of such ideological tenets which led to little or no regulation over investment and other financial institutions and instruments, Gonsalves explained, is “the worst crisis in international capitalism since 1929-31 has come upon us.”

He proposed that the crisis brings forth an increased need to recognize the important role of “the democratic State.” In his region, he said, the democratic national government has been “a force for good.”

Along with “the urgent need for further reforms of the global financial system and architecture,” Gonsalves called for “improved regulation at all levels and for an appropriate state role in regulatory matters.”

Several other speakers at the conference, including the Foreign Minister of the Dominican Republic, stressed the need to recognize “the regional sphere” as the most ideal for the implementation of the short and long-term measures that will end the crisis, as opposed to the global and national sphere.(4)

In his presentation to the General Assembly, Steve William Abana, the Minister for Planning and Coordination of the Solomon Islands, called for an enhanced role for the UN in creating an international mechanism to periodically assess the global economic situation and provide broad guidelines for the economic and financial sectors. (5)

He and others who spoke during the five days of the conference called for serious reflection about the legitimacy and effectiveness of the current economic and political system so as to determine its flaws and the means needed for its reform.

One of the most significant complaints was that the use of the dollar as both a national currency in the US and as a source of international reserves was a problem needing change. “A common international currency has remained elusive,” observed Dr Dipu Moni, the Foreign Minister of Bangladesh. (6) This is a problem that many, including Chinese economist Yu Yongding, a member of the General Assembly Experts Commission emphasized as a significant problem needing both short and long term attention. (7) The Experts Commission was established by the President of the General Assembly to help prepare for the conference.

Though this conference was to be open to all the member nations of the UN to participate, the US did not provide visas in time for the designated representatives of Iran or Venezuela to attend. (8)

In place of the designated government official of Venezuela who was to speak, Ambassador Jorge Valero the Venezuelan Ambassador to the UN spoke on Friday, June 26.

Valero described the resistance to the conference on the part of some of the developed nations. He said, “We were aware that an initiative of this nature would be met with resistance by forces clinging to the past. An attempt was made to prevent the United Nations from discussing the economic and financial crisis that we are suffering today, when it is precisely this forum - the G192 - [that is-ed] the most legitimate and representative of the world.”(9)

Valero said, “We must move towards the construction of a new international architecture that is not concentrated, legitimizing new relationships that underpin the emergence of a multipolar world. We must take off the straight jacket of unipolarity.” Crucial to such a program is the need “for a more effective involvement of the State to ensure an appropriate balance between market and public interest.”

It was, however, the presentation of President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, to the General Assembly and later in a press conference, that most eloquently demonstrated that the conference and the concept of a G192 was urgently needed. (10) Correa’s talk put the conference into a context that helped to illustrate how the solution to the current crisis cannot be left to the few powerful nations that make up the G-8 or G-20.

Correa referred in his talk to some stanzas from a poem by the poet Juan Ramon Jimeniz. The poem emphasized how the powerful dominate and treat the rest of the people as “the different.”

“The different, the exploited and vilified, the majority of us,” Correa said, “demand transparency and truth at the time of revealing who was at the origin of today’s crisis, who plundered the peoples, who benefited from these adjustment policies, from illegitimate debts, coup d’etats, subterfuges and institutionalized illegalities.”

Correa described how the lowering of interest rates by the US after September 11, 2001 was a decision that in a deregulated environment encouraged the growth of subprime loans with very high risk, resulting in a situation of increased volatility and subseqently stock markets crashing.

Elaborating Correa said, “Now precisely we the different are here, and we have come to the G192 to demand democracy and to highlight the other possible world, the other urgent world that we need, the world of peace and justice, only made possible through the respect for the sovereignty of the people and through equilibrium and respect among human beings, countries, nations, continents.”

Correa placed the responsibility for the crisis on the shoulders of what he referred to was the Washington Consensus. His characterization of the Washington Consensus is as “a paradoxical and cynical agreement signed behind the backs of peoples and governments and limited to the conclaves of the dominating and colonialist powers.” Correa explained that “the different” will talk “about issues that it seems, are absent in other exclusive and excluding fora, such as the G8 or G20.”

These issues include how, “the crisis originated in the U.S. financial markets” and how it has spread so that “the whole world has been contaminated.”

Correa explained that the current crisis is but a symptom of a system that privileges financial speculation over the real economy. “For years the United States maintained huge trade and fiscal deficits, with the connivance of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).” he said. “Any other country would have been forced to devalue their currency and ‘correct’ its imbalances.” The United States, however, Correa pointed out, was allowed to continue its irresponsible fiscal and monetary activities while other nations would not have been allowed the same leeway.

Such preferential treatment of the US financial sector by the IMF, such a “double standard”, led the IMF to “choose complicity” with the US and subsequently “led to the unhinging of capitalism.” According to Correa, “the effort to recapitalize the IMF without even removing one chair from its Board of Directors” is a sign of the duplicity that he proposes is undermining the operation of the IMF.

By the time the crisis became evident in 2008, Correa explained, 9 trillion dollars was dispersed to banks and other institutions “without any oversight or control mechanisms and without knowing where these funds have gone or how they have been used.” This raises the question of what effect such action will have on the global financial system and crisis in the future. He proposed that the current crisis is a much more serious crisis than those which recur periodically “provoked by capitalism” or even when compared with the Great Depression.

Correa argues that the reform the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Bank and the International IMF, are only a stopgap, temporary measure. These institutions have only “served to make ideological marketing for neo-liberalism and the Washington Consensus,” he maintained.

“If the speculative markets of the capitalist core were directly responsible for the world crisis,” Correa reasoned, “it would be absurd and irresponsible to let the solutions be proposed, programmed and executed by the same system that caused it.” Yet this is what is being presented as the means to carry out a reform of the Bretton Woods institutions by the G8 or G20.

Instead, the crisis, Correa and others argue, presents the opportunity to work toward a new regional and global architecture for the world financial system. As an example of the regional proposals, he pointed to Latin America. Correa described the work to create a Development Bank for the South capitalized by the countries of their region.

He argued that the gravity of the crisis requires that it be addressed within the UN by all the governments of the world. This conference held by the United Nations, “must be the turning point towards the strengthening of the role of the United Nations in world governance to advance towards a true democratization of international relations….”

Correa called for “models of society that put human well being above the interests of capital.” At the press conference he held after his speech to the UN General Assembly, Correa elaborated on what such a model would be.(11) He said that the model he was proposing was a form of 21st century socialism which learns from the errors of past socialist efforts and builds on these lessons.

Though the UN conference continued for two additional days, the Outcome Document was put to a vote on Friday, June 26.(12) The document was adopted by the conference participants by consensus. After it was approved, applause filled the hall of the UN General Assembly.

After the vote a few nations spoke of their reservations and several spoke of their hopes for stronger action. Many commented that something significant had been achieved. The principle of full participation of the 192 nations of the UN, the G192, had been established as a basis for discussion of the problems of the global financial and economic crisis.

On Monday, June 29, and Tuesday, June 30 those nations which had not yet spoken, presented their talks to the General Assembly. One of those was Sin Son Ho, the UN Ambassador from North Korea. He said (13):

“It is fortunate that the draft outcome document, which is the product of the intensive inter-governmental negotiations so far, contains, more or less, such issues like the possible substitution or the diversification of international reserve currency, and the strengthening of supervision and regulation over and reform of international financial institutions.”

Ambassador Sin said that the only way out of the crisis “is to replace the outdated international financial and economic system with a new international economic order that ensures the equal sovereignty of all countries. It is the imperative requirement,” he concluded, “of our times to restructure the old international financial system and economic order of the last century, which relies heavily on the US dollar.”

In an article published shortly before the conference, Julio Escalona, an adjunct Ambassador to the UN for the Venezuelan mission, predicted that just convening the conference would be a victory in itself. “For the first time,” he wrote, an initiative promoted by the South against the will of the North could materialize. Then it’s a matter of forcing the centers of power to discuss topics, such as the IMF and World Bank’s monopoly on credit, the reform of the international financial structures and regional currencies, the end of the dollar’s hegemony, among other things, and making sure the discussion continues open inside the UN, as well as the G-20 could signal the beginning of a new epoch.” (14)

Just as Escalona predicted, the presentations by the Ecuador’s President Correa, and others, were examples of a sharp critique of the problems at the core of the current crisis. These critiques demonstrated the inadequacy of just reforming the Bretton Woods institutions, institutions created over 60 years ago. Instead the UN conference helped to highlight the need to redesign the current financial architecture, taking into account the experience of the past half century. The new architecture that is being proposed is one that is more solidly based on a regional component, and one that will be more supportive of national sovereignty than the Bretton Woods institutions.

How this new architecture will be formed is yet to be determined. But the need for it has been argued and the requirements it must satisfy have been articulated. Significantly, through this conference at the UN, the principle of involving all 192 nations of the UN in identifying the problems and fashioning means to solve them has been successfully put into practice for the first time.

Describing the importance of the UN meeting, Father D’Escoto Brockmann, the President of the United Nations General Assembly saw the meeting itself and the outcome document that was agreed to, as a victory. At a press conference at the UN on July 10, he said that the significance of the conference was, that no longer is it possible to leave in the hands of a few, the matters that affect the whole world.(15)

Reminding journalists that every effort was made prior to the conference, first not to have the conference, then to narrow the focus, Father Brockmann explained how despite these problems, the G192 is now recognized as a venue to deal with the economic and financial problems of the global crisis. “In the end its happening,” he noted.

Documents Referred to in Article:

(1) John Hilary, “End the G8 Charade - We Need a G192″, Guardian Online, Comment is Free, Monday, 6 July, 2009.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/06/g8-g20-g192

(2)United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development
http://www.un.org/ga/econcrisissummit/stt_day24.shtml

(3)See Gonsalves Statement
H.E. The Honourable Ralph E. Gonsalves
Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
http://www.un.org/ga/econcrisissummit/statements/svg_en.pdf
http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/ondemand/ga/6/2009/ga090625am.rm?start=00:49:33&end=01:07:34

(4)See Troncoso Statement
H.E. Mr. Carlos Morales Troncoso
Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Dominican Republic
http://www.un.org/ga/econcrisissummit/statements/dominican_rep_en.pdf
http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/ondemand/ga/63/2009/ga090624pm.rm?start=01:13:12&end=01:24:37

(5) See Abana Statement
H.E. Mr. Steve Abana
Minister for National Planning and Aid Coordination of Solomon Islands
http://www.un.org/ga/econcrisissummit/statements/solomon_islands_en.pdf
http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/ondemand/ga/63/2009/ga090624pm.rm?start=01:13:12&end=01:24:37

(6) See Moni Statement
H.E. Dr. Dipu Moni
Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh (on behalf of the Least Developed Countries)
http://www.un.org/ga/econcrisissummit/statements/bangladesh_en.pdf
http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/ondemand/ga/63/2009/ga090624pm.rm?start=00:48:32&end=01:01:06

(7)Press Conference: Joseph Stiglitz, Chairman of the Commission of Experts of the President of the General Assembly on reforms of the international monetary and financial system, to brief in connection with the current General Assembly Conference on the Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development.
http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/ondemand/pressconference/2009/pc090625pm2.rm

(8) See Presstv Articles
“US prevents Venezuela minister from attending UN confab”, Presstv
“The US government has refused to grant entry visas to Venezuelan Minister of Finance Ali Rodriguez”, Presstv
“Iran criticizes US over visa denial, US denying visas Iran’s first vice president and members of his delegation”, Presstv

(9) See Valero Statement
H.E. Ambassador Jorge Valero
Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs for North America and Multilateral Affairs and Permanent Representative of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the United Nations
http://www.un.org/ga/econcrisissummit/statements/venezuela_en.pdf
http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/ondemand/ga/63/2009/ga090626pm.rm?start=01:16:00&end=01:39:32

(10) See Correa Statement
H.E. Mr. Rafael Correa Delgado
President of the Republic of Ecuador
http://www.un.org/ga/econcrisissummit/statements/ecuador_en.pdf
http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/ondemand/ga/63/2009/ga090625am.rm?start=00:03:37&end=00:47:58

(11) Press Conference with HE. Mr. Rafael Correa Delgado, President of Ecuador, and H.E. Fander Falconí, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ecuador, to brief in connection with the current General Assembly Conference on the Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development.

http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/ondemand/pressconference/2009/pc090625am1.rm

(12) Draft Outcome Document, A/CONF.214/3*

http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/CONF.214/3&Lang=E

(13) See Sin Son Ho Statement
H. E. Ambassador Sin Son Ho
Permanent Representative of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the United Nations
http://www.un.org/ga/econcrisissummit/statements/korea_dpr_en.pdf
http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/ondemand/ga/63/2009/ga090629pm.rm?start=01:20:56&end=01:26:35

(14) Julio Escalona, “It’s the time of history. Whether we know it or not, whether we believe it or not”
Vheadline.com
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=80757

(15)General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann on the outcome of the UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development as well as on the current crisis in Honduras, Press Conference, June 10, 2009
[Webcast: Archived Video - 45 minutes ]

http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/ondemand/pressconference/2009/pc090710pm.rm

Though the Sunshine Policy that has officially guided the struggle for Korean Reunification since June 15, 2000 (6.15) may be under siege by the government of South Korea, the US government, and the United Nations Security Council, it was very much alive at the Overseas Koreans Conference for Peace and Reunification of Korea held in Washington DC. The conference marking the 9th anniversary of the historic agreement between the Heads of State of North and South Korea, was held on June 12-14 with several different events as part of the program.

It was with a sigh of relief that I left New York on Friday morning June 12 to travel to Washington DC where the June 15th Joint Korea Declaration Overseas Committee for Peace and Reunification of Korea was hosting this 3 day event.

At noon, in New York City on Friday, June 12, the United Nations Security Council passed SC Resolution 1874 imposing harsh sanctions against North Korea. Around the UN, the voice of reason has been drowned out in a sea of “waiting for Obama” sentiment, giving the Obama administration license to continue and even outdo the anti democratic policies of the Bush administration, especially when it comes to foreign policy. For example, his administration has increased the US troop level in Afghanistan, and encouraged the extensive military actions displacing the civilian population in Pakistan. But when it comes to North Korea, the policy has been especially harsh and hard line. This has been documented in an earlier article on this blog: What Should be the Role of the UN Regarding the Hostile US Policy toward North Korea?

The presentations and discussion at the conference helped to put what is happening at the UN into the bigger framework of US-Korean relations and North Korea-South Korea relations. (1)This broader focus is one where several generations of Koreans have grown up since the rivalry of US and Soviet Union following World War II imposed the arbitrary separation on the Korean Peninsula of Korea divided into the two different sectors which have come to be known as North Korea and South Korea.

“The separation itself is violent,” explained the first speaker at the Saturday morning panel, Park Soh-eyn. Park is from Germany. She observed that the June 15, 2000 Declaration has had a significant symbolic effect. It provided a common aproach toward reunification for both North Korea and South Korea. After 60 years of separation, just to be able to look at the North Korean and South Korean flags in the same space was touching, she recalled.

Part of the impact in South Korea of the 6.15 Joint Declaration was to legalize talk of reunification which had been previously forbidden and criminalized by the National Security Law. The 6.15 Declaration had also broadened the reunification movement so that people from different sectors of society participated, including diverse religious organizations, and diverse non religious organizations including conservative and progressive political groups. Park Soh-eyn pointed to the fact that there has been much exchange between the Koreas since the 6.15 Joint Declaration, exchanges that have resulted in both qualitative and quantitative change.

The forced separation of Koreans had led to new problems so that it became clear that there were problems in both North and South Korea produced by the reality of the artifical separation. But just as the separation produced a new set of problems, the acts toward reunification were a means to solve the problems. Park Soh-eyn offered the analogy that if we consider the separation like a disease, with its harmful effects, the reunification process provides a medication, with curing qualitites.

On Friday evening there had been a short set of talks at the dinner held at a Korean restaurant in Tysons Corner, Virginia. US Congressman Eni Faleomavaega of American Samoa, who is the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Subcomittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment, gave a short presentation about his support for the Sunshine Policy and his respect for the work done by former South Korean President Kim Dae Jung.

I was invited to present a greeting at the dinner. I described how as a featured writer for OhmyNews International, I have reported on UN events, particularly focusing on the frustrations among delegates with the actions of the UN Security Council. I noted that there is a widespread feeling of the need for an English language publication to counter media myths like that spread about Iraq’s nonexistent Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).

Another talk at the Saturday Conference was presented by Kim Chang-soo, who had been on the South Korean National Security Council in the Roh Myung-bak administration. Kim Chang-soo reviewed some of the recent events in the relations between the two Koreas. When Lee Myung-bak, the current President of South Korea, began his presidency in February 2008, he did not recognize the June 15. 2000 or October 4, 2007 agreements with North Korea negotiated by the previous two Presidents of South Korea. The Lee regime, in abandoning the Sunshine policy, turned to criticizing North Korea as well as to military exercises with US which are viewed as hostile activities by North Korea.

While the media has focused on blaming the problems developing in the relationship between North Korea, and the US and South Korea on internal problems in North Korea, it has failed to take into account the broader issues and context. North Korea has indicated it is willing to talk about the nuclear issues with the US on a one to one basis, which would include talking about the US protection of South Korean under the US nuclear umbrella. Kim Chang-soo proposed that North Korea is trying to get diplomatic recognition from the US as well as address the economic issues of its people. But the current world media focuses on problems with North Korea, rather than why the US is not doing anything to encourage negotiations.

Kim Chang-soo suggested that the upcoming summit between Lee Myung-bak and Barack Obama was important and has the potential to have serious military implications. He cautioned against Obama failing to realize that Lee Myung-bak is considered as a repressive dictator and that there is a long tradition of the US government supporting dictatorial regimes in South Korea. Such support for Lee Myung-bak by the US government would remind the people of South Korea of this past experience, including the resentment that spread across South Korea in 2002 when two middle school girls were killed by a US military tank. Kim Chang-soo advised Obama to keep this all in mind when he meets the President of South Korea.

Kim Chang-soo offered some observations about the current tense situation created between the US and North Korea by the US support for the harsh Security Council Resolution that has just been passed at the UN. He referred to several analogous periods when despite the tension between the US and another country, it was possible to make progress in normalizing relations. One such example was the tense situation when China normalized relations with the US in the early 1970s. Similarly despite the hostility of the Bush administration years, negotiations with North Korea were begun in earnest toward the latter part of Bush’s tenure in office.

The current sanctions, against North Korea, however, he pointed out, are frought with danger. They even go beyond the mandate of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) that in itself has the potential to provoke military encounters. The Security Council’s sanctions present a form of contradiction with the Armistice Agreement between North Korea and the UN Command, which forbids one side from blockading the other side. The provision to forcibly inspect North Korean ships contradicts the terms of the Armistice, as do the provisions cutting off financial interactions with North Korea. These are measures which are provocative.

Kim Chang-soo observed that Obama’s policy is similar to Bush’s policy. We need to ask for a fresh policy approach from the Obama administration, he suggested. He advised that there is a need for a very special high level envoy to go to North Korea to change the direction. Also he proposed that an exchange of cultural events and people to people interactions could be helpful.

For the upcoming meeting between the US and South Korean presidents, Kim Chang-soo proposed the relations with North Korea need to address not only denuclearization, but also diplomatic recognition, inter Korea exchanges, and forging peace in Northeast Asia. Kim Chang-soo advised that Lee Myung-bak recognize the significance of the June 15 Declaration and continue to implement that spirit and to promote this spirit when he meets with Obama, rather than a tough military approach to North Korea.

Among the other talks in the Saturday panel was a talk by Oh Indong, who is a doctor who has done pioneering work in artifical joint replacement. Dr. Oh gave a slide presentation of his medical efforts to help North Korean doctors master these medical techniques.

In thinking about the impact of the events at the conference, it seems that US and North Korean relations are at a particularly low point with the danger of a military confrontation increasing significantly. At such a time, it is particularly important to consider the achievements of the Sunshine Policy and the 6.15 Joint Declaration as a means to support peace and reunification, rather than war, on the Korean Peninsula. The fact that World War II has left serious scars and wounds on the Korean Peninsula, leaving the separation of Korea into North Korea and South Korea as a continuing condition, is a serious problem for the world, not just for the Korean people. Also the US government’s refusal to agree to a peace treaty to end the Korean war means that there is a particularly dangerous situation on the Korean Peninsula. The Armistice is but a temporary truce, not a means of more permanently preventing a return to military action.

A number of conversations at the conference, however, emphasized that people in Korea have faced many hardships over the years so that this difficult time is not unusual for them. One speaker on Friday evening summing up this sentiment admitted, “I feel sometimes hopeless.” But along with this sentiment, he explained his belief that there is a basis for hope. He reminded those at the conference, “But our people have been through so many hardships. Because of that they know when something is wrong The Korean people are very sensitive to injustice. So I am hopeful. We shouldn’t be passive. As our voices get bigger, we’ll get more power. We shouldn’t appeal to Lee Myung-bak. We should appeal to the people.”

Note:

1. Most of the talks presented at the conference and dinner were in Korean. This report on the conference is based on simultaneous translations from the Korean into English provided by several colleagues.

Last Updated: June 19, 2009 12:15 AM EDT

The US policy toward North Korea since Barack Obama has assumed the US presidency is very different from the promises of engagement which he made during his election campaign. This policy presents a striking example of the disparity between the preelection promises and the action taken thus far during the Obama presidency.

On the first day of the new administration, sanctions were authorized against three North Korean firms under the Arms Export Control Act, along with several nonproliferation executive orders. The three firms were KOMID, which had been sanctioned by other administrations,  Sino-Ki and Moksong Trading Company, which were being sanctioned for the first time. (1)

The hostile direction of Obama’s policy, however, has been signaled most clearly by the change made when the new administration failed to reappoint Christopher Hill to his position as Undersecretary of State for East Asia and the head of the US negotiation team for the six-party talks with North Korea.

Not only was Hill not reappointed, but the role of US negotiator with North Korea was downgraded and split among several different officials. A part time position was created for an envoy. Another person would be the US representative to the six-party talks. And still another official was to be appointed to the position of Undersecretary of State for East Asia, which was Hill’s former position.

Stephen Bosworth accepted the position as envoy. His official title is Special Representative for North Korea Policy. Bosworth did so on a part time basis. At the same time, he maintained his full time position as Dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University along with his new part time job.

There has been little public discussion about why the Obama administration made such significant changes. The Boston Globe, in an article about Bosworth’s appointment, refers to the concerns expressed by  Leon Sigal, the  director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council in New York. The article quotes Sigal saying that there are officials in the new administration, “who don’t think we can get anywhere, so they don’t want to do the political heavy lifting to try.”(2)

In contrast to the loss of Hill as a negotiator with North Korea, the Obama administration reappointed  Stuart Levey, as the Undersecretary of Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. Levey’s office in the Treasury Department, was created in 2004 under George W. Bush. This office was used to impose economic sanctions on North Korea. One such action was the act of freezing the funds that North Korea had in a bank in Macao, China, the Banco Delta Asia (BDA).

North Korea was not only denied access to $25 million dollars of its funds, but was also denied the use of the international banking system. This freezing of North Korean funds was announced shortly after North Korea and the five other nations who were part of the six party talks signed the September 19, 2005 agreement to denuclearize the Korean Penninsula.(3) The announcement by the Treasury Department sabotaged the implementation of this important agreement which would have gone a long way toward the goal of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. North Korea withdrew from the six party talks until the $25 million was returned. (4) 

It is significant here to note that Levey and his office briefly came under public scrutiny in 2006 when the New York Times published an article exposing how the office has access to and uses the SWIFT Data Base to do intelligence work targeting people and transactions that it claims are in violation of US law. (5) The SWIFT Data Base contains the transations and identification information for the hundreds of thousands of people and entities that do electronic banking transactions using the SWIFT system.

The action by the US Treasury using a section of the Patriot Act against the Banco Delta Asia Bank, however, demonstrated that the US government has the ability to use this data base information against those it wants to target politically, rather than those who have committed any actual illegal acts. Testimony by former US government officials to the US Congress, and documents submitted to the US government by the bank owner and his lawyer, demonstrated that there was never any evidence offered of any illegal acts. Instead the Patriot Act had been used to allow the US government to act against this bank for political objectives. (See“Behind the Blacklisting of Banco Delta Asia: Is the policy aimed at targeting China as well as North Korea?”)

The new positions that the administration has designated to negotiate with North Korea are at a lower administrative level than was Hill’s former position In addition,  the Obama administration, by not reappointing Hill to his prior position, has lost the expertise Hill had developed. Hill had effectively countered the sabotage to negotiations presented by Levey’s office during the Bush administration.

At every step of the way that Hill sought to engage North Korea, he met with opposition within the Bush administration. Remarkably, Hill found the means to effectively counter much of this opposition, making progress in the negotiations. In August, 2008, however, the Bush administration unilaterally changed what it claimed North Korea’s obligations were as part of Phase 2 of the talks, and falsely declared North Korea in violation. (6)

With Hill gone from the North Korean desk at the State Department, and Levey reappointed to his position at the Treasury Department, it is significant that Obama sent an interagency group to visit the capitals of Japan, South Korea and China to discuss what strategy to use to punish North Korea. Levey was prominently featured as one of the US government officials on the trip.

These officials included Special Representative for North Korea Policy, Stephen Bosworth who accompanied Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy (or Wallace Gregson, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asia-Pacific Affairs), Undersecretary of Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey, and Jeffrey Bader, Senior Director for Asian Affairs, National Security Council.

But is punishment appropriate? There has been no similar effort to open negotiations with North Korea.

Instead of the Obama administration building on the achievements that Christopher Hill and the lead negotiator for North Korea, Kim Kye-gwan had made in their negotiations, the US administration has given its support to Levey and others whose actions have sabotaged the success of the six-party talks. The failure of the Obama administration is similar, however, to what has come before with regard to US  policy on North Korea.

Robert Carlin, part of the US government negotiation team with North Korea under the Clinton Administration, documents that there were significant and successful negotiations on 22 issues carried out in the period between 1993 and 2000. (7)  These achievements, however, were not put into a form under the Clinton Administration that could survive the transition to the Bush Administration.

Similarly, Mike Chinoy, a former CNN journalist, in his book “Meltdown”, documents both the Clinton years and much of the saga during the Bush years and how the negotiations were torpedoed not by North Korea, but each time by forces within the US government itself.(8)

Besides a long set of successful negotiations between North Korea and the US followed by the US reneging first on its agreements, the US conducts frequent military maneuvers in the vicinity of North Korea which North Korea has claimed is a threat to its peace and security.

On April 5, 2009, North Korea test launched a communications satellite using a rocket of advanced design. This test broke no international law or treaty to which North Korea is a party. (9) Still the launch was condemned by the UN Security Council in a Presidential Statement. Also new sanctions were imposed on North Korea, stating as the authority for them, a previous Security Council Resolution, SC Resolution 1718. (10)

North Korea has been the target of hostile acts by the US. North Korea has tested rockets and has done tests of two nuclear devices, which it claims it needs as a deterrent. The US has military agreements with Japan and South Korea, which includes them under the protection of the US nuclear umbrella. There is only an armistice ending the fighting of the Korean War. The US as the head of the UN command has not been willing to agree to a treaty ending the Korean War.

The failure of the UN Security Council to explore the problem that North Korea is facing in trying to check the hostility it has encountered from the US government demonstrates the failure of the processes of the UN Security Council in carrying out its obligations under the UN charter. The lesson North Korea took from the Security Council failure to protect Iraq from the invasion by the US is a lesson that other nations will also take if there is no means found for the Security Council to reform its processes so that it doesn’t just become a means for the political targeting of a nation as happened with Iraq. (11)

In his comments to journalists in response to the sanctions put on North Korea in April 2009, the Deputy Ambassador to the UN from North Korea, Pak Tok Hun said, “The recent activities of the security council concerning the peaceful use of outer space by my country shows that unless the security council is totally reformed and democratized we expect nothing from it.” (12)

The challenge to the nations of the UN is to provide a more neutral and considered investigation of the problem it is trying to solve rather than just carrying out the punishment a P-5 nation may endeavor to inflict on another nation.
 
 
——————————–
Notes

1. Karin Lee and Julia Choi, “North Korea: Unilateral and Multilateral Economic Sanctions and U.S. Department of Treasury Actions, 1955-April 2009”, National Committee on North Korea, (Paper last updated April 28, 2009), p.26.
http://www.nautilus.org/fora/security/09035LeeChoi.pdf

2. James F. Smith, “In role as envoy, Tufts dean carries hard-earned lessons”, The Boston Globe, May 26, 2009, http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2009/05/26/in_role_as_envoy_tufts_dean_carries_hard_earned_lessons/?comments=all

3. Ronda Hauben, “North Korea’s $25 Million and Banco Delta Asia: Another Abuse under the US Patriot Act”, OhmyNews International March 3, 2007. http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=351525&rel_no=1

4.  Ronda Hauben, “Behind the Blacklisting of Banco Delta Asia: Is the policy aimed at targeting China as well as North Korea?”, OhmyNews International, May 18, 2007 http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=362192&rel_no=1

5. Erick Lichtblau and James Risen, “Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block Terror”, New York Times, June 23, 2006.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/23/washington/23intel.html?_r=1

6. Ronda Hauben, “US Media and the Breakdown in the Six-Party Talks”, OhmyNews International, September 28, 2008.
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=383769&rel_no=1

7. Robert Carlin, “Negotiating with North Korea: Lessons Learned and Forgotten”, “Korea Yearbook  2007”, Edited by Rudiger Frank et al, Brill, 2007, p. 235-251.

8. Mike Chinoy, “Meltdown”,  St. Martin’s Press, 2008,

9. Ronda Hauben, “Controversy at UN Over North Korea’s Launch: Reconvening six-party talks or penalizing Pyongyang? “, OhmyNews International, April 10, 2009.
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=385061&rel_no=1

10. Ronda Hauben, “Security Council’s Ad Hoc Actions Increase Tension on Korean Peninsula: [Analysis] North Korea responds by withdrawing from six-party talks as promised”,OhmyNews International, April 17, 2009. http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=385093&rel_no=1

11. Seumas Milne, “After Iraq It’s Not Just North Korea that Wants a Bomb”, Guardian Comment Is Free, May 29, 2009.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/27/north-korea-nuclear-weapons-us

12. Pak Tok Hun, Informal Comments to the Media at the UN Media Stakeout, April 24, 2009.
http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/ondemand/stakeout/2009/so090424pm2.rm

On Sunday, May 17, David Hare performed in his play Berlin/Wall at the Public Theater in New York. It was a fitting day to think about the problem of the Wall as it came down in Berlin and is going up in Israel/Palestine.

For the play, Hare stands on the stage reading his thoughts on what makes Berlin so special and what is the significance of its past, and about the Wall going up in Israel/Palestine and how do the Israelis and Palestinians respond to the coming of their wall.

The subject of the play is in itself significant and deserves a serious discussion, as much as it is a treat to have Hare share his experience of having tried to understand the significance of each of these experiences and the comparison they present to our current world.

On Sunday, May 17, there had also been a small demonstration in Manhattan to mark the day the Palestinians call the ‘catastrophe’.

With some chanting “Occupation is a crime from Iraq to Palestine”, or in another part of the demonstration others chanting “When people are occupied, resistance is justified”, a few hundred people marched from 42nd Street and Times Square to Union Square.

Some signs like that carried by religious Jewish marchers protested against Israel’s turning the religion of Judaism into what the protesters say is a secular entity responsible for a “litany of violations against many laws of our faith and Jewish teachings, amongst them the command of compassion for our fellow beings.”

As the march wound its way through the city streets, people on the sidewalks turned and looked at the protesters. One group asked what the march was about.

They nodded their heads in agreement when someone explained that the border crossings to Gaza are blockaded with only minimal necessities like some food being able to be transported into Gaza, but other supplies like books, paper, and construction materials being forbidden to pass through the crossing points.

One of the demonstrators brought a home made sign listing different comments placed at various places on the cardboard.

Included was an appeal to Obama to change his foreign policy.

The Palestinian struggle is on the minds of New Yorkers, from the audience that filled all the seats for David Hare’s play, to the demonstrators taking their Sunday to march through the streets of New York to support Palestinian resistance. Some in the US hope that Obama will do something differently and realize the harm being done by the current US policy. Others have no faith that Obama will make any change in American foreign policy toward Israel and Palestine and instead believe the people of the US will have to find a means to change US government policy.

One of the achievements of Hare’s play is that it puts the struggle of the Palestinians into the broader struggle between fascism and resistance. He remembers the effect on Berlin of Hitler and then of the Soviet period. Then of the bringing down of the Wall and the new Berlin.

Berlin is a city of change, said Hare. Berlin is the city that reflects in a very painful way the events of the past and the present. It was in the two Berlins that the best of the East and the West came, though then separately, during the most difficult years. It is now in Berlin that the hope of the coming together of the East and the West is symbolized and embodied.

Will there be a time when the best of the Palestinians and the best of the Israelis can find a place and a way to be? Will there be a time when there will be a way for the Palestinians and the Israelis to interact and come together in an equal relationship, not any longer as occupied and occupier?

In recalling the words of an Israeli friend, Hare relayed the thought that “the idea of Israel was that we should cease to be a victim.”

Hare’s Israeli friend recognized that for Israel to be an occupier is a weakness, not a strength.