March 7, 2009 archive

“The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.”

“If you are going through hell, keep going.”- Winston Churchill, Nov. 21, 1943

AP

FILE: U.N. General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto

Brockmann accused the U.S. of committing inhuman

“atrocities” in a fiery speech before the U.N. Human

Rights Council

The Obama Administration joined the Human Rights Council to take up observer status on March 4, 2009, “which the Bush administration had boycotted because it was unable to crack down on despots and human rights abuses.”  

That very day, H.E. Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, President of the United Nations General Assembly gave an impassioned speech before the Human Rights Council, in Geneva, wherein he “accused the United States of committing inhuman ‘atrocities’ in Iraq and Afghanistan.”  

(quotes  posted here

From the Speech (PDF)

Mr. President, Martin Ihoeghian Uhomoibhi,

Excellencies,

Dear Friends,

Sisters and Brothers All,

1. I am very pleased to be able to join you here today as the first General Assembly President to formally address the Human Rights Council since its inception three years ago. This is especially appropriate because the Council, as you all know, was established by the General Assembly following the World Summit of 2005 to give higher visibility and importance to human rights alongside with peace, security and development.

2. At that Summit, world leaders also reaffirmed their commitment to the principles of universal human rights that the United Nations has painstakingly created over the past 60 years. These are commitments that we all must monitor closely. For, as we know, most gross violations of human rights are committed by our very own Member States. This vigilance must be particularly strong within the Human Rights Council itself if we are to maintain its current, reinvigorated momentum and strengthen the protection of our most vulnerable citizens.

3. As a new body, the world is watching the Council as it undergoes a paradigm shift from the culture of confrontation and mistrust that pervaded the Commission in its final years.  We are confident that the Council is now achieving a new culture inspired by strong leadership and guided by principles of universality, impartiality, objectivity and non-selectivity, constructive international dialogue and cooperation. These principles will enhance the promotion and protection of all human rights.

. . . . .  

MAY YOUR SKY ALWAYS BE YELLOW
He always wanted to explain things, but no-one cared.
So he drew.
Sometimes he would just draw and it wasn’t anything.
He wanted to carve it in stone or write it in the sky.
He would lie out on the grass and look up in the sky and it would only be the sky and the things inside him that needed saying.

And it was after that that he drew the picture.
It was a beautiful picture. He kept it under his pillow and would let no-one see it.
And he would look at it every night and think about it.
And when it was dark and his eyes were closed he could see it still.
And it was all of him and he loved it.

When he started school he brought it with him.
Not to show anyone, but just to have it with him like a friend.

It was funny about school.
He sat in a square brown desk like all the other square brown desks
and he thought it would be red.
And his room was a square brown room, like all the other rooms.
And it was tight and close. And stiff.

He hated to hold the pencil and chalk, with his arm stiff and his feet
flat on the floor, stiff, with the teacher watching and watching.

The teacher came and spoke to him.
She told him to wear a tie like all the other boys.
He said he didn’t like them and she it didn’t matter.
After that they drew. And he drew all yellow and it was the way he felt about
morning. And it was beautiful.

The teacher came and smiled at him. What’s this? She said.
“Why don’t you draw something like Ken’s drawing?
Isn’t it beautiful?”
After that his mother bought him a tie and he always drew airplanes
and rocket ships like everyone else.

And he threw the old picture away.

And when he lay out alone looking at the sky, it was big and blue;
and all of everything, but he wasn’t anymore.

He was square and brown inside and his hands were stiff.
And he was like everyone else. All the things inside him that needed
saying didn’t need it anymore.

It had stopped pushing. It was crushed.
Stiff.
Like everything else.

[Turned in to a high school English teacher 2 weeks prior to author’s suicide.]