Day: January 21, 2023

At least 32 UN peacekeeping personnel were slain in deliberate attacks last year, with the Mali mission suffering the most, the UN Staff Union said yesterday.

Among the 32 fatalities were 28 military and four police personnel, including a woman police officer, said the Staff Union in a press release.

For the ninth year in a row, the mission in Mali, known by its French acronym as MINUSMA, suffered the most fatalities, with 14 deaths in 2022, followed by 13 killed from the mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“Peacekeepers and the civilian personnel who work side by side with them are on the front lines of the United Nations’ work in the world’s most challenging environments,” said Staff Union President, Aitor Arauz, in the press release.

“Each malicious attack against UN personnel is a blow to peacekeeping, one of the pillars of the multilateral edifice,” Arauz said. “It is a collective responsibility of the international community to put in place appropriate mechanisms, to ensure accountability for these heinous acts, which may constitute war crimes under international law.”

The union said that, the 32 killed in 2022 brings to 494 UN and associated personnel killed in deliberate attacks in the past 13 years, from improvised explosive devices, rocket-propelled grenades, artillery fire, mortar rounds, landmines, armed and successive ambushes, convoy attacks, suicide attacks and targeted assassinations.

It said, the peacekeepers who died in 2022, by country, were seven from Egypt, seven from Pakistan, four from Chad, three from Bangladesh, two from India, two from Nigeria, one each from Guinea, Ireland, Jordan, Morocco, Nepal, Russia and Serbia.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen paid a solemn visit Saturday to the salmon-colored house on an island off Senegal that is one of the most recognized symbols of the horrors of the Atlantic slave trade that trapped tens of millions of Africans in bondage for generations.

Yellen, in Senegal as part of a 10-day trip aimed at rebuilding economic relationships between the U.S. and Africa, stood in the Gorée Island building known as the House of Slaves and peered out of the “Door of No Return,” from which enslaved people were shipped across the Atlantic.

She was guided on a tour through various corridors and tight quarters in the house, shaking her head in disgust at what she was told about the economics of how slaves were valued.

“Gorée and the trans-Atlantic slave trade are not just a part of African history. They are a part of American history as well,” Yellen said later in brief remarks during her visit.

“We know that the tragedy did not stop with the generation of humans taken from here," she added. "Even after slavery was abolished, Black Americans — many of whom can trace their descendance through ports like this across Africa — were denied the rights and freedoms promised to them under our Constitution.”

Later, in an interview with The Associated Press, Yellen said that while promoting diversity and racial equality is a key goal, “the administration has not embraced reparations as part of the answer.”

The economic benefits that major slave-trading nations, including the United States, reaped for hundreds of years on the backs of unpaid labor could amount to tens of trillions of dollars, according to research on the commerce.

And in the U.S., African slaves and their children contributed to the building of the nation's most storied institutions, including the White House and Capitol, according to the White House Historical Association.

Yellen acknowledged the ongoing ramifications of that brutal past in her public remarks.

“In both Africa and the United States, even as we have made tremendous strides, we are still living with the brutal consequences of the trans-Atlantic slave trade,” she said.

In a guest book at the house, she wrote that it served as "an important reminder that the histories of Africa and America are intimately connected. While I am pained by its past, I am also heartened by the vibrant community I have seen here. I take from this place the importance of redoubling our commitment to fight for our shared principles and values of freedom and human rights wherever they are threatened — in Africa, in the United States, and around the world.”

Yellen's trip to the island is one that many dignitaries have made, including former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and South Africa's Nelson Mandela. Today, Gorée Island is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Yellen's stop there during a trip meant to revitalize U.S.-African economic relations is one that evoked the massive costs of the slave trade. There has been a resurgence in interest in determining the true cost of slavery on the generations impacted.

The House Financial Services Committee in recent years has studied how U.S. banks and insurance companies profited from the practice of slavery before it was outlawed in 1865. There have also been hearings on the study and development of reparations proposals in the United States.

In the AP interview, Yellen said the administration was “working in many ways in communities of color and low-income communities to try to bring more capital to advance lending and other things,” she said. “It’s a critically important goal.”

Source: Voice of America

The U.N.’s top human rights official, Volker Türk, appealed Friday for $452 million to fund the critical work of the high commissioner’s office in protecting and defending human rights throughout the world this year.

The high commissioner’s office is the guardian and defender of human rights. It is the global watchdog of abuse and violence. As such, it puts the spotlight on violators of human rights to pressure a change in bad behavior.

In his appeal to donors, human rights chief Volker Türk noted there can be no durable peace nor sustainable development without human rights. He said it was important to bring human rights to life in every part of the world to achieve stability and attain justice.

“We need to insist on action--globally, regionally, and domestically—so that we address inequalities, that we strengthen social protections, that we eliminate discrimination in whatever form, and other root causes of conflict, and that we address environmental crises and misery,” said Türk.

The high commissioner’s office has a difficult task. There are many egregious human rights crises that need to be addressed. They include Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the deadly protests in Iran, the continued internment of more than a million Muslim Uyghurs in so-called reeducation camps in China’s Xinjiang region, and the Islamist insurgency in Africa’s Sahel region.

Türk emphasized protecting human rights is essential in combatting these ills. He said human rights are at the core of the United Nations charter and guide the world body’s principles and purposes.

“We know that now more than ever, we need human rights to keep the world stable and provide us a roadmap for a better future as part of the UDHR (Universal Declaration of Human rights) 75 initiative and beyond,” said Türk.

This year is the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or UDHR. High Commissioner Türk said he plans to use the anniversary to bring the words of that seminal document to life.

He is urging donors to support his appeal for funding so his office can strengthen its ability to provide a better future for all.

Source: Voice of America