Friday, October 16, 2009

A Black Day for Human Rights (2)

How they voted.

According to the Guardian UK the voting at the UN Human Rights Council  in Geneva today was as follows:

In favour (25): 
Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Cuba, Djbouti, Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Mauritius, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, Zambia.
Against (6):
Holland, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, Ukraine, US.
Abstentions (11):
Belgium, Bosnia, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Gabon, Japan, Mexico, Norway, South Korea, Slovenia, Uruguay.
Did not vote (4)
Angola, Britain, France, Madagascar, Kyrgyzstan.
I am not sure what the difference is between "abstaining" and "did not vote" (let me know if you understand it); this further information from the Guardian UK sheds some light on it, but it seems an overly subtle difference to me.
Gordon Brown reportedly had a heated telephone call on Wednesday with Netanyahu, who pressed him to vote against the resolution.
Brown spoke again with Netanyahu this morning, hours before the vote, and Britain then decided not to take part at all. A Downing Street spokesman said:
"We did not participate in the vote. We were involved in discussions with Israel and the Palestinians about potentially substantive improvements in the situation on the ground and therefore asked for a delay to the vote."
The Jerusalem Post has more on the reasons for UK and France not to participate in the vote:
An unnamed British diplomat told Israel Radio that in the hours prior to the vote, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy had tried to get clarifications from Israel that would enable the countries to vote against the resolution.
France and Britain reportedly decided to refrain from voting after the contacts with Israel failed to produce the results they were seeking. 
Well perhaps I was too hasty with my comments of quisling for Gordon Brown; I suppose I can't blame him for the state of the UN Human Rights Council. 


Gurth Whitaker
Calgary AB

ADDENDUM, apparently they are confused over at the BBC about the difference between "abstaining" and "did not vote." I found this gem on their website:
"No, we didn't abstain - we didn't vote."
Confused? We were. Apparently, there is a key difference between the UK government abstaining and not voting when the UN Human Rights Council backed a report into the Israeli offensive in Gaza.

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