AZERBAIJAN HAS GOT THE RIGHT TO ASSESS DEMOCRACY IN ARMENIA

PanARMENIAN.Net
12.05.2006 GMT+04:00

International remedial organizations suppose that the membership
of Azerbaijan in the UN Human Rights Council is discrediting for
that organ.

The UN Human Rights Council consisting of 47 states was formed by the
results of three-round elections held in New York. As it is known,
Armenia was among those 18 states, which did not collect enough
scores, whereas Azerbaijan was elected, though with difficulty. This
means that from now on Baku leaders will have the right to evaluate
democracy level in countries where things with human rights are much
better than in Azerbaijan itself.

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Azerbaijan did not pass in the first round. In
the second round 103 states out of 198 voted for that country. Thus,
Azerbaijan received three votes more than the required minimum. Armenia
lacked just a few votes. According to the ballot, held after the
end of elections, Azerbaijan will be present in the Council for 3
years whereas other countries, like Poland or the Check Republic –
for only a year. Did Armenia lose much failing in the elections
and not getting in the Human Rights Council? It is worth mentioning
that the UN Council for Human Rights has inherited almost all of the
authority, which the Geneva Commission for Human Rights had before
being liquidated on June 16, 2005 at the insistence of the United
States and other Western countries. The main complaint against the
Commission consisted in the fact that its member countries where
far away from democracy. The “cosmetic” reform, which simply changed
the name of the organ, did not however solve the main problem. And
now, countries that have a very vague idea about human rights, will
watch for the protection of human rights in the whole world. The
newly created council will regularly analyze human rights reports in
certain countries and present its summary to the UN Security Council.

Armenia has twice been elected to the Human Rights Commission. It is
noteworthy that membership in the commission allowed to use certain
diplomatic mechanisms which sometimes were very useful. Countries
against which the world community has claims concerning human rights
protection, had to show special attention to Armenia in order to win
our support. Very often that support turned to be useful to such great
powers as China and Russia. Yerevan in its turn enjoyed Moscow’s and
Beijing’s favors. In this sense membership in the commission was really
very important. However the fact that this time Armenia was not elected
to the reformed UN organ is not a tragedy at all. Moreover, Yerevan was
actually ready for possible undesirable results. Finally, it would be
really unfair if Armenia was included in the organ three times in a row
especially because from now on elections are held by the principle of
regional representation. In the Western European region there are many
countries, which have never been in the Commission. Everything would
be normal if not the news about Azerbaijan’s election to the Council…

The membership of Azerbaijan in the Human Rights Council is of course
undesirable for Armenia. Though decisions of that organ are not
obligatory, the very fact that Azerbaijan will be assessing state of
affairs in Armenia is annoying. It is quite clear that Azerbaijan will
not be objective. But in this case more important is the question –
do Baku leaders have the moral right to evaluate democracy in other
countries when in Azerbaijan the situation with human rights is just
deplorable? International remedial organizations give an unambiguously
negative answer.

Yet before voting the respectable international “Human Rights Watch”
organization published the list of countries whose membership in the
Council was fully inadmissible. In that list Azerbaijan was the first
not only because of the alphabetic order. Azerbaijan is followed by
China, Cuba, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Russia. Armenia is of
course not included in the list. Thought the leaders of “Human Rights
Watch” do not think that in our country things with democracy are
ideal, they saw Armenia as a member state of the Human Rights Council.

Displeasure with election results has been expressed also
by another influential remedial organization, called “Amnesty
International”. Leaders of this organization underlined that among
member states of the Council there are those where the situation of
human rights is simply catastrophic. Leaders of Moscow Helsinki group
announced that in the current composition the Council loses its sense
since it is initially discredited by the membership of Russia, China,
Azerbaijan and Pakistan. The United States are also indignant at the
election results and have even refused to support the Council since the
mechanism of its formation has allowed involvement of such countries
like Azerbaijan. At the same time, the Ombudsman of Azerbaijan Elmira
Suleymanova dares to say that election of Azerbaijan to the Council
is the appreciation of high level of democracy in Azerbaijan by the
UN. Can we call this anything else but complete nonsense?

“PanARMENIAN.Net” analytical department