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Your
Excellency Kofi Annan
UN
Secretary General
Upon a World War that resulted
in the loss of millions of lives, where all prohibited weapons were used
and which has known all crimes of major human rights violations, humanity
set its foot down after the war to declare: This will not happen again. In
our names, we the peoples of all nation states members in the new
international agency, release a loud cry for peace that joins the hearts of
all those who oppose war and who recognize the need for an in international
organization that is able to stop military conflicts and build a new
international law that joins a international law for human rights in the
process of formation and the balance of the new power that has taken upon
itself the responsibility, not of dividing the world into shares or winners
and losers, but of building an international body that gives all parties
the right to representation and that allows a necessary balance for any power
based on an essential idea that was the essence of all major philosophies
and religions: the idea of building a commitment between peoples and
nations that is based on the respect of peoples rights to self
determination and to live in peace and alleviation of injustice or at least
condemning them and restricting them to the greatest extent possible.
Thus the UN was established to
limit the defects of the League of Nations
and to provide the space for both the strong and weak to express themselves, considering that depriving any party of that
rights, leads people to rebellion, as stressed in the preamble of the
international declaration of human rights.
The Un was not always successful
in its missions. However, it tried what it could to save face or at least
to take principled positions whenever it failed to practically intervene in
defense of its charter and principles.
However, since the fall of the
Berlin Wall, which people of the world have hoped to represent an
embodiment of the democratization of international relations and not only
the a declaration of the failure of undemocratic regimes, we notice an
increase in the hegemony over UN institutions by the major states who try
to invest the new situation in favor of their
national interests rather than employ it in the service of all peoples. This
not only affected the Security Council, but also the humanitarian, social,
cultural and economic framework of the UN, including its programs and
institutions, all of which have been victim to those interventions and the
new geopolitical situation, changing the role of the international
organizations, in more than one incident, into a rationale or cover for the
politics of one state or international alliance parallel to the
international organization.
This was reflected in parallel
actions in politics, international law and economy, which, everyday, lead
to further marginalization to the best products of the UN such as
initiatives and legislations such as the international law of human rights
and the Rome charter of the International Criminal Court. Furthermore,
ideologies, dangerous to international peace are trying, in the name of the
war on terror and creative chaos and claims of restructuring of states and
peoples, to impose policies of hegemony in the interest of the US and its
allies. This resulted in various forms of violence and counter violence
that have gone beyond control and that have inserted “death” in
the daily vocabulary of the people of Iraq, and has put the Palestinian
people in the largest contemporary prison and siege, and has finally
permitted the destruction of the infra structure of a UN member state, the
killing of its civilian population, their displacement, the destruction of
the environment and the deliberate committing of war crimes, as happened in
Kana and a number of Lebanese villages. All this happens while the
international community is watching and while your organization has
sufficed to express its concern and not even amount its position to a
verbal condemnation.
What then is left of the role of
the UN in addressing aggression and defense of peace
and putting an end to military conflicts? What is left of a 60 years old
heritage of struggle for international peace? Don’t you feel today
that you are facing a challenge of existence and not only a slip or a
mistake or the pressure of a major state? Don’t you feel that
preventing the Security Council, as a higher world political agency to
carry out its natural role, means that it no longer holds this mission
since it has abandoned this mission?
The Arab Human Rights
Organizations signatory to this message, draw your attention to the
existing danger, because we feel that the factors that led to the
cancellation of the League of Nations, are coming together day after day,
to the effect that the international legacy of the Security Council no
longer represents the UN charter, nor the collective commitment of the
states which agreed to abide by it, nor the basic aspirations of civil
societies world wide, as much as they represent the agenda of a major power
regarding its national policy as organizer of relations between states and
peoples.
The continuation of the brutal
war by the Israeli army in Occupied Palestine and Lebanon has
created a major cleft between the UN and the hundreds of millions living on
our planet, who consider that the ending of the military conflict is a
central mission of the UN, refuse to reward the aggressor and demand
compensation for the victims.
Our concern not to lose this
international institution, which has normalized relations between humanity
in the last 60 years, is what motivates us to write to you, in your
capacity as the official representative of this organization, to appeal to
you to take a position that is in accordance with the UN charter,
despite all pressures. We are concerned that your name, as a son of the
black continent, not be associated with an era where the hegemony of one
state succeeded to control the fate of this institution, with all the
consequences that will result as the subsequent retreat of world peace.
We raise a cry in defense of an organization that was not always
respected by major states, but which allowed a
cohabitation between the strong and the weak, the aggressor and the
aggressed, under a common roof which seeks to solve conflicts peacefully
and to organize the process of meeting major challenges and disasters that
face humanity. We call upon you to work towards reclaiming the proper
status for international law, which is receiving a major blow, and which is
the necessary political translation of international justice, which we work
to defend.
6/8/2006
Algerian League for Defense of Human Rights
Algerian League for Human
Rights
Aman Network for
the Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture in North
Africa and the ME
Arab center for the Independence of the
Judiciary and the Legal Profession
Arab Commission for Human
Rights
Arab Journalists Union
Arab Lawyers Union
Arab Network for Human
Rights Information
Arab World Association of
Human Rights Defenders
Association for Human
Rights Legal Aid, Egypt
Bahrain Society for
Human Rights
Collective for a World
Alternative for Development
Committee for the Respect
of Liberties in Tunis
Committees for the Revival
of Civil Society in Syria
Damascus Center for theoretical studies
and civil rights
Democratic Lawyers Group
in Egypt
Egyptian Association
Against Torture
Egyptian Association for
Popular initiative
Egyptian Center For social Democracy
Al Dameer
foundation of human rights in Gaza
Alkarama Association
for the Defense of Human Rights
European-Arab Coordination
for Liberties
Free Voice Organization
Hisham Mubarak
Law Center, Egypt
Human Rights First –
Saudi Arabia
Information and Rehabilitation Center
for Human Rights in Yemen
Iraqi Committee for
National Media and Culture
International Committee
for the Defense of Taysir
Alony
Khiam Center for the Rehabilitation of
Victims of Torture
League of Free Writers in Tunis
Lebanese Association for
Human Rights
Libyan League for Human Rights
Mauritania Association
for Human Rights
Mauritania Monitor for Human
Rights
Meezan Center
for Human Rights in Gaza
Moroccan Association for
Human Rights
Moroccan Coordination
Committee for Human Rights
Moroccan Organization for
Human Rights
Nadim center for the
Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture
National Council for Liberties
in Tunis
National Monitor for
Freedom of the Press in Tunis
National Organization for
Lawyers in Tunis
New Woman Research Institution
Free Thinking Association
In Egypt
Justitia Universalis
Palestinian Association
for human rights (Rased)
Syrian Monitor for Human Rights
Tunis Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the
Legal Profession
Tunisian Association Against
Torture
Tunisian Association of
Democratic Women
Tunisian League for Human
Rights
Tunisian Union
of Journalists
Tunisian Wedadeyya for former Resistance Fighters
Copy to:
High Commissioner for
Human Rights
General Secretariat of the
Arab League
European Union
Islamic Congress
Organization
Organization of African
Unity
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