New UN chief's Saddam gaffe on first day of work
UN's Ban on the death penalty (no pun intended):
Ban Ki Moon, the former South Korean Foreign Minister, received a warm welcome from staff at the UN headquarters on Manhattan's East River when he turned up for his first day at work yesterday.
But his spokeswoman was forced to issue a clarification after Mr Ban said that capital punishment should be a decision for individual member states.
The UN has an official stance opposing capital punishment and Ban’s predecessor Kofi Annan reiterated it frequently. The organisation's top envoy in Iraq, Ashraf Qazi, restated it again after the former Iraqi dictator was hanged on Saturday.
Mr Ban, however, took a different approach, never mentioning the UN's ban on the death penalty in all its international tribunals, and the right to life enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the General Assembly in 1948.
"Saddam Hussein was responsible for committing heinous crimes and unspeakable atrocities against Iraqi people and we should never forget victims of his crime," Mr Ban said in response to a question about Saddam’s execution. "The issue of capital punishment is for each and every member state to decide."
It was unclear whether Mr Ban was simply unaware of UN policy or did not agree with it, but his new spokeswoman, the Haitian journalist Michele Montas, insisted that there was no change despite what she called "his own nuance".
The Times Online article seems to think he made a mistake. I don't think so. The important thing was in what he said and not what he didn't say. With the UN's obvious slant toward Islam, it amazes me how many Arab States carry out punishments far more grizly than Saddam's short, clean little rope dance. Just think of his "bad first day" had he called them out.
Also at HotAir.com
Labels: Saddam Hussein Hanging, United Nations
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