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Bush urges UN to pressure repressive regimes
Reuters/Shannon Stapleton
President George W. Bush addresses the 62nd United Nations General Assembly
at the U.N. headquarters in New York, September 25, 2007.
By Laurent Lozano
AFP
UNITED NATIONS
Petroleumworld.com 09 26 07
US President George W. Bush urged the United Nations Tuesday to do more to fulfill its global responsibilities and press for change in countries ruled by brutal regimes.
Speaking before world leaders at the UN General Assembly, Bush called on the world body to go back to its guiding principles under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to defend freedom and battle hunger and disease.
"When innocent people are trapped in a life of murder and fear, the declaration is not being upheld," he said. "When millions of children starve to death or perish from a mosquito bite, we're not doing our duty in the world."
Taking aim at familiar foes -- Iran, North Korea, Myanmar, Cuba, and violent Islamic extremists -- Bush urged "civilized nations" to help people suffering under dictatorships.
"In Belarus, North Korea, Syria, and Iran, brutal regimes deny their people the fundamental rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration," Bush told an audience including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.Bush also predicted the demise of 81-year-old Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who has been sidelined by surgery since July 2006, saying, "the long rule of a cruel dictator is nearing its end."
" The Cuban people are ready for their freedom. And as that nation enters a period of transition, the United Nations must insist on free speech, free assembly, and ultimately, free and competitive elections," he said, as the Cuban delegation to the global body walked out in protest.
As Buddhist monks led the biggest protests in Myanmar in 20 years, Bush denounced the "reign of fear" imposed by the southeast Asian nation's military junta and announced new sanctions against the regime.
" I urge the United Nations and all nations to use their diplomatic and economic leverage to help the Burmese (Myanmar) people reclaim their freedom," Bush said.
In Africa, the US president called on the United Nations to "insist for the freedom of the people of Zimbabwe," which has been ruled by President Robert Mugabe since 1980.
He also urged the world body to quickly deploy peacekeepers to Sudan's strife-torn region of Darfur, where at least 200,000 people have died since civil war broke out in 2003.
" The United Nations must answer this challenge to conscience, and live up to its promise to promptly deploy peacekeeping forces to Darfur," he said.
Bush, who decided to go to war in Iraq in March 2003 without UN backing, linked Baghdad's fight for democracy and against terrorism to the situations in Lebanon and Afghanistan.
" Brave citizens in Lebanon and Afghanistan and Iraq have made the choice for democracy -- yet the extremists have responded by targeting them for murder," he said.
" The people of Lebanon and Afghanistan and Iraq have asked for our help. And every civilized nation has a responsibility to stand with them."
While Bush spoke relatively little about Iraq, his national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said the US president wanted to tell the UN it needed to return to its core principles.
" One of the things the president wanted to try to do in this speech was to call the United Nations back to first principles, and of course, one of the first principles is freedom," Hadley said.
While Bush praised the UN's "noble efforts" in combatting hunger and disease, he also scolded its Human Rights Council for failing to denounce repressive regimes and called for the panel to be reformed.
" The United States is committed to a strong and vibrant United Nations. Yet the American people are disappointed by the failures of the Human Rights Council," he said.
" This body has been silent on repression by regimes from Havana to Caracas to Pyongyang and Tehran -- while focusing its criticism excessively on Israel," Bush said.
" To be credible on human rights in the world, the United Nations must reform its own Human Rights Council."
AFP 25 2219 GMT 09 07
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