Annan Blasts Global Failure on Darfur Horror

[oberliner]

(New York, December 8, 2006) – The outgoing United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today delivered a ringing condemnation of the world’s failure to halt the bloodshed in Darfur, Human Rights Watch said today. He also warned against violating human rights in the fight against terror, saying governments that abandon the moral high ground play into the hands of terrorists.

In a speech to 500 guests organized by Human Rights Watch, Annan questioned whether he had succeeded, after 10 years in office, in making the United Nations into an effective defender of human rights. “To judge by what is happening in Darfur, our performance has not improved much since the disasters of Bosnia and Rwanda,” Annan said. “Sixty years after the liberation of the Nazi death camps, and 30 years after the Cambodian killing fields, the promise of ‘never again’ is ringing hollow.”

Annan’s speech, in honor of International Human Rights Day on Sunday December 10, 2006, marks his farewell to the post he has held for two terms. He used the occasion to set out steps that UN members and the incoming secretary-general should take to improve the situation, starting with the need to build upon the “momentous doctrine”, agreed by world leaders last year, of the responsibility to protect against crimes against humanity.

http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/12/07/global14793.htm