Belarus withdraws its critical resolution on USA at UN General Assembly’s session :: Charter'97 :: News

Belarus will not put its critical resolution on the United States’ human rights record to a vote at the UN General Assembly’s 59th session currently held in New York. Since the very beginning, the purpose of submitting the draft resolution to the Third Committee of the General Assembly was not to bring it to a vote, Andrei Savinykh, spokesman for the Belarusian foreign ministry, told BelaPAN. “Everybody understands that the USA`s influence and pressure on all in the world has reached such levels that few countries would dare to vote openly and roundly for the resolution,” he explained.

By submitting the resolution, Belarus primarily aimed to show that nobody, including a superpower, has a monopoly of criticism, and emphasize that none of the countries, even the most mighty and “super-mighty” one, should be beyond the international monitoring of human rights, Mr. Savinykh said.

The move that followed the decision of the United States and several other countries to co-sponsor a critical resolution on Belarus, was also taken as a way of showing with the help of real and internationally acknowledged facts that even the country that always claims to be the standard bearer in the human rights sphere has big problems with the observance of them, as well as its commitments under OSCE conventions, including those regarding elections, Mr. Savinykh added.

According to him, the Belarusian delegation told the Third Committee that it would not put the resolution to a vote and called on the sponsors of other country resolutions to follow the example. Belarus has always opposed country resolutions, he stressed, adding that the delegations of Russia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries came out in support of Belarus.

“In their speeches, our partners expressed a high opinion of Belarus’ steps toward depoliticizing the activities of the Third Committee and the UN human rights system,” Mr. Savinykh said. “They backed Belarus’ efforts against the practice of adopting country resolutions that run counter to the UN purposes, undermine trust and trigger confrontation between countries. The delegations also urged other countries to follow Belarus’ example and reconsider their actions in favor of establishing constructive cooperation between countries in the human rights area and giving up country resolutions.”

Belarus’ draft resolution accused the US authorities of failing to bring the electoral system into line with that country’s commitments under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as of establishing strict control over the media, conducting arbitrary arrests and violating international standards by applying the death penalty to mentally ill persons and those who were under the age of 18 while committing the offense.

The resolution also raised concerns about what was called the maltreatment of detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay prison.