United Nations Security Council Abandons Humanity

[Published 9 February 2015]


In a supposed show of unity by the world powers against Islamic State - the United Nations Security Council is reportedly preparing to adopt a legally binding resolution intended to choke the terrorist group’s ability to trade in oil, antiquities and hostages.

As it pontificates on the terms of the Resolution – the Security Council completely ignores the Report of another United Nations organ – The Committee on the Rights of the Child - released on 4 February – which depressingly confirms the following litany of suffering visited on children, women and minorities in Iraq by Islamic State:

1. The systematic killing of children belonging to religious and ethnic minorities including several cases of mass executions of boys, as well as reports of beheadings, crucifixions of children and burying children alive;
2. The very large number of children killed and severely injured as a result of the current fighting - including by air strikes, shelling and military operations by the Iraqi Security Forces
3. Deaths from dehydration, starvation and heat in conflict affected areas
4. The high number of children abducted by Islamic State - many of whom are severely traumatized from witnessing the murder of their parents and are subjected to physical and sexual assault.
5. “Markets” set up by Islamic State selling abducted children and women attaching price tags to them
6. Sexual enslavement of children – particularly from minority groups - detained in makeshift Islamic State prisons - such as the former Badoush prison outside Mosul.
7. The executions of teachers and health personnel
8. Recruitment and use of children especially children in vulnerable situations such as refugee children, children with disabilities, children who have lost their parents and children in street situations being used as:

(a) Suicide bombers
(b) Human shields in order to protect Islamic State facilities from airstrikes and being frequently forced to witness brutal acts of torture and killing
(c) Informants - for manning checkpoints or as bomb makers for armed groups -in order to support their families
(d) Some recruited children being trained in kidnapping
(e) Children as young as 12 or 13 undergoing military training organized in Mosul by Islamic State which is reportedly also giving children the responsibility to guard and arrest individuals
(f) Children and families belonging to minority groups, in particular Turkmen, Shabak, Christians, Yezidi, Sabean-Mandaean, Kaka’e, Faili Kurds, Arab Shi’a, Assyrian, Baha’i, Alawites - who are being systematically killed, tortured, raped, forced to convert to Islam, cut off from humanitarian assistance by Islamic State in a reported attempt to suppress, permanently cleanse or expel, or in some instances, destroy these minority communities.

The Committee could only urge Iraq to take all necessary measures to rescue children under the control of Islamic State and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Islamic State fighters must be laughing their heads off at the thought.

Regrettably the Committee did not see fit to damn the Security Council for its continuing failure to authorise and institute military action by the world body against Islamic State under Chapter V11 of the United Nations Charter.

Instead we now have the prospect of yet another proposed totally ineffectual Security Council resolution talking about oil, antiques and hostages – the third in a series of resolutions on Islamic State that are worthless in ending the barbaric atrocities listed above.

Russia’s veto remains the obstacle to passing a Security Council Resolution authorising the use of military force.

Russia was eventually persuaded to join America in sponsoring a Security Council Resolution calling for the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons.

A similar diplomatic effort is needed to destroy Islamic State.

There are many diplomatic inducements and trade-offs that can be explored including:

1. Easing current sanctions on Russia
2. Restoring Russia’s credit rating
3. Compromising on Syria and Ukraine

The human suffering caused by Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria must be stopped in its tracks without further delay.

Meantime the Committee on the Rights of the Child has invited Iraq to submit its next Report by 14 July 2020 which should be:

“in compliance with the Committee’s harmonized treaty-specific reporting guidelines adopted on 1 October 2010 (CRC/C/58/Rev.2 and Corr. 1) and should not exceed 21,200 words (see General Assembly resolution 68/268, para. 16). In the event that a report exceeding the established word limit is submitted, the State party [Iraq] will be asked to shorten the report in accordance with the above-mentioned resolution. If the State party is not in a position to review and resubmit the report, translation of the report for the purposes of consideration by the treaty body cannot be guaranteed.”

The Committee has also invited Iraq:

“to submit an updated core document in accordance with the requirements of the common core document in the harmonized guidelines on reporting, approved at the fifth Inter-Committee Meeting of the human rights treaty bodies in June 2006 (HRI/GEN/2/Rev.6, chap. I). The word limit for the common core document is 42,400 words, as established by the General Assembly in its resolution 68/268 (para. 16).”

Will Iraq still exist in 2020?

The United Nations and its diverse organs have become the world’s laughing stock as they engage in verbal gobbledygook, pathetic platitudes and mutual back-slapping - whilst doing nothing of substance to end the suffering of millions of human beings around the world.

What has to happen before the United Nations Security Council comes to its senses and gets really serious about degrading and destroying Islamic State?

Jews Condemned Whilst Christians Are Decimated And Dispersed

[Published 1 August 2014]


As the war between Israel and Hamas enters its fourth week - the frenzied condemnation of Israel for exercising its inherent right of self-defence continues to dominate the media coverage of the conflict.

Ishaan Tharoor writing in the Washington Post wonders why:

“The world is transfixed by the conflict in Gaza, as the death tolls of both Palestinians and Israelis killed in the fighting continue to rise. It has animated global public opinion and sparked protests in myriad far-flung cities.

But as the rockets and bombs fall, a deadlier war next door rolls on. The Syrian civil war has claimed 170,000 lives in three years; this past weekend’s death toll in Syria was greater than what took place in Gaza. By some accounts, the past week may have been the deadliest in the conflict’s grim history. Meanwhile, the extremist insurgents of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS), have continued their ravages over a swath of territory stretching from eastern Syria to the environs of Baghdad, Iraq’s capital; the spike in violence in Iraq has led to more than 5,500 civilian deaths in the first six months of this year.”

M D Harmon writing in the Portland Herald criticises this media blockout:

“Why should it matter if a nearly 2,000-year-old way of life practiced by millions is being exterminated and no one will do anything to halt it?

Perhaps because it teaches a wider lesson about what the civilized world faces when it confronts rampant Islamic extremism.

In much of Iraq and Syria today, millions of Christians, whose ancestral presence there predates current Muslim majorities by centuries, are being scrubbed out of their homes.

But, while some in the wider church and the media are paying attention, getting war-weary Western nations to take effective action seems impossible. Even humanitarian aid isn’t being widely discussed.”

The newly-declared Islamic State (IS) - which includes Mosul - Iraq’s second largest city - already exceeds the area of Great Britain.

Sharia law has been imposed in Mosul - where Christians have lived since shortly after the death of Christ.

Christians were given 24 hours to leave Mosul or convert to Islam and pay a tax - or die.

The letter “N” (for “Nazarene”) has been daubed on Christian homes to denote they are available for looting or destruction.

BBC News reported on 28 July:

“A senior Christian cleric in Iraq, Patriarch Louis Sako, estimated that before the advance of IS, Mosul had a Christian community of 35,000 - compared with 60,000 prior to 2003.

According to the UN, just 20 families from the ancient Christian minority now remain in the city, which Isis has taken as the capital of its Islamic state.”

Harmon poses this question:

“Across the Middle East, a long history of hard-won co-existence faces extinction from a belief system devoted to domination, and this time in control of an “Islamic state.” Will it again strike us directly, as it did 13 years ago this Sept. 11?”

Nuri Kino - reported on Fox News - confirms the tragic situation in Syria and identifies those engaged in persecuting these ancient Christian communities:

“Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, also has been nearly emptied of Assyrians, Armenians and other non-Muslims…

... The prideful tone in which the perpetrators speak whenever I have interviewed them — both Al Qaeda and IS——is equally shocking. These are mostly disgruntled young men who were teetering on the edges of society in their own homelands, often in European suburbs, and now believe they have the power to do whatever they want in the name of Islam. They can claim any house in IS-controlled areas of Iraq and Syria as their own, and tell the owners to either leave or risk being killed. They can take any woman as their wife…

... At least 700, 000 non-Muslims — Christians, Mandeans, Yezidis and others—have left Iraq by now. No one knows how many have left Syria.”

Nina Shea reports in Fox News:

“ISIS has set out to erase every Christian trace. All 30 churches were seized and their crosses stripped away. Some have been permanently turned into mosques. One is the Mar (Saint) Ephraim Syriac Orthodox Cathedral, newly outfitted with loudspeakers that now call Muslims to prayer. The 4th century Mar Behnam, a Syriac Catholic monastery outside Mosul, was captured and its monks expelled, leaving behind a library of early Christian manuscripts and wall inscriptions by 13th-century Mongol pilgrims.

Christian and Shiite gravesites, deemed idolatrous by ISIS, are being deliberately blown up and destroyed, including on July 24, the tomb of the 8th-century B.C. Old Testament Prophet Jonah, and the Muslim shrine that enclosed it.”

Patrick Coburn does not mince his words in The Independent:

“It is the greatest mass flight of Christians in the Middle East since the Armenian massacres and the expulsion of Christians from Turkey during and after the First World War.”

Yet the media shows little interest in exposing the decimation and dispersal of the Christian communities in Syria and Iraq.

Google reports on the Israel-Gaza war outnumber reports on the ISIS-Christian conflict by about 20:1.

The West is equally as disinterested at this appalling ethnic and religious cleansing and forced transfer of Christians.

An impotent United Nations shows its unwillingness to intervene.

Israel meanwhile ensures that Jews will never find themselves in the same boat as the abandoned and hapless Christians.