Top US diplomat slams UN human rights council's resolution on police brutality, racism

Top US diplomat Mike Pompeo has blasted the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for adopting a resolution censuring racist and brutal policing in the United States, claiming that the move reflected the body’s “hypocrisy” that prompted American withdrawal from it in 2018.

Pompeo’s condemnation of the UNHRC on Saturday came after the 47-member-state forum unanimously adopted on Friday the resolution submitted by African countries, deploring the brutal killing of African-American George Floyd in Minneapolis and calling on UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet to prepare a report on “systemic racism, violations of international human rights law against Africans and people of African descent by law enforcement agencies” in the US.

The UN rights body “has long been and remains a haven for dictators and democracies that indulge them,” the US Secretary of State alleged in a statement.

“If the Council were honest, it would recognize the strengths of American democracy and urge authoritarian regimes around the world to model American democracy and to hold their nations to the same high standards of accountability and transparency that we Americans apply to ourselves,” Pompeo further claimed.

Such assertions by the top US diplomat comes in face of Washington historic and continuing support for some of the world’s most brutal regimes and dictators – including those in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain -- as well as plotting and implementing numerous coups across the globe to topple popular and democratically-elected governments, such as those in Iran in 1957, Chile in 1973 and Venezuela in 2002, 2019 and again just last month.  

Pompeo also posted a Twitter message on Saturday, claiming: “The @UN_HRC debate on policing and race in the U.S. marks a new low for that body. Our vigorous, ongoing civic discourse is a sign of our democracy’s strength and maturity. We were right to leave this joke of a “human rights” forum comprised of Venezuela & recently, Cuba & China.”

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The UNHRC resolution on Friday was presented by Burkina Faso’s Ambassador Dieudonné W. Désiré Sougouri, calling for its adoption by consensus.

“It is important to show Africa...the Human Rights Council has heard the plight of African and people of African descent calling for equal treatment and application of equal rights for all,” he underlined while admitting that the African group proposing the initial draft had made numerous “concessions” in the negotiations with other countries.

Consequently, the final version of the resolution was watered down during closed-door negotiations from the original draft, which explicitly demanded a UN commission of inquiry on racism in the United States and elsewhere.

“It is absurd that the final resolution passed by the United Nations strips mention of the United States, where police kill people, particularly Black people, at alarmingly higher rates compared to other developed countries,” said Jamil Dakwar of the US-based American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which led 600 activist groups in demanding the urgent debate.

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“The United Nations needs to do its job — not get bullied out of doing it — and hold the United States accountable,” he further insisted in a statement.

During the debate, however, Western delegations including Australia, Germany, Italy, Poland and the European Union insisted that the US should not be singled out for racism and police brutality.

“This problem does not belong to any one country, it is a problem around the world,” said Australian ambassador Sally Mansfield as quoted in a Reuters report, which further stressed that Australia had been particularly active in negotiations to take the spotlight off the United States.

Germany’s ambassador Michael Ungern-Sternberg also stated: “We are convinced a report with a broader approach and less focus on one specific case would have been more appropriate.”

The Trump administration quit the UNHRC two years ago, accusing it of bias against the Israeli regime – which stands globally condemned for its brutal atrocities against Palestinians in the occupied land.

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