PrintOctober 13, 2010
U.N. Ignoring Albino Rights Violations in Africa?
The United Nations Human Rights Council is currently top-heavy with African and Arabic nations with a purview seemingly permanently fixed upon investigating the activities of Israel. Despite its task of monitoring an increasingly regressive and primitively violent world, the Human Rights Council's three primary agendas are Israel, the 2006 conflict in Lebanon, and the permanently volatile situation in Gaza.
In order to keep Israel top of mind, the council is forced to ignore what would appear to more pressing issues in it's members' own backyards. Issues like Somalian piracy, genocide in Darfur, and now shocking reports of trafficking in albino body parts in Kenya and Burundi would seem a more logical source of concentration for the alleged Human Rights Council.
Not since Idi Amin has such barbarity and brutality been reported:
A lobby group says politicians are involved in the trade of human albino body parts in Africa and use them as charms to bring them good fortune.......Columbu Makalou, President of the U.S. based Salif Keita Global Foundation, a group that advocates for albino rights, ....says that body parts sell for as much as $2,000. At least 57 albinos have been killed in Tanzania and 14 in Burundi since 2007. Thousands of albinos are estimated to live in hiding.
It would seem to be impossible for the council's priorities to be more absurdly misguided. The Obama administration's contribution to the United Nations has been to shift American support away from Israel and to offer full co-operation with the U.N.'s Special Rapporteur on the human right to adequate housing. The SR, Ms. Raquel Rolnik, has made several visits to America to investigate the foreclosure crisis and homelessness in the U.S.
Meanwhile, albinos in Africa are cowering in caves to avoid having their limbs whacked off to serve as lucky charms for Kenyan big-wigs. Perhaps Obama can use his Hollywood connections to enlist Johnny and Edgar Winter to perform a benefit concert for their pink brethren. Isn't it possible that this President can help himself and the United Nations to get something right?
Ralph Alter blogs at Right on Target
