The UN Human Rights Committee is a body which routinely pulls its punches. It treats member states with respect, whether they deserve it or not. The UN is of course composed of nations many of which have much to hide on human rights, so the glass houses and stones argument is much applied.
In that context, the new advisory report of the UN Human Rights Committee on Uzbekistan is absolutely damning – as damning as these reports ever get. It contains one paragraph of “Positive Aspects” and 25 paragraphs of “Concerns”.
Concerns include lack of judicial independence, widespread use of torture, the position of women, the failure to produce bodies or graves of those executed by the state, lack of freedom of speech and movement, and use of forced labour – to name but a few.
Not even the UN can pretend that the human rights situation in Uzbekistan is anything other than abysmal.
Still more astonishing then that the Home Office has refused the asylum applications of every single one of the few dozen escapees from Uzbekistan to make it to the UK – which still has the Soviet exit visa system and locks its people in. Even last week the Home Office was still claiming at immigration hearings that there is no human rights problem in Uzbekistan. (Fortunately judges have been less blinkered and asylum cases have been won on appeal).
The UN and EU countries continue to use Uzbekistan as a major supply base for the occupation of Afghanistan. Major new contracts between the US and Uzbekistan were signed in March 2009, and Hilary Clinton is to pay an official visit to President Karimov in November this year.
Even more disgusting is that it now emerges that the newly reinvigorated US/Uzbek relationship was made possible in negotiations because the US agreed to contract Gulnara Karimova’s company FMN Logistics to provide the transport for all the US supplies passing through Central Asia to the US forces in Afghanistan.
Not only that, but the Karimov company FMN Logistics is involved in construction and supply services on the US airbases in Afghanistan itself, and has been involved in the massive expansion work to the prison at Baghram Airbase to provide a replacement Guantanamo torture centre further away from media access.
The Pentagon contracts are worth $850 million a year to the Karimovs.
Hey Angry, how come Cuba has a better healthcare system than the USA?
Even France has a better healthcare system than the US.
Are you some sort of congenital idiot who didn’t receive the appropriate healthcare or education and can’t think for themselves?
Seems very much like it.
I’d suggest you go to Cuba or France for free treatment.
Do you the world of good.
Arsalan
Stephen at the time when the Kurds were gased he was an American alie. you seemed to have conviently forgoten that?
So what – you think who your allies are can justify appalling behaviour. And the invasion of Kuwait, the massacre of the Marsh Arabs, the torture of countless Iraquis. Perhaps the Israelis and Karimov could try and employ the same facile argument.
Angrysoba
It looks like arsalan may have usurped Allah’s role by saying who should go to hell – so if there is an eternity looks like he may be joining us – or hopefully he has his own little compartment for Arsalan where everyone can agree with him whatever he says. All the more reason to live for this life I say.
Angrysoba,
Welcome back!
Yeah, Arsalan is about to strap some explosives and nails to himself and take a train ride. All for Allah. Sadly he won’t get credit around here, as it will quite obviously be the work of Tony Blair and/or the Jooooooooos.
“Hey Angry, how come Cuba has a better healthcare system than the USA?”
Demonstrably false. You’re getting your information from Michael Moore and/or a country that arrests free speech advocates in the middle of the night.
“Even France has a better healthcare system than the US.”
Arguably true. But it depends on your priorities. If I had a serious medical issue, I’d much rather be treated by the professionals in the States. For a broken leg, send me to Canada or France.
Are you another silly goose who believes that Angrysoba is American?
MJ
I am not sure that US covert operations would have worked – in all the other cases you referred to it was possible for opposition groups to function on the ground, it is difficult to argue that this was the case in Iraq. I suspect the real answer lies in an effective UN with proper powers of intervention and sanction – the present organisation is clearly unfit for purpose – look at Srebenica, Darfur and Rwanda for starters.
MJ – “Ditto the supply of chemical weapons that he used against Iran, another crime that often gets left off the list for some reason.”
Yes. No disrespect to the victims of Halabja, etc, who also suffered and died horribly, but the way that everybody bangs on that bit and ignores the earlier victims gives me a feeling of “agenda”, or “talking point”, or something. It’s The Thing To Say.
Incidentally, I mentioned that a thread or so back, Ruth asked “who supplied them ?”, and I put together an answer, which met a “your comment has been held for moderation because you haven’t posted here before” page; which seemed odd, I haven’t seen it before. And it didn’t ever seem to make it through. (some bloggy software does that if there’s more than a preset number of links ?)
Not to worry, but in the course of putting it together, I found http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq-Iran_War#Use_of_chemical_weapons
A hundred thousand ??? !!! &*^%!!”^
Perhaps Larry can tell us what he thinks of the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians.
Is he for it or against it?
Simple enough question.
The post at 1:45am was mine. Looks like it is not possible for LArry to be in two places at the same time – spooky thought for all the conspiracy theorists
Oh, soddit, it’s late at night, I’ll bite on a troll.
Cuba ? Has ways of keeping its people alive in hurricanes, anyway.
“No Iraqi ever left me to drown on a rooftop”, to borrow from a briefly-great USA citizen.
Showing my age, aren’t I ?
Angrysoba,
And that’s not all – another person (Arsalan?), who’s obviously pissed off that the Nazis didn’t finish the Holocaust, posted this into the comments:
(Posted by: at April 2, 2010 9:39 AM)
“There is only one way it is possible to stop Israel chopping people up to sell their kidneys, there is only one way to stop Israel kidnaping women, girls and even you boys to satisfypeople like Larry, and that is to end Israel. Muslims nations must unite in to a single khilafah and remove this racist cesspit”
I really wish Craig would moderate the comments. I actually find myself agreeing more and more with Larry from St Louis. There’s some vile stuff going on here which could find a better home in some Neo-Nazi literature or in a new, enhanced edition of “Mein Kampf”.
This once used to be a really nice weblog with great people commenting here, you know.
Cuba has a free health care system, which is one of the best in the world.
All citizens can avail of it.
http://www.alternet.org/health/53087
Your argument seems to be that the US has the most sophisticated treatments and advanced technology.
But surely if you can’t afford to avail of those then you’d be better off with the free treatment in France or Cuba.
Both France and Cuba have advanced medical technology and would only be a squidgeon behind the US on new development, if at all.
Your healthcare is based on profit, which harms and kills many whilst their’s is based on need.
What have you got against changing that?
“Hey Angry, how come Cuba has a better healthcare system than the USA?”
Even according to Michael Moore’s film Cuba’s healthcare system is ranked lower.
“Are you some sort of congenital idiot who didn’t receive the appropriate healthcare or education and can’t think for themselves?”
If I were a congenital idiot surely, environmental factors such as healthcare and education are irrelevant given that congenital disorders are those someone is born with. What kind of education did you get?
“I’d suggest you go to Cuba or France for free treatment.”
Thanks, but I’m perfectly satisfied with the healthcare here in Isra…er…Japan.
Anyway, speaking of congenital idiots:
Arsalan says: “First we had Angrysoba, everyone agreed he was a bigger Moran [sic] as he was a Zionist.”
Comment here is superfluous.
“I put together an answer, which met a “your comment has been held for moderation because you haven’t posted here before” page; which seemed odd, I haven’t seen it before. And it didn’t ever seem to make it through. (some bloggy software does that if there’s more than a preset number of links ?)”
Richard, I believe that comments containing more than two links get put into moderation.
“Angrysoba,
Welcome back!”
Nice try, Larry, but everybody knows that you are actually me.
@ The Cartoonist
“I actually find myself agreeing more and more with Larry from St Louis.”
What do you agree with him about?
Can’t you understand that people like arsalan despise Israelis and indeed perhaps Jews as a whole for the suffering they’re inflicting upon his people?
Is that difficult to understand?
Do you have the same difficulty understanding the hatred Jewish survivors had for Germans, the whole German people, right up until their death?
@Pippit
When nobody’s watching, I kiss Larry secretly on the cheek.
“Angrysoba,
And that’s not all – another person (Arsalan?), who’s obviously pissed off that the Nazis didn’t finish the Holocaust, posted this into the comments”
Not long ago I did notice that someone had said something along the lines of “makes you wonder if Hitler didn’t know something we don’t” or something equally astonishingly atrocious.
If I remember rightly Craig did tell him not to be so bloody stupid but everyday there seems to be another bucketload of intemperate rantings at the very existence of Israel as if it were a pure and unmitigated evil.
I used to be far more instinctively pro-Palestinian than I am now but frankly all these pro-Hamas groupies who go on and on about organ theft, Zionist lobbies, Zionist-run media, the “Israhellies” etc… etc… completely put me off.
angrysoba – “Richard, I believe that comments containing more than two links get put into moderation.”
Yes, I guess that’d be it, I think there were three. I’ve seen it elsewhere, but hadn’t thought. Never mind.
Pippit – Do you have the same difficulty understanding the hatred Jewish survivors had for Germans”
Not just Jewish. It happened all over Europe, everyone has their memories, and stories.
It’s why I can’t take the anti-EU people all that seriously. Anything that has people bickering over trade stuff instead of planning for a replay of the last war, is an improvement.
Angrysoba,
Absolutely. Quite right. And that’s probably the reason why I am so pissed off with all of this too.
re: various – *does* France have free health-care these days ? When I lived there 25 years back, it was strictly private insurance.
angrysoba said this:
“If I were a congenital idiot surely, environmental factors such as healthcare and education are irrelevant given that congenital disorders are those someone is born with.”
Hmmmmmm…That’s quite a gem.
“What kind of education did you get?”
I got the one with special attention to commas and grammar and stuff.
On the substantive point. Your care would be better in France or Cuba for such a chronic condition than the profit-motivated healthcare in the US.
You quite simply wouldn’t be treated. They’re spending too much money on Israeli led wars to pay for domestic needs. US taxpayers are funding corporate profits on war. Simple as that.
Gosh, a whole bunch of new names. Hello, all.
Oh dear.
Those poor little Israelis
I really feel so sorry for them.
The poor little pets still think they’re the goodies.
Of course their murdering and slaughtering of innocent people might have allerted them to some problem in their view. But no.
Like Nazis, they continued under orders to commit their crimes.
There will come a time when these Israeli war criminals and murderers of innocent civilians will face their victims’ families in court.
And it will be sooner than you think.
Terry: “Your care would be better in France or Cuba for such a chronic condition than the profit-motivated healthcare in the US.”
There are a lot of people who see things in very either/or terms.
I’m sure you could make plenty of very valid criticisms of US healthcare. I don’t know much about it and honestly don’t particularly care too much about it. But what I was replying to was Ritter’s question, “How come Cuba has better healthcare than the US?” and I replied to the effect that the premise of his question was either wrong or unclear. I can’t find any statistics to show Cuban healthcare is better and even those used by Michael Moore to show how bad US healthcare was showed Cuba lower on the healthcare rankings. You could argue that Cuban healthcare is free and therefore better but by those standards North Korean healthcare is better than US healthcare, which is an absurd conclusion. Free healthcare is a very high price if it goes hand in hand with a lack of all other freedoms.
Terry: “Your care would be better in France or Cuba for such a chronic condition than the profit-motivated healthcare in the US.”
That’s so unbelievably not true as to Cuba.
For one particular instance out of many, there are plenty of HIV+ people in the U.S. who have no health insurance but nonetheless receive treatment through state Medicaid programs. It costs a lot, but it’s done. HIV+ folks in Cuba don’t nearly have access to a number of life-extending drugs.
And of course the same is true for cancer and all sorts of other chronic conditions.
Perhaps you’re under the false impression that people are denied healthcare because they lack insurance. It’s simply not true.
In any event, as to Cuba, it’s remarkable how few people from the States go there for any kind of treatment.
Larry. This alone wipes out most of your argument.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3284995.stm
Poor angrysoba is even less informed than you, waffling on as he does about North Korea.
It’s clear that people of your and his ilk are little more than dimmsters regurgitating Faux News nonsense.
Do you really expect to be taken seriously?
I know you don’t, but angrysoba really does think he’s something sensible to contribute.
At least we’ve discovered now that he doesn’t.
Wow. 5,000 foreign patients in Cuba. Mostly from Latin America. How many from the U.S.? Maybe 10 or 20? 100? You do know that there are 305 million people in America now, don’t you?
And that article is just weird. Out of nowhere, it states: “Cuba’s cutting-edge products for neck and breast cancer have caused the biggest stir in the world of biotechnology.”
Boy, that’s just so far from science. And that article is from 2003. Has any serious treatment of such cancers yet come out of Cuba?
Dear God, what you people think is evidence is hilarious.
Terry, redior and Ritter have familiar writing styles. Know what I’m saying? Familiar obsessions too.
Well, Terry, the article you linked to suggests that Cuba might be an impoverished basket case but it doesn’t have the healthcare system of an impoverished basket case. Fantastic!
Be careful though because one of the things Cuba that has successfully created is a meningitis vaccine. Around these parts, vaccines are often considered to be intraveinous death – or autism or maybe a NWO chip or something. Definitely bad news whatever it is.
Anyway, if you think the healthcare system makes up for its dictatorial leadership and all-round oppressive and illiberal policies then you must be…wait for it… you must be Havana laugh!
And Terry, why would you credulously buy into what freelance reporter Tom Fawthrop wrote in 2003?
Is he just relying on what the government told him?
You do know that they arrest dissenters in Cuba, don’t you?
Still waiting for those breast cancer cures to comes out of Cuba …
Here’s another view of the Cuban healthcare system. You are, of course, free not to believe it if you like:
http://www.miscelaneasdecuba.net/media/pdf/Article-Hirschfeld-Press.pdf