[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index ][Thread Index ]

Paris Birthday Party For U.N. Human



Subject: Paris Birthday Party For U.N. Human Rights Accord

Paris Birthday Party For U.N. Human Rights Accord
11:03 a.m. Dec 07, 1998 Eastern

By Irwin Arieff

PARIS (Reuters) - Human rights champions from around the world Monday
launched a week-long birthday party for the United Nations' Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, praising past progress but warning of fresh
battles in the years to come.

>From Nobel Peace Prize winners to grassroots campaigners, supporters of
justice and democracy gathered in Paris to launch ceremonies marking the
50th anniversary of the historic text adopted in the French capital on
December 10, 1948.

``All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,'' the
declaration begins in a deceptively simple statement supported by
enlightened thinkers for ages.

But it was not until after this century's two world wars and the Holocaust
that leaders came together to declare certain basic rights inalienable.

Fifty years later the words have won universal praise, but politicians,
intellectuals and rights crusaders agree that much remains to be achieved
before the  declaration becomes a reality.

French President Jacques Chirac, in remarks opening the ceremonies, reminded
participants that the declaration's principles were too often flouted today.

``People are tortured in half of all countries. Too often, political
opponents are reduced to silence, freedom of speech is violated, justice is
administered arbitrarily,'' he said.

``Minorities are persecuted. Wars and armed conflicts rage. Dictators keep
their people under their thumb, deprived and terrorized. In many countries,
equality between men and women is not recognized,'' Chirac said.

He urged the United Nations to expand its programs and called on U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan to launch an initiative to protect human rights
from the effects of globalization.

``Marked by an unprecedented development of exchanges, globalization is
unfolding today in a realm without laws, beyond the sovereignty of states
 ...Freedom without law means absolute power over the weak,'' the French
leader said.

Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, Guatamala's Rigoberta Menchu, Tibetan
spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and literature prize winner Wole Soyinka of
Nigeria were among Nobel Prize laureates attending the celebrations.

Annan and High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson were also at the
ceremonies at the Paris headquarters of the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the Myanmar democracy leader and 1991 Nobel Peace Prize
winner, sent a videotaped message from the semi-isolation which Myanmar's
military government has imposed on her at her home in Yangon.

Tuesday, discussions and other events were to continue, followed by programs
on youth and human rights and the fate of refugees Wednesday.

Thursday, the anniversary day itself, participants will gather in the
Chaillot Palace in Paris -- better known as the Trocadero museum, across the
River Seine from the Eiffel Tower -- to commemorate the original signing of
the declaration there.

Guided by such figures as Mahatma Gandhi and Eleanor Roosevelt, the United
Nations approved a text stating that every human being had the right to
life, liberty, justice and property in what Roosevelt called ``a Magna Carta
for mankind.''

The declaration, much of which has been translated into national laws around
the world, condemns discrimination, slavery, torture, arbitrary arrest or
exile.

Lobbying by rights groups such as Amnesty International, agreements like the
Helsinki Final Act and popular movements around the world have made human
rights issues an accepted part of world politics.