Find below a summary of the speech presented by Laila Freivalds the Swedish Foreign Minister this morning in Geneva, as part of the proceedings of the 60th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights. She mentions Zimbabwe. Below the summary is a response from the Government of Zimbabwe representatives.
LAILA FREIVALDS, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden, said the United Nations' founders had recognized the intrinsic relationship between human rights and security. The lesson that human rights should be protected by the rule of law if humankind was not to be compelled to rebel against tyranny and oppression had been reinforced time after time – in Rwanda, Bosnia and other situations of genocide, mass murder and ethnic cleansing. Thus, the Stockholm International Forum, held last January, had focused on measures to enhance the capacity to prevent genocide. The Secretary-General had underlined the need to make clear the link between massive and systematic violations of human rights and threats to international peace and security. There must be no granting of amnesties for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, including those related to violence against women and girls.
The empowerment of women and the promotion of gender equality were effective ways to combat poverty and enhance development, Ms. Freivalds said. It was only when men and women enjoyed equal rights and opportunities that sustainable development could be achieved. Recognizing, as in the Beijing Platform for Action, that women were actors in preventing conflicts and in peace negotiations as well as in the rebuilding of war-torn societies, a gender perspective should be integrated into all activities aimed at conflict prevention and solution, in peace agreements, and in peace-consolidation processes. The special needs of women and girls in all stages of such operations must be fully assessed and taken into account. Among other issues, discrimination against women, harmful traditional practices, including female genital mutilation and crime committed in the name of "honour", must be addressed.
Other priority issues for the Swedish Government, Ms. Freivalds added, included the abolition of capital punishment, an end to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, steps to ensure the enjoyment of all human rights by persons with disabilities and action on the issue of corporate social responsibility. Sweden also called attention to the human rights situations in Zimbabwe, China, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Chechnya and Belarus, as well as to the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories. The shared vision that every human being was equal in dignity and rights made it a duty to speak out and act of behalf of people suffering negative consequences because they had exercised their fundamental freedoms and human rights. It was to be hoped that this session of the Commission would provide the opportunity for serious discussions based on common aims and duties, that confrontation would be replaced by cooperation, and resistance replaced by involvement and implementation.
Rights of Reply
A Representative of Zimbabwe, speaking in right of reply, said that, as expected, the Minister from Sweden had been unable to resist the opportunity to abuse fellow delegates with hostile propaganda about Zimbabwe. There was an explanation behind that bitterness that had nothing to do with human rights. The Swedish Minister continued to cite an inaccurate report on youth training camps in Zimbabwe, and this pathetic display showed her ignorance of the country. There was no training of youths for torture, rape or any form of violence in Zimbabwe. All civil activities in the country had to take place within the laws of the land. The Swedish Minister's frustrations emanated from the fact that the newspaper to which she had referred had been closed after its refusal to register in compliance with the law. That paper had been funded by Sweden, which the Minister had conveniently forgotten to mention.
Sweden and other countries seeking regime change in Zimbabwe through lies and other propaganda would be rewarded with failure. No country could force regime change on another without the ghost of that action coming back to haunt it, as recently witnessed. The issue was not human rights abuses, but the Government's taking away of land from the whites, which the whites had stolen. Instead of supporting this noble programme of land redistribution, Sweden had chosen to denigrate it.
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