The roving investigator

On its way to the USA

[Reprinted from Issues & Views April 22, 2002]

From Canada's National Post (4/2/02), we learn that the United Nations now has a "Racism Inspector." His duties seem to be roaming from country to country to nose around in and evaluate the social policies of sovereign nations.

This roving investigator, one Maurice Glélé-Ahanhanzo, from the Republic of Benin, has a mandate from the UN's Human Rights Commission to "probe intolerance" worldwide. The Post notes, however, that Mr. Glélé-Ahanhanzo has shown a distinct preference for scrutinizing Western democracies, and has been criticized for spending a "disproportionate amount of time" in such countries. (Enjoying the freedoms, perhaps?)

Among other things, Glélé-Ahanhanzo reports to the UN on "contemporary forms of racism," and keeps an eagle eye on the treatment of women in the various countries he visits. After last year's investigative visit to Australia, Glélé-Ahanhanzo was taken to task by the Australian government for his negative report, which officials claimed demonstrated several "errors."

Glélé-Ahanhanzo had criticized Australia for not having signed the UN's convention opposing discrimination against women. As it turns out--and just a little investigative research would have unearthed this fact--Australia signed that convention as long ago as 1983. (It might be interesting to investigate whether the women of Benin are treated as well as the women of Australia.)

Glélé-Ahanhanzo had complaints about the annual amount of money Australia plans to spend on its "indigenous affairs." And further complaints about the treatment of jailed Aborigines.

Steve Ingram, a spokesman for the Australian government, claims that a UN agent like Glélé-Ahanhanzo cannot enter a country without an invitation from the government in question, and this is why "democracies find themselves visited frequently." Says Ingram, "Instead of working on those countries where there are serious racial divisions and human abuses, they spend an inordinate amount of time in the Canadas, the U.S.A.s, the Britains and the Australias, and very little time and effort on countries where there are quite clearly very serious problems." (We wonder why.)

Copyright © 2008 Issues & Views