Editorials

Through many years the United States has been recognized throughout the world as the primary example of “the land of the free” and a champion of human rights everywhere.

That is not to ignore some civil rights problems the country has undergone, but it has faced up to them and worked diligently for improvement. As a result, the U.S. today has established a solid reputation for an impressive domestic and international record of support for civil rights.

You would never know that, however, by listening to talk around the United Nations where the U.S. frequently is portrayed as a bad global citizen.

It is bad enough for Americans to see their tax dollars being squandered by U.N. mismanagement. But to hear a continual flow of “bad mouthing” of their country adds to the frustration, and to the public resentment of those words and actions by so many U.N. member states.

This anti-U.S. attitude at the U.N. starts at the top.

Nicaraguan Rev. Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, who was elected next president of the U.N. General Assembly, has called the United States “the greatest enemy of the right of self-determination of peoples” and has declared Americans to be “the most ignorant people around the world.”

Strong words from a man who served as foreign minister during the Sandinista dictatorship of Daniel Ortega in the 1980s, suggested Edwin Feulner, president of The Heritage Foundation.

“Ironically, it’s D’Escoto’s homeland and his soon-to-be employer that increasingly block freedom and democracy,” Feulner added.

Nile Gardiner, director of Heritage’s Thatcher Center, points out that Nicaragua is rapidly emerging as a key friend and ally “of some of the most odious regimes on the face of the earth.”

He and Ray Walser, Heritage’s Latin America expert, have documented Nicaragua’s ties with Iran and Venezuela, two nations that adamantly oppose American interests.

“The presence of one of its key political figures at the head of the U.N. General Assembly is a demonstration of the organization’s callous disregard for the principles of liberty and freedom on the world stage,” they said.

Even as the U.N. wildly wastes money and puts unrepentant leftists into positions of power, it wants to spend even more money on an investigation of supposed human rights abuses in the United States, Feulner added.

Doudou Diene, the U.N. special rapporteur charged with investigating “racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance” came to the U.S. in May. In previous “investigations” he has found what he calls “institutionalized racism” in many Western countries, including Japan, Canada, Denmark and Switzerland.

It will be a large surprise if he doesn’t report finding it in the U.S., too.

On the other hand, Diene has said little about real human rights abusers in dictatorial states ranging from Africa through the Middle East and into the rest of Asia.

“Diene’s report is certain to be a sad joke,” Feulner said. China, Russia, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, all human rights abusers to one extent or another, are proud members of the U.N. Human Rights Council, Diene’s employer.

They are able to watch as a trumped-up report decrying U.S. human rights abuses takes the spotlight away from their own very real violations.

Even though continually portrayed by U.N. groups as a bad global citizen, the United States continues to provide some 22 percent of the organization’s funding — money often used to criticize us, Feulner noted.

The real target for investigation, it is suggested, should be the United Nations itself, to identify and eliminate the abuses that have come to define the world body.

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