Coleman wants to revoke U.S. funding for U.N. Human Rights Council

(AP) - Sen. Norm Coleman is pushing for the United States to cut off funding for the U.N. Human Rights Council, saying the watchdog group's focus on Israel and failure to investigate other countries made it a "disaster."

Coleman, a Minnesota Republican and congressional delegate to the United Nations, said Wednesday the council "has essentially one issue on its agenda -- Israel. You've got countries like North Korea, Burma, Zimbabwe where you have state-sponsored brutality, and what we have is deafening silence."

A Senate Foreign Relations Committee panel will take up the Human Rights Council's performance at a hearing Thursday.

The committee last month approved legislation Coleman proposed to end U.S. funding of the council. The House last month approved similar legislation by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla.

"You've got countries like North Korea, Burma, Zimbabwe where you have state-sponsored brutality, and what we have is deafening silence" from the council.

Coleman, who along with Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., represents Congress in the U.S. delegation to the U.N., is a longtime critic of the U.N. Boxer also supported the funding cutoff when the Foreign Relations Committee approved the bill.

The council, based in Geneva, was created in March 2006 to replace the widely discredited Human Rights Commission. Last month, the new body angered the United States by continuing its scrutiny of Israel while halting investigations into Cuba and Belarus.

A U.N. official declined to comment on the legislation. On the question of the council's actions, he referred to a statement made last month by U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas, who said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was disappointed at the council's decision to "single out only one specific regional item." That was a reference to keeping Israel under investigation.

Coleman conceded his bill was more about symbolism than pulling the plug on the council's operations. The U.S. share of the council budget is only around $3 million, and the bill would allow the president to ignore the funding cut if he deemed it wasn't in the national interest.

"It's not a lot of money," he said. "This is a statement about the concerns we have about the Human Rights Council."

The State Department declined to comment on Coleman's push to cut off U.S. financial support for the council.

But Assistant Secretary of State Kristen Silverberg called the council's first year "a grave disappointment. Member states abandoned their responsibility to defend suffering people in countries such as Sudan, Burma, Zimbabwe, and Cuba and instead devoted their energies to attacking Israel."

Coleman, who is Jewish, said that his religion did give him a greater sensitivity on the issue.

"On the other hand, my colleagues who aren't Jewish are concerned about this," he said. "The American-Israel relationship is not of concern just to Jews. And the failure to focus on Burma, Belarus, North Korea and Zimbabwe is not a Jewish concern, it's an international concern."

Coleman said his effort should not be construed as U.N.-bashing.

"The fact that this passed unanimously in the Foreign Relations Committee would fly in the face of that," he said. "I have always stated that we need the United Nations to be effective, we need it to be credible, we need it to be transparent."

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Gallery

Fullscreen SlideshowPrevious Slide

1 of 1

Next Slide