Canada PoliticsCanada condemns UN official for blaming U.S. policies for Boston bombings
It's another black eye for the United Nations.
Canada is joining the United States in calling for the removal of Richard Falk, a controversial UN human rights rapporteur who wrote an essay asserting that American policies were the impetus of the Boston Marathon bombings.
"Once again, United Nations official Richard Falk has spewed more mean-spirited, anti-Semitic rhetoric, this time blaming the attacks in Boston on President [Barack] Obama and the State of Israel," Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said in a statement released on Wednesday afternoon.
"There is a dangerous pattern to Mr. Falk’s anti-Western and anti-Semitic comments. The United Nations should be ashamed to even be associated with such an individual.
"I respectfully call on the United Nations Human Rights Council—again—to remove Mr. Falk from his position immediately. Mr. Falk’s consistently mean-spirited comments cast a dark shadow over the United Nations and what it can accomplish. Comments like these do a great disservice to the fundamental values of the United Nations and to all freedom-loving people."
[ Related: U.S. lawmakers grill FBI on Boston bombing investigation ]
According to Yahoo! News, Falk's essay, published in the Foreign Policy Journal, warned against "darkly glamorizing" the Boston bombings.
"The American global domination project is bound to generate all kinds of resistance in the post-colonial world.
In some respects the United States has been fortunate not to experience worse blowbacks, and these may yet happen, especially if there is no disposition to rethink US relations to others in the world, starting with the Middle East.
We should be asking ourselves at this moment, 'how many canaries will have to die before we awaken from our geopolitical fantasy of global domination?'
The war drums are beating at this moment in relation to both North Korea and Iran, and as long as Tel Aviv has the compliant ear of the American political establishment those who wish for peace and justice in the world should not rest easy."
It appears the on-line essay has now been removed.
Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, took to Twitter to express her exasperation at the essay.
Outraged by Richard Falk's highly offensive Boston comments. Someone who spews such vitriol has no place at the UN. Past time for him to go.
— Susan Rice (@AmbassadorRice) April 24, 2013
The UK also called for the firing of Falk, while a spokesperson for the UN simply"rejected" his comments.
"The secretary-general is hopeful that special rapporteurs such as Mr Falk, understand that while they have independent status, their public comments can undermine the credibility and the work of the United Nations," Martin Nesirky said, according to Reuters.
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This isn't the first time that Falk — a Princeton University professor — has angered the West. In 2012, he presented a UN report calling for the boycott of all companies that have dealings with Israeli settlements.
And, in 2011, he had to be reprimanded by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon for allegedly endorsing conspiracy theories about the US being involved in a 9/11 cover-up.
Falk, 83, was appointed to the UN Human Rights Council in 2008. If the UN doesn't remove him, his term will end in 2014.
(Photo courtesy of Reuters)
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