MONTREAL — Stronger international sanctions and diplomatic repercussions against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran must be put in place to keep the Iranian leader’s genocidal agenda in check, Liberal MP Irwin Cotler said recently.
Liberal MP Irwin Cotler
This needs to be done in view of what he termed intolerable continued international “indifference” by the United Nations and the international community at large.
His “Responsibility to Prevent Petition” of last December against Ahmadinejad’s Iran now boasts 100 signatories, Cotler told reporters May 17. The Liberal party’s special counsel on human rights and international justice said he recently met with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and exhorted him to do more to counter the Iranian threat.
“I advised him that the UN has a responsibility, under Article 99 of the charter, to bring this issue before the Security Council,” Cotler said.
Cotler also met with Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon and advised him that Canada, which is due to host the G8-G20 leaders summit at the end of June, should make Iran a priority in their discussions. Cotler restated the four main threats posed by Iran that are articulated in the petition: nuclear capability, state-sanctioned incitement to genocide, sponsorship of international terrorism and massive repression of the country’s citizens. All this constitutes a “toxic convergence” of threat, Cotler said. Iran today is “a genocide waiting to occur.”
Ahmadinejad has demonstrated nothing but “mocking defiance” of the international community, Cotler added.
“[U.S. President Barack] Obama’s extended hand was met by a clenched fist, ” he said.
Cotler’s petition with a comprehensive list of measures the international community can take has been signed by jurists, politicians and human rights figures, including Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, former UN human rights high commissioner Louise Arbour and Senator Roméo Dallaire, the former UN mission commander for Rwanda.
Asked about Ahmadinejad’s recent trip to the United States, where he was interviewed on television and appeared at the United Nations, Cotler said it’s all about the “culture of impunity” that surrounds a man bent on destroying Jews, Israel and even his own people.
“Here’s a person who belongs in the docket of the accused, and yet he’s received at the United Nations, he’s given a podium at a conference against nuclear weapons,” Cotler said. “You begin to think you’re living in Alice in Wonderland in international terms.”
Referring to Winston Churchill’s famous reference to the “gathering storm,” just prior to World War II, Cotler sees a similar storm taking shape regarding Iran.
“Every single lesson of the genocides of the last 65 years, every lesson is now either being ignored, or repudiated, or acquiesced to, and [Ahmadinejad] continues with impunity.
“That’s why we formed our Responsibility To Prevent coalition – as a wake-up call, and to sound the alarm.
“Will it have any effect? I don’t know. Fourteen months ago, [U.S. Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton said we need crippling sanctions. Nothing has happened.”
