Jaspreet Kindra
‘I have to confront governments,” said Mary Robinson, the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights, in a matter-of-fact tone.
She was responding to the fact that she had ruffled the feathers of quite a few governments with her approach to the advocacy of human rights. Whether questioning the legality of Nato’s bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, which resulted in civilian casualties, condemning ousted Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic or criticising sanctions against Iraq while pronouncing against regimes that manipulate people upholding human dignity has always been her motive.
The former Irish president caused a stir in the European Union last week by endorsing the tabling of the issue of reparations for slavery and racism at the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance to be held in Durban in September.
So entrenched was her forthright persona in the UN that Robinson’s announcement on Monday that she will not stand for a second term of office has taken the world community by surprise. She has just more than six months left before the end of her tenure.
She told the UN Human Rights Commission: “I believe that I can, at this stage, achieve more outside of the constraints that a multilateral organisation inevitably imposes.”
In an interview this week with the Mail & Guardian she indicated that the UN’s “bureaucracy is very wary” of people confronting member states.
She announced on Monday: “When I was appointed by the General Assembly, Secretary General Kofi Annan advised me that, insofar as I could, I should ‘stay an outsider’ while working within the UN. In following his advice I have, at times, been an awkward voice even on occasion for my colleagues within the UN as well as for some governments.
“I make no apology for this as I have always acted from what I consider my strongest mandate to stand up for victims, those who cannot speak for themselves.”
Robinson (56) owes her life-long commitment to human rights to her Irish heritage, which also drew her to the anti-apartheid movement. “I worked with Kader Asmal [when he was teaching law in Dublin]. I have been very fortunate. I was a lawyer and I took up constitutional cases. When I was elected president of Ireland [in 1990], I did not have executive powers. I had to think of ways to use my office to make it more visible.”
In her first speech as president she said that through her victory the women of Ireland “instead of rocking the cradle had rocked the system”.
She travelled around the country and abroad, forging a new identity for Ireland and her ceremonial position. She extended a hand of friendship to Irish Republican Army leader Gerry Adams before the ceasefire and became the first Irish president to establish contact with Britain’s royal family, taking tea with Queen Elizabeth in Buckingham Palace.
Robinson also broke ground abroad by trying to bridge the gap between the developed and the developing world, often using the history of the Irish famine to empathise with conditions of poverty.
Eleven weeks before the end of her seven-year term as president, Robinson resigned from her position in 1997 to accept the position of High Commissioner for Human Rights with “one agenda: to further human rights”.
She drew again from past experience to tackle thorny issues as she recently did with Zimbabwe. “I know President [Robert] Mugabe I had paid a state visit to the country when I was president of Ireland. I know the many strengths of the country. I also know the problem of the land issue.
“Being an Irish person, I know what it is like to be deprived of land and driven from it. I understand that perspective very well. I wrote recently to President Mugabe and I made the contents of the letter public.”
She expressed concern about the deterioration of the rule of law in Zimbabwe, particularly the fact that Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay, whom she personally knew as “a very fine judge”, was under threat.
Robinson said she tried to appeal to Mugabe from the perspective of his “distinguished record as a freedom fighter”.
“It takes a long time to establish justice and build a rule of law what is happening in Zimbabwe is a tragedy.”
Asked to respond to speculation that she might be up for Annan’s position when his term of office ends this year, she replied she would rather leave politics and bureaucracy to “other people who can do it better than me I am not the right person for it. My real skills lie in advocacy.”