MOSCOW, November 27 (Itar-Tass) — The resolution of the United Nations General Assembly against glorification of Nazism has sent a signal to countries which face an urgent need to take resolute measures to fight this evil, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.
“The Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly passed a Russia-sponsored resolution on ‘Inadmissibility of certain practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance’ at its meeting in New York on November 26,” the Russian Foreign Ministry reports.
The co-authors of the Russia-proposed draft resolution included Belarus, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Angola, Bangladesh, Benin, Bolivia, Venezuela, Vietnam, Gabon, Guinea, Zimbabwe, India, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Cote d’Ivoire, Cuba, Laos, Lebanon, Mauritania, Myanmar, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Rwanda, the Seychelles, Syria, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Sri Lanka, the Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Southern Sudan.
One hundred twenty states voted for the resolution, three countries said “no” to the draft (the United States, Canada and the Marshall Islands) while 57 countries abstained from voting.
The Russian Foreign Ministry informs, referring to the conclusions of the Nuremburg tribunal, the final documents of the World Conference against Racism (South Africa, 2001) and the Anti-racism Durban Review Conference (Geneva, April 2009), that the resolution expresses serious concern with a rise of extremist movements and political parties propagating racism, ethnocentrism and xenophobia.
“The resolution condemns glorification of the Waffen-SS Nazi movement and its former members by unveiling monuments and memorials as well as by staging public demonstrations with an aim to propagate the Nazi past, the Nazi movement and neo-Nazism. The document emphasizes that similar actions desecrate the memory of numerous victims of fascism, produce a negative impact on the younger generation and are absolutely incompatible with the commitments of the United Nations member states. This becomes particularly urgent in the light of recent unveiling of yet another monument to Nazi criminals in the town of Bauska,” the Russian Foreign Ministry says.
The GA believes that such actions can come within the purview of Article 4 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination which obliges countries signatories to the Convention to launch criminal prosecution against Nazi criminals.
“It is underlined that such practices fuel contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia and contribute to spreading and multiplying the number of various extremist parties, movements and groups, including neo-fascists and skinheads. In this connection, the UN member states have received a call to be vigilant,” the Russian Foreign Ministry goes on to say.
The resolution contains a clause which expresses concern ”with the ongoing attempts to desecrate or destroy monuments erected to commemorate those who fought against Nazism in the years of WWII as well as to illegally exhume or relocate the remains of those people.”
The resolution says that it’s inadmissible to proclaim the former Nazis, members of the Waffen-SS organization and “those who fought against the anti-Hitler coalition and cooperated with the Nazi movement” members of national liberation movements.
“In the light of recent incidences of appearance in the Baltic states of sacrilegious advertisements speculating on the suffering of victims of fascist concentration camps, the resolution expresses profound concern over attempts to use the sufferings of victims of WWII, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Nazi regime for commercial advertising,” the Russian Foreign Ministry says in its report.
The resolution contains an instruction to the special reporter on contemporary forms of racism at the United Nations Human Rights Council to pay special attention to concrete facts and manifestations of glorification of Nazism and the former Waffen-SS veterans in his future reports to the Council and the United Nations General Assembly.
The Russian Foreign Ministry regrets that “the United States, Canada and the Marshall Islands voted against the resolution while a delegation of the European Union abstained from voting on the draft supported by the majority of the United Nations members.”
“It’s also regrettable that Ukraine had once again refrained from condemning the glorification of Nazism and paying tribute to those who died in the struggle against that evil,” the Russian Foreign Ministry emphasizes.
Moscow hopes that the resolution will send a clear signal to countries in which the need to take resolute measures against increased attempts to glorify Nazism, including the Waffen-SS veterans, is ripe.