How Independent is the European Parliament?

What do Margaret Page[i], José Bayardo Mairena[ii], Manuel Juárez[iii], Joseph Hernández Ochoa[iv], David Meza[v], and Nahúm Palacios[vi] have in common? At least two things – firstly, they all died in March 2010, and secondly, the European Parliament has failed to make any sort of resolution about the circumstances of any of their deaths.

Why should they, you might ask. I would suggest two very good reasons – consistency, and most importantly, credibility.

Consistency

When Cuban prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo died following a hunger strike in February, the European Parliament immediately condemned what they described as his “avoidable and cruel death,” but when New Zealand woman Margaret Page died in a rest home following a hunger strike only weeks later, the European Parliament said not a word. Where was their ‘strong condemnation’ of New Zealand authorities in relation to Margaret Page’s ‘avoidable and cruel death’?

Perhaps the European Parliament has one standard for men in residential institutions, and another for women. Perhaps they have one standard for prisoners, and another for people with a physical vulnerability. Perhaps they have one standard for Cuba and another for New Zealand. Or perhaps they have one standard for members and lackeys of the imperialist club, and another for any country or people with the audacity to make legitimate claims of self-determination.

The other five deaths strongly suggest the latter. Jose Bayardo Mairena, Manuel Juárez, Joseph Hernández Ochoa, David Meza, and Nahúm Palacios were all journalists. More importantly, they were all HONDURAN journalists, and they were all assassinated in March by the death squads of the illegitimate, and United States-supported, government of Pepe Lobo.[vii] Another journalist, Karol Cabrera, was severely injured in the attack that killed Ochoa. I wonder if collateral damage requires collateral resolutions? Kathleen Nicolle Rodríguez Cabrera, pregnant daughter of Karol Cabrera, was collaterally killed in December 2009 whilst driving her mother’s car down the same road as Ochoa was killed on, by killers gunning for Karol..[viii]

Whilst the European Parliament was busy drawing attention to “the alarming state of the [Cuban] journalist and psychologist Guillermo Fariñas” (who is on a voluntary hunger strike), they said not a peep about the involuntary deaths of these five genuine Honduran journalists murdered while pursuing their profession in a country torn by civil strife as a result of a US-supported coup.[ix]

These glaring examples demonstrate an extremely selective application of the standards the European Parliament claims to be upholding, and exhibit a complete lack of consistency, or any defence of the ‘universality’ of human rights they claim as their objective in Rule 110(4) of their Rules of Procedure.[x]

Credibility

Worse still, several members of the European Parliament were at the very same time on their own journalist-arresting spree, in Belgium, Italy and France – but why restrict yourself to journalists – Belgian police also detained Remzi Kartal and Zubeyir Aydar, two Kurdish members of the Turkish Parliament forced to leave their country because of political repression.[xi] No European Parliament resolution on that one either, I’m afraid. Why?

Perhaps because during an official visit to Ankara on 22 March, US diplomat Shari Villarosa confirmed to the media that the American authorities were behind these mass arrests of Kurdish activists, former Kurdish MPs and journalists in Western Europe, to help “its important friend” in the Middle-East to “stabilize” the region for peace.[xii] And don’t forget who its friends were in ‘stabilizing’ Rawanda – golly gee, France and Belgium.[xiii]

Then we have Barack Obama’s statement of 24 March on the “Human Rights Situation in Cuba,”[xiv] claiming to be committed “to supporting the simple desire of the Cuban people to freely determine their future and to enjoy the rights and freedoms that define the Americas, and that should be universal to all human beings” – whilst at the same time attempting to impose a multi-party system on that country, a demand dutifully repeated in the European Parliament Resolution.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the meaning of the word hypocrUSAy, or that maybe, just maybe, the United States is not only the self-proclaimed puppeteer of European governments’ attacks against other Europeans, African attacks against other Africans, but also those against Cuba. And who benefits from these attacks?

Certainly not the people – unless they happen to be US citizens. And most certainly not Cubans, who most definitely do have a simple desire to freely determine their future, and have for over fifty years been doing just that, pursuing an alternative system of democratic government, of their own design and choosing. They will again go to the polls in a few weeks, as they have done every few years for half a century, to “freely determine their future and to enjoy the rights and freedoms that define the Americas, and that should be universal to all human beings” by voting in an electoral process developed by themselves, for themselves, and of themselves.

If the shoe fits..

Unless and until the European people refuse to permit the United States of America to run their countries and their parliaments, both individual and collective, they will be recognised only for so distorting and deforming the fundamentals of international law, particularly notions of human rights and self-determination, that their credibility, like that of George W Bush, and now Obama, fits on the sole of a very small shoe, one about the size of that which Karol Cabrera’s grandchild would now be wearing – had he lived.

[i] Margaret Page, a previously-active woman, was left with severely limited speech and movement following a brain haemorrhage in 1991, and in March 2010 she decided she no longer wanted to live. She refused food and drink, and died after 16 days. http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/3532462/Margaret-Page-dies-in-rest-home-after-16-days and http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/national/3498011/Care-home-can-t-force-woman-to-eat
[ii] http://hondurashumanrights.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/jose-bayardo-mairena-ramirez-y-manuel-juarez-journalists-assassinated/
[iii] as above
[iv] http://cpj.org/killed/2010/joseph-hernandez-ochoa.php
[v] http://cpj.org/2010/03/honduran-radio-reporter-gunned-down.php
[vi] http://cpj.org/killed/2010/nahum-palacios-arteaga.php
[vii] http://quotha.net/node/827,http://www.rightsaction.org/Alerts/Honduras_death_squads_040510.html
[viii] http://www.ifex.org/el_salvador/2009/12/17/cabrera_murder/
[ix] http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/08/united-states-involvement-in-the-coup-in-honduras/
[x] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P7-TA-2010-0063+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN [accessed 15 March 2010]
[xi] http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article19623
[xii] http://www.araratnews.eu/nuce.php?aid=418
[xiii] http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18540
[xiv] http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/statement-president-human-rights-situation-cuba

ENDS

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