The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which operates under the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), urged America on Tuesday to “develop reparation proposals” for descendants of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, claiming its “lingering legacy” still represses black Americans today.
The human rights office’s focus on a slavery system that ended in the 1800s appears at odds with its lack of action regarding the enslavement of what is suspected to be millions of people in China today, one of many systems of oppression fueling the genocide of Turkic peoples in occupied East Turkistan by the Chinese Communist Party. Human rights investigators have uncovered evidence that the Chinese government has imprisoned as many as 3 million people in a network of upwards of 1,200 concentration camps throughout East Turkistan, enslaving many on the premises and selling potentially millions of others to cotton farms and factories nationwide.
Dozens of multinational companies – including household names in America such as Nike, Nintendo, and BMW – have been implicated in China’s slave trade, using supplier companies that evidence suggests purchased Uyghur slaves to abuse in their factories.
Activist set up a mock Uyghur forced labor camp outside the Apple flagship store on March 4, 2022, in Washington, DC. – Demonstrators called on tech giant Apple to stop using Uyghur forced labor. (Photo by Nicholas Kamm / AFP) (Photo by NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images)
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has not only done little to condemn the genocide of Uyghur people and other Turkic ethnic groups by the Chinese government, but has praised the Communist Party for its alleged “achievements” in human rights during a visit to China, and East Turkistan, in May.
Bachelet will complete her last day as U.N. human rights chief on Wednesday, facing tremendous pressure to publish a report on her findings in East Turkistan. The United Nations hinted that the report may be published on Wednesday, effectively freeing Bachelet from any consequences for the contents of that report.
The condemnation of the pre-Civil War slave trade in the United States published on Tuesday was part of a periodic review of several countries, including rogue regimes such as communist Nicaragua and Zimbabwe in addition to Azerbaijan, Benin, and Slovakia. In the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination’s full report, it noted in its “concluding observations” that the American delegation cooperating with the report acknowledged that “the displacement of Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans, and their lingering legacy, are contributing factors to the racial disparities and inequities that the State party faces today.”
“The Committee recommends that the State party take the appropriate measures towards the establishment of such a commission to study and develop reparation proposals for people of African Descent,” the report suggested, “including by issuing an executive order, in close consultation with relevant stakeholders, in particular people of African descent.”
Elsewhere in its conclusions, the racial discrimination committee condemned the United States for the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. JWHO, which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the power of passing laws regarding abortion to state governments. The U.N. committee, without explaining, claimed that allowing states to determine their own abortion laws will result in a “disparate impact on the sexual and reproductive health and rights of racial and ethnic minorities, particularly those with low incomes.”
The committee “requested that the State party adopt all necessary measures to address the profound disparate impact of Dobbs v JWHO on women of racial and ethnic minorities, Indigenous women and those with low incomes.”
The report found its way into the propaganda arms of hostile nations like Iran, whose state-run PressTV reproduced the U.N.’s condemnation of slavery in the United States and linked it to the death of Minnesota man George Floyd in police custody in 2020, which prompted nationwide violent riots.
The committee’s report will be the last under Bachelet, who had the opportunity to run for a second term as high commissioner for human rights but refused after global condemnation of her visit to China. Bachelet, the socialist former president of Chile, prompted international disgust while visiting China in May by praising the Communist Party for its human rights record – arguably the worst of any government in the world.
During talks with genocidal dictator Xi Jinping, Bachelet “expressed admiration for China’s efforts and achievements in eliminating poverty, protecting human rights and realizing economic and social development,” according to Chinese state media, which Bachelet has not refuted as an accurate representation of her comments at press time.
Free Tibet campaigners and members of the Hong Kong, Tibetan and Uyghur communities hold a rally opposite Downing Street as part of a global day of action in protest against the Beijing 2022 Winter Games on 23rd June 2021 in London, United Kingdom. Speakers condemned the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for its insistence that the Beijing 2022 Winter Games should go ahead in spite of the Chinese government’s human rights violations against the Uyghur people and in Tibet, Hong Kong and Southern Mongolia and called on the UK government and British Olympic Association to boycott the games. (photo by Mark Kerrison/In Pictures via Getty Images)
Bachelet issued remarks from China in which she insisted her visit was “not an investigation” and claimed that China had “dismantled” its concentration camp system. The U.N. official notably referred to the concentration camps by the preferred euphemism of the Chinese Communist Party: “vocational and educational training centers.”
Following her visit, human rights activists and researchers who have helped uncover the true extent of China’s Uyghur slave trade condemned Bachelet and urged the United Nations to release a full report on her findings in East Turkistan. Adrian Zenz, a scholar who has published some of the most important works on Uyghur slavery in the cotton industry, called Bachelet’s visit at the time a “disaster,” lamenting, “I think we can clearly say that amid already very low expectations, this is significantly worse than what had been feared.”
Human rights activists lamented that Bachelet will leave her office on Wednesday without having to take responsibility for the visit.
“I feel terribly disappointed that our letter (to Bachelet) was totally disregarded and no follow up,” Luo Shengchun, the wife of jailed Chinese rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi, told Reuters on Tuesday. Luo had written to Bachelet in May. “I wish for them to replace her with an officer with a more clear position with China. The UN can really do much more.”
A Bachelet spokesman claimed on Wednesday that the report on Bachelet’s visit to China is expected to be published that day.