Louise Arbour: a colleague we have failed
On July 1, Arbour stepped down as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, an enormously prestigious and important international position.
The gratitude and praise which greeted her at the end of her term was shamefully muted. Arbour was a courageous champion of human rights, and a bold critic of the erosion of those basic tenets in our world.
She was never timid. She was never chained to a desk, was involved, hands on, outspoken, and challenging. She breathed life into the enormous portfolio that she was asked to take on.
Apparently she made mistakes. She warned Israel that it was not immune from human rights violations, and she criticized the U.S. bluntly and directly for its Guantanamo shame and detainee torture. She infuriated both nations, and was symbolically burned at the stake by critics who cruelly branded her anti-Semitic, and of course, anti-American.
The venomous attacks on her were over-the-top. They displayed an insecurity and cruelness by some unquestioning supporters of Israel and U.S. policy, who do not permit criticism.
