Jean Ziegler
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Jean Ziegler (born April 19, 1934) is the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food and a senior professor of sociology at the University of Geneva and the Sorbonne, Paris. He was a Member of Parliament for the Social Democrats in the Swiss federal parliament from 1981 to 1999, now he is a leaders of the anti-economic globalization movement.
In 2000, he was appointed by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. In this role, he has visited many countries on behalf of the Commission on Human Rights, including Niger, Ethiopia, India, Bangladesh Mongolia, Brazil, Guatemala, and the Palestinian territories to report on the situation of hunger and malnutrition in these countries. [1]
Jean Ziegler is the author of various books on globalization and on the crimes committed in the name of global finance and capitalism, condemning in particular the role of Switzerland in these. He writes in French and German.
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[edit] Controversies
[edit] Swiss banks and foreign assets
According to CNN, in 1997 Ziegler alleged that Swiss banking officials lied to protect the assets of Mobutu Sese Seko, former President of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). Ziegler said, "This is grotesque... This is a financial empire and it is here in Switzerland." [2]
[edit] Khaddafi Prize
A controversy arose in the early eighties when Ziegler — still a socialist party member of the National Council — suggested that the Federal Government invite the Leader of the Revolution to Switzerland. When asked, Ziegler confirms that Khaddafi invited him several times "because my books are translated into Arabic and he reads them." UN Watch When Libya wanted to create a Human Rights Prize in 1989, he was "consulted, just like other European intellectuals have been." Today Ziegler says that he supported the Prize then "as a step towards an opening." UN Watch
In 1989, Ziegler was the main information contact on the Khaddafi Prize for numerous media reports. UN Watch The news agency UPI described Ziegler at the time as member of the Khaddafi Prize Committee, and Time Magazine cited him as "member of the jury." Time Magazine Ziegler has stated that all of these reports are "objectively wrong." "I never belonged to the jury." UN Watch On October 26, 2006, when asked for specifics as to his involvement with the prize, Ziegler denied that he had created or funded the prize. Ziegler said, "I did not create it. Why should I?" See Video
UN Watch has pointed to an organizational connection between Ziegler and the Prize. Ziegler is the Vice-President of Geneva's Fondation Nord-Sud pour le dialogue interculturel; the latter supports the NGO Nord-Sud XXI. UN Watch Again, Nord-Sud XXI had been mandated to manage the Khaddafi Prize for years, as confirmed by Ahmad Soueissi, Nord-Sud's managing director. The task of Soueissi's association was to propose candidates for the prize. To this involvement Ziegler says that at the time of the founding of Nord-Sud XXI he had been supportive, but had never exercised a function with the association. UN Watch
[edit] Swiss banks and the Holocaust
According to Ziegler, his "defense of the interests of Jewish communities in their claims against Swiss banks earned him acclaim in the United States and in Israel," while he faced attacks and court procedures in Switzerland as a result of this work. In 1998, he testified before Senator Alfonse D'Amato’s hearing on the assets of Holocaust victims by the US Senate Banking Committee, against the Swiss banks and in support of the claims of the World Jewish Congress. His book “The Swiss, the Gold and the Dead: How Swiss Bankers Helped Finance the Nazi War Machine” was published in America in 1998 and received positive reviews. (New York Times, Peter Grose, April 5 1998). [3]
This book, while appreciated in the United States, was heavily criticised in Switzerland. According to the website Switzerland is yours:
Of all the flood of books that jumped onto the bandwagon of the Nazi gold scandal once the depth of Swiss collaboration became clear, this was the most devastating, written by a highly qualified academic at the University of Geneva and former Federal Council member – hounded and now politically ostracized for remaining uncowed by the storm of protest his revelations unleashed. His calm condemnation of the entire Swiss establishment for their role in funding the Nazis, perpetuating the war and refusing to come to the help of the Jews endeared him to no one, but he is nonetheless sticking to his guns... [4]
[edit] U.S. Imperialism
According to The Weekly Standard, Ziegler believes that the United States is an "'imperialist dictatorship' that is guilty, among other atrocities, of 'genocide' against the people of Cuba by means of its trade embargo." [5]
[edit] Alleged comparison of Israelis to concentration camp guards
According to The Forward:
| In July [2005], [Ziegler] told a crowd of pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Geneva that Gaza was "an immense concentration camp" and added that it was a good thing that the "guards" were about to leave. This elicited a rare rebuke from a spokesman for Annan and from human rights commissioner Louise Arbour. |
Ziegler later denied that he was comparing Israelis to Nazis. [6]
[edit] Bibliography (selection)
- Une Suisse au-dessus de tout soupçon (Switzerland, above all suspicion, 1976)
- La Suisse lave plus blanc (Switzerland launders whiter, 1990)
- Le bonheur d'être Suisse (The fortune of being Swiss, 1994)
- La Suisse, l'or et les morts (Switzerland, the Gold, and the Dead, 1997)
- Les nouveaux maîtres du monde et ceux qui leur resistent (The new rulers of the world and those who resist them, 2002)
- L'empire de la honte (The empire of shame, 2005)
[edit] Articles
[edit] Quotes
- I vowed never again, not even by chance, to side with the hangmen
- Every child who dies of hunger in today's world has been murdered (October 26th, 2006)
