"This is a crystal clear mirror. There are nutriment and air needed for meditation". Those are the lines written by Poet Byron when he toured Leman lake (Geneva Lake) in Geneva. In March and April 2001, I was participating in reporting the UN Human Rights Commission session. In the same period of the year before last, I experienced and reported a war in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Today of the year before last, US-led NATO conducted savage bombings of a small country; in the same period of this year, the United States took the field itself without any disguise, at the human rights session, it attacked the developing countries, picking faults right and left.
On May 8 two years ago, US missiles attacked Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia, resulting in the deaths of three Chinese journalists, and injuries of more than 20 embassy staff, to this date, the wounds of the Chinese people have not as yet been healed; at the human rights session the United States again waved its human rights big stick at China.
As an ordinary journalist, I have not as yet made a deep analysis of the view--"human right standing above sovereignty", my intuition tells me: this obviously is "might meaning right". Yugoslavia-Geneva, this is a war in the same strain, whether with or without the smoke of gunpowder, the United States wanted to achieve one aim: clearing obstacles to establish a world of the United States.
Things that took place on the soil of Yugoslavia are not far away from us. I remember that one night when NATO bombed Yugoslavia, a Yugoslav driver drove a car to send us back to our station. When NATO aircraft rumbled past, the driver leaned out of the window, waved his fist toward the sky and cried, "You, a horde of cowards, come down to the ground and have a fight with us if you have the guts, we can floor you three with one punish." US-led NATO, however, finally subdued the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia only by relying on continuous air attacks, not through ground battle. The aggressors, like playing video games, selected their targets on the computer screen, pressed the buttons, and destroyed Yugoslav factories, bridges, railways and highways one by one in a calm and unhurried manner. When the brave yet despair Yugoslav people went out of the air-raid shelters, walked onto the bridges and defended the bridges, factories and television stations with their own bodies against NATO bombings, as a foreign reporter, I saw at that time the heroic and stirring scene, I wanted to cry but had no tears. I remember the words said by Javier Solana, then secretary-general of NATO: If Yugoslavia does not submit to our will, we will peal its skin as we do to a rabbit until it is dead. The elated victor really got a swelled head. On May 8, 1999, they extended their evil hands to Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia. Although China is far away from Yugoslavia and is separated from the United States by half of the globe; and although there are various international laws and international rules, they still put their hands to it. Is it that in their ideology, China is no more than an enlarged Yugoslavia? The Kosovo flames of war left us too many things to ponder over.
Two years have elapsed, the United States has forgotton that it owed the Chinese people a debt of blood, and that it ravaged the innocent people of Yugoslavia, on the UN human right rostrum this year, it again taught the Chinese people and the people of other developing countries a lesson at the UN human rights rostrum in the posture of a human rights guardian. Moreover, the United States applied strong political and economic pressure on members of the Human Rights Commission, demanding that they submit to US will and pass the anti-China motion it tabled. It dared to do so because it thought it could do so. I remember that Assistant Secretary of State of the United States Halord Koh once openly said: In the world today, there is nothing that the United States cannot accomplish if it wants to. But what about the fact? The American anti-China motion was defeated for the 10th time. China does not fear any threat, since the opposite side chose confrontation, then we would take on it to the very end. Don't slight the trial of strength at the human rights session, the US swelled arrogance after the Kosovo war had been continually frustrated in Geneva, the two battles fought at the human rights sessions last year and this year have boosted the morale of the Chinese and other developing countries. When representatives of various countries vied to come over to the seat of the Chinese delegation, shook hands and embraced the Chinese representative, and when the utterly lonely US representative walked away with his briefcase, I felt the strength of justice.
This year's human rights session has concluded. As we were about to leave Geneva there came the news saying that the United States failed to be elected in the re-election of the UN Human Rights Commission, the Uncle Sam who had ordered people about in the Human Right Commission for dozens of years had to hold an indifferent position for the first time. I once against had a walk along the banks of aforesaid lake. On one side were the blue water and azure sky, the swans and wild ducks were playing with water, the distant mountains were undulating and the snow gleamed white; on the other side the grass looked like a carpet, lovely flowers were everywhere, famous architectures, former residences of celebrities, the well-known dance music Swan composed by Tchaikovsky here, the beautiful melodies seemed to be drifting between mountains and rivers. This reminded me of the eternal photo: Two youngsters laughed heartily in the bright and beautiful sunshine and bouquets of flowers and piles of brocades, in their hands were fairly blue birds ready to fly. It was in this season, at this place and amidst this beautiful melody that Xu Xinghu and Zhu Ying left Geneva for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Is this a coincidence? Geneva-Yugoslavia? I wish that the story of Prince and Princess Odette would not be rewritten by vicious persons.
(People's Daily 05/09/2001)
