SG Hoop Scheffer : on Afghanistan+, NATO needs Human Rights Values to succeed

NATO needs Values to succeed in its present and future tasks, said at the Human Rights Capital : Strasbourg, Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, speaking about one of the most important issues for the 2009 Summit : Afghanistan.

He was addressing his main message for NATO's future on the horizon of 2020 to "young leaders" from many countries all over the world at the eve of the TransAtlantic Organizations 60th Anniversary Summit of 28 Heads of State and Government, hosted by France and Germany, including new USA President Obama, which has to decide, in the following 2 days, both on Afghanistan and on NATO's change of Strategy.

- I can't send a 19 years old boy to Afghanistan without telling him that he's going there to defend Values, stressed de Hoop Scheffer.

 And I need to be able to say to a Mother and a Father, when they get the body of their son killed in Afghanistan, that he fought for respect of and defence of Human Rights Values, NATO's Secretary General said.in Strasbourg, .

- "In Afghanistan, NATO's Military cannot make the difference. Because the key question will be a Political - civil one", stressed the experienced former OSCE Secretary General, f. Dutch Foreign Minister, and outgoing NATO's SG.

- "I do not believe in the "Clash of Civilisations", but "I believe in Universal Values", he pointed out, brushing away a pretext often abused by some to try to cover-up human rights abuses.

But, "never forget : Values don't come accidentally. They have to be protected", he added.

A first occasion for that might be given immediately at Strasbourg's Summit, where the frontrunner candidate for his succession to the post of New NATO's SG, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, already endored by Germany, the USA, and many other big countries, leads a government known as defensor of basic Human Rights' Values, such as Freedom of Expression in various cases, and fight against Torture.

In this regard, Denmark had filed an Interstate application versus Turkey at the European Court of Human Rights in order to protect a Danish-Turkish Citizen from Torture and Inhuman/Degrading Treatments, which concluded in a "Friendly Agreement" with Ankara formally promissing to the ECHR that it would do everything at its disposal to curbe exceptionally sky-rocketing Torture figures in the country.

ChristianDemocrat Danish Foreign Minister, Per Stig Moller's statements in favor of the tortured young man had made headline news some years ago.

But EU Parliament's latest Resolution on Turkey's contriversial EU-bid, adopted  on March 2009 in Strasbourg, expresses "concern" for the "growing Number" of Torture cases reported in Turkey.

New US President, Barack Obama, has often linked his decision to completely close the Guantanamo prison, (already on, the way out during the 2nd term of his predecessor, former US President G.W.Bush), with a clear rejection of any Torture and inhuman or degrading treatments.