Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/dpmoratorium121807.html
UNITED NATIONS, December 18 -- Tuesday the General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for a moratorium on the death penalty. Afterwards, in a swank 57th Street law office, Mario Marazziti of the Community of Sant'Egidio, a major proponent of the resolution, briefed a handful of reporters on why some of the countries voted yes. Cote d'Ivoire, he said, had been won over by Sant'Egidio's role in the peace process. Marazziti initially said that France had helped; after Inner City Press asked for clarification, given President Gbagbo's antipathy for France, Marazziti agreed, it had all been Burkina Faso (which also voted for the moratorium).
Over what he billed as a Tuscan spread, of wine and mozzarella the pepper corns on which may his eyes water, Marazziti sketched the history of the death penalty campaign. This round involved schmoozing with dictators and recruiting sub-regions to become Cities for Life. Tuscany, it turns out, was the first to oppose death, back on November 30, 1786. It was never reinstated.
At the UN, General Assembly President Srgjan Kerim was presented with the text on November 2. On November 15, Marazziti said, Egypt tried some amendments, to tie the death penalty to the wider right-to-life, meaning abortion. According to Marazziti, even the Vatican opposed this "instrumental" use of the principle of life. The Philippines -- a "Catholic country," Marazziti pointed out -- opposed Egypt's gambit. And on December 18, the resolution passed, 104 in favor, 54 against, and 29 abstentions.
Despite the recent news from New Jersey, the U.S. voted against the resolution, along for example with Sudan. Antigua Barbuda, incoming to the presidency of the Group of 77 and China, also voted no. By contrast Algeria voted yes, and Morocco abstained. Who'd have thunk it?
