INTRODUCTION / WORK WITH INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
countries. It decided to maintain the Special Rapporteur on Romania appointed in 1989, despite the overthrow of the former government. The Romanian Government raised no objections to an extension of the Special Rapporteur's mandate and indicated its willingness to continue to cooperate with him. The Commission also took note of the serious deterioration in the human rights situa- tion in Haiti. It decided to appoint an independent expert to examine the situation in Haiti and to consider his report at its next session under item 12, which deals with violations in particular countries, rather than under the advisory services program.
The Commission also recognized the serious violations occurring in Guatemala, another country being considered under advisory services: it reques- ted the Secretary-General to appoint an independent expert to examine the human rights situation there, although it left open the question of the agenda item under which the report would be considered. Amnesty International, which had been urging the Commission for some time not to allow advisory services to be used as a means of avoiding scrutiny of serious human rights situations, sub- mitted a written statement to the Commission describing the escalation of human rights violations in Guatemala. In respect of Chile, another country which had been on the Commission's agenda for many years, the Commission decided to terminate the mandate of its Special Rapporteur in view of the election of a civil- ian government due to take office in March 1990. Although this was perhaps a rather premature move at an important time of transition in a new democracy, the Commission did request the Chilean government-elect to report to a special meeting at its 1991 session on the government's follow-up to recommendations adopted by the UN in respect of Chile.
The Commission again adopted resolutions under item 12 on a number of other countries already under consideration - Afghanistan, Albania, Cuba, El Salvador, Iran, the Israeli-Occupied Territories and South Africa. Amnesty International made an oral statement to the Commission drawing attention to the failure of governments to stop the practice of extrajudicial executions and cited examples from Chad, China, Colombia, Iraq, Peru and Sri Lanka. In another oral statement, the organization emphasized the importance of international meas- ures to prevent torture, referring to continuing reports of torture from Brazil, Mauritania, Myanmar (Burma), Papua New Guinea, Syria and Turkey. Amnesty International also submitted written statements on Iran, Israel and the Occupied Territories and Myanmar, as well as on Guatemala.
There was considerable discussion at the Commission about ways to make its work more effective following the General Assembly's Resolution 44/167 in 1989, recommending that the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) should take the necessary steps at its 1990 session to expand the membership of the Commission on the basis of equitable geographical distribution. Some of the methods discussed could reduce the Commission's effectiveness in dealing with serious violations of human rights, but no final conclusions on this were adopted. On 25 May ECOSOC adopted a resolution deciding to enlarge the Commission by 10 seats, to be allocated among the regional groups of Africa,
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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT 1991