Aside from circulating this letter to the members of the General Assembly as requested by Iran, the Secretary General has not responded or taken any other action so far as we know.  That is a big mistake.  Iran’s blatant attempt to enlist Kofi Annan in manipulating the United Nations to cover its own series of transgressions of international law deserves a ringing rebuke.  Of course, we know that Kofi Annan is incapable of taking a clear moral stand lest he appear to be taking sides in a dispute among member states that he regards as having equal standing.  He treated Saddam Hussein with kid gloves, once calling him a man he could do business with, and now he is doing the same with the fanatical Mullah regime in Iran.

On the slim chance that Annan may have a change of heart and want to respond, but simply cannot find the right words, here is a suggested open letter for him to consider sending to Mr. Zarif:

To the Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations: 

This is to confirm my receipt of your letter dated April 27, 2006 and its circulation to the members of the General Assembly as you requested.  However, I also wish to take this opportunity to respond in my capacity as Secretary General of the United Nations.

Mr. Zarif, you represent a regime that is currently engaged in flagrant violations of international law on a number of levels.  As a consequence, you are in no position to ask the United Nations to twist its own core mission of fostering international peace and security and human rights in order to help your government commit even more violations.

First, in an unprecedented and breathtaking fashion, your President,  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, threatened a fellow member state – Israel – with annihilation.  Not once, not twice, but on repeated occasions he did so in the face of worldwide expressions of outrage.   Unless immediately withdrawn and apologized for, those threats alone merit your government’s expulsion from the United Nations altogether under Article 6 of the UN Charter.

Second, your government has flouted the expressed will of the international community by continuing your unfettered nuclear enrichment program.  Your leaders have openly scorned the UN’s attempts to deal peacefully with this issue and have lied to the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors about the scope of your program.   Your leaders have publicly proclaimed that Iran will not abide by any Security Council resolution that calls for a suspension of your government’s nuclear activities.   Just last Friday, for instance, one of your most influential religious leaders, Ahmad Khatami, who sits on your supervisory Assembly of Experts, said that "The U.S. and the Security Council can rest assured that Iran is not a country to retreat in the face of bullying resolutions."   How can you dare ask for the United Nations, and particularly for the Security Council that your leaders regularly mock, to take seriously any of your own diversionary accusations?

Third, your regime has one of the worst human rights records in the world today.  This is an area where regrettably I have been too silent in the past.  Back in 2003, I was upbraided by Iran’s students – tomorrow’s generation of potential leaders whom your regime has repressed – for not having “the gumption to demand a visit to the prisons or question the fate of the detained students” during my visit to Iran. They said that I was “deaf to the screams of the demonstrators down the street while elements of the regime, brandishing clubs and chains, were smashing the bones of Iranian workers, mothers and students.”  They were right.  I should have spoken out against the evil being perpetrated in my presence, but I did nothing.  I wasted another chance when I failed to respond to a letter I received in 2005 from three of your regime’s political prisoners – one of whom has since been executed -  requesting that I set up a special fact-finding mission to “investigate the plight” of your regime’s political prisoners.   I did not acknowledge this cry for help then, but I am using my response to your letter to speak out now on behalf of the people suffering under the cruel whip of your regime’s fanaticism.   Just within the last few days, a leading writer on democracy and non-violence, Ramin Jahanbegloo, has been detained on charges of "ties with foreigners”, according to your Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie.  Will he join the scores of political prisoners now languishing in your jails for doing nothing more than voicing their dissenting opinions peacefully?  Will he be sentenced to die for his beliefs, just like Valiollah Feyz-Mahdavi - a member of the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran - who is slated to be executed in about a week?   Will you confirm or deny the reports mentioned by Amnesty International that a number of political and other prisoners who are under sentence of death have been told by prison officials that they would be executed if Iran should be referred to the UN Security Council over the resumption of its nuclear program? Is that why your regime plans to execute Mr. Feyz-Mahdavi?   What a cruel joke your government’s candidacy for the new UN Human Rights Council represents, in the face of your regime’s serial abuses of the basic human rights of your people to live their lives with freedom and dignity.

Fourth, Iran is a state sponsor of terrorist organizations, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad, to whom Iran’s leaders have outsourced the killing of innocent people all over the world.  Do not speak of violations of international law when your government is complicit in the violation of the most fundamental laws of civilization.

There are times when diplomatic niceties and evasions must give way to the unvarnished truth.  This is one of those times.  I will not be a party to your perversion of the principles of this institution to which I have devoted my entire professional life.

                                                              [Signed] The Moral Conscience of Kofi Annan

Annan owes it to the jailed political prisoners and disaffected students in Iran, whose pleas he ignored, to send a response of this nature to Iran’s UN representative.  Sadly, Iran knows that he would never do such a thing, because it would mean sticking his neck out for the truth.

You can contact Kofi Annan at inquiries@un.org I was also told that materials sent to the following fax number will be given directly to his assistant: 212-963-7055.

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