Amnesty International (AI) has delivered a rude awakening to governments globally. In its annual report, AI has lambasted world leaders for the “shameful” failure to protect their citizens from militant groups, calling 2014 a “catastrophic year”. It is hard to argue with the statistics provided in the report: 50 million people displaced globally, only a mere two percent of Syrian — the worst affected country by conflict — refugees resettled, 35 countries where militants are committing human rights abuses and war crimes carried out in 18 countries. This report reminds one of the UNICEF report that declared 2014 to be the worst year for children, with too many to count being killed, kidnapped, tortured and raped in war-ravaged countries. The AI report brings to the fore the sad fact that since World War II, the world has not seen so many Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). The report even took the UN Security Council (UNSC) to task for not protecting civilians in troubled countries. While this is a timely and much-needed wakeup call to authorities around the world, AI is being unfair to China and Russia for allegedly “abusing” their veto power in the UNSC to prevent western-desired intervention in Syria. Russia and China have used four vetos since 2011 for the purpose. This was one point in the report that was unwarranted because Russia and China fully backed the US and west when they proposed intervention in Libya on humanitarian grounds. However, the mess that was made of Libya after the forceful ouster of Gaddafi opened the eyes of the world to the fact that this was no humanitarian matter but a full-fledged military intervention. Russia and China were never going to back the west and the US on any intervention on any grounds in Syria as a result. AI needs to acknowledge that not all vetos are negative. AI has also called upon countries to abide by the global arms trade treaty, correctly condemning the fact that in every conflict-wracked country, arms and large caches of weapons are being provided to fuel civil wars directly by governments or indirectly by arms traffickers. This is one of the major reasons behind the escalation of civil war in all the countries mentioned, a reason behind the rise of the terrifying Islamic State (IS) and other militant groups. The report has also taken a swipe at European countries for not doing all they can to accommodate refugees from conflict zones. One need not mention the thousands of ‘boat people’ — asylum seekers — who die on the high seas in search of safer pastures. The world’s governments have a lot to answer for. Will this report make them think twice? *