Rashid A Mughal
THE only global peace keeping body is under severe criticism these days. The reason is trust factor and the hope which the smaller, poor , politically and economically fragile countries of the World has pinned in UN but with little success. Not only their hopes are completely shattered but their trust level is rapidly in downward spiral. Muslim countries of the world have their own grievances-totally valid of course, as they are disappointed with the big-power domination and decision making at the UN. With a population of over 1.8 billion ,they still have no permanent seat at the Security Council, where much of the decision making takes place. Like other poor and small and politically less important members, Pakistan too has voiced its concern about the domination of big powers in decision making and arm twisting techniques of superpower to elicit a resolution of its choice. The latest example of use of this blatant power was when Israel wanted to shift its Capital from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and the open threats which the member countries received from The Big Boss to cut their aid if they did not tread its line. After all, it was Madeleine Albright, the former Secretary of State in the ostensibly “multilateralist” administration of President Bill Clinton, who said in 1995, “UN is a tool of American foreign policy.”
Certainly other European countries have played damaging roles in crucial UN developments in recent years, including reform efforts, Iran sanctions and more, said Phyllis Bennis, Director, New Internationalism Project at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies. She said Ban Ki-moon’s end-of-first-year speech provided an example. “While he spoke of protection of the ‘global commons’ and the ‘bottom billion’ as UN priorities, he failed to provide any real programmatic blueprints for how those crucial goals might be brought about,”. Addressing his first press conference in 2008, Ban told reporters: “You know that I am not one to speak easily of successes.” “The past year was one of immense challenges,” he said, pointing out only two areas where he has made “certain progress”: “a new chapter on climate change” and “new and daunting challenges in peacekeeping, most specifically in Darfur.” The UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur was in trouble even before it could get off the ground, primarily due to a shortage of both troops and helicopters. At the press briefing, Ban was constrained to admit he had only 9,000 out of the estimated 26,000 soldiers needed. “That is why we are very much concerned about this ongoing deteriorating situation in Darfur,” he said, tempering his short-lived optimism on peacekeeping in Sudan. Anwarul Karim Chowdhury, a former UN Under Secretary General and High Representative for Least Developed Countries (LDCs), says restoring the credibility and neutrality of the United Nations, as a universal world body, is the organisation’s biggest challenge as the new Secretary General enters his second year. “The United Nations has been losing the widespread respect and support it used to enjoy,” Chowdhury told in an interview.
He cited several examples: there are demonstrations and protest marches against the UN. A topmost official is prevented from visiting the UN office in the field. UN officials are being expelled by host governments. UN peacekeepers are being withdrawn on charges of sexual harassment. And it goes on and on, he said. “Stigma of corrupt practices sticks on. UN’s esteem has never been that low worldwide. This should get top priority attention of the Secretary General and the senior management group,” said Chowdhury, a former permanent representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations and a diplomat who has been associated with the world body since the late 1960s.
Anuradha Mittal, Founder and Director of the San Francisco-based policy think tank Oakland Institute, said: “If allowed to be truly independent with necessary resources, an unbiased United Nations could have real impact and help affect real change when it comes to the most urgent issues of our times, including poverty, conflict resolution, HIV/AIDS and climate change. “Unfortunately, the United Nations and its agencies have become impotent as they have come to be controlled by western capitals such as Washington DC, who have held the United Nations hostage by withholding their contributions,” Mittal told . Therefore, the priority for UN and its agencies should be to live up to their original mandate, which was to bring all nations of the world together to work for peace and development, based on the principles of justice, human dignity and the well-being of all people, she declared. One of the most visible — and damaging — impacts of the foreign policy of the Administration of President George W Bush has been “a triumphalist assertion of unilateral militarism, ignoring or undermining or simply violating (largely without consequence) the United Nations Charter, UN resolutions and a host of other international laws”, she noted.
“A question for the uncertain future is whether the US will lift its heavy-handed domination of the global body, and allow the UN at least the modicum of a chance to play the role mandated by its Charter: to end the scourge of war, to protect human rights for all people and peoples, and to work to eliminate global poverty and inequality,” Bennis said. So far the likelihood does not seem high — not least because US domination of the UN has been for many years a bipartisan affair in Washington, she argued. “But US domination remains the single greatest obstacle to the UN’s realisation of its potential as part of an internationalist coalition, which would also include global social movements and a rotating cast of at least a few governments, standing against war, for human rights and protection of the planet, and providing the scaffolding for a world governed by laws instead of power,” she declared.
— The writer is former DG (Emigration) and consultant ILO, IOM.
