Has the UN maintained international peace and security?

by Shenali WADUGE

A noble endeavor to stop another world war from taking place through the creation of a world body known by us as United Nations has undoubtedly disappointed us all. The UN may claim that there is no world war but it has done pittance to avert or stop mini-wars and in many ways it has contributed towards the suffering of millions of people by allowing its good office to be used for political agendas totally compromising the UN and its objectives. The blunders committed by the UN over the years are long and varied and some of these mistakes continue to plague the UN and accounts for the credibility of its role and questions its relevancy in the modern context.

The UN comprises 193 member states compared with just 51 in 1945. The UN Security Council comprising 5 permanent members (US, France, UK, China and Russia) along with 10 non-permanent members elected every 2 years by the General Assembly are tasked with maintaining peace and security. In reality these 15 nations decide the fate of the world.

Yet inside the corridors of the UN, all its members whether they belong to the Third World or the First World are "treated" as Equal because they all have just ONE VOTE - or is that an overstatement? More and more we discover that far from equality all that the UN espouses to preach is being flouted inside the UN itself. This is an allegation that needs to be further discussed and explored.

Fundamental needs and rights

We do not expect the UN to do magic - all people of the world cannot be equal, everyone cannot be rich, everyone cannot eat the same food or enjoy the same comforts but everyone should be entitled to the basic and most fundamental needs and rights and in that respect the UN can really boast any significant changes as revealed in the statistics on poverty, health, housing, education etc. Similarly, if all members are to be treated equally why is it that the UN Security Council always enjoys the last say and also has veto powers, where does that leave the other members and their collective rights?

The UN Charter Preamble reads, "The purposes of the United Nations are: To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace."

These are no doubt very noble endeavors yet it is in reading these lines and comparing them against a backdrop of catastrophes that help us to realistically gage if UN has been a success or not. Unfortunately, peace and security is getting more and more elusive by the day.

If the UN is all about "peace and security" who is there to stop all 5 of the UN security council members who may be tied up in battle against one another especially if only they can hold nuclear arms/arsenal? Already it is clear that the US, UK and France are on one side while Russia and China are on the other. All these nations are steadily building up their military might and indulging in all types of nuclear arsenal - these certainly do not help international peace and does not meet the criterion for global security.

The simple logic of the Western nations is that no countries should possess weapons except them. Is the UN agreeable to this logic? So if US, UK, Israel, South Korea can have arms why can't Iran, North Korea or any other country for that matter?

Now what kind of logic is this when it is the West over the years that have been originating the conflicts that are taking place all over the world? So what has the UN done about it? What can it do realistically - suspend the nation, what would that mean? Or collect armies of several nations and invade to disarm - what would that lead to? Yet this was the principle of R2P which has been used to legitimize foreign nations to invade less powerful ones and now that doctrine is going out of control and no one can stop it.

This is why we ask the UN what has it done about the enormous injustices that have taken place one after the other? Was it in a position to stop but couldn't? What exactly did the UN do to overcome these atrocities....Genocide in Rwanda, deaths in Iraq by sanctions and by UN/NATO bombing, unmanned US drone deaths in Afghanistan and Pakistan...all taking place under the excuse of "humanitarian intervention" dealing a blow to Article 2.7 of the UN Charter that upholds the rights of member states for domestic jurisdiction.

We have witnessed such military intervention in Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, East Timor, Libya and none of these have given any improvement to the lives of the people as promised. Agencies like the International Atomic Energy Agency has been utilized to issue damning reports condemning countries which have served to facilitate sanctions upon nations without proof. Resolution 1706 with its use of "all necessary means" has become a good excuse to arm rebels in Libya and now in Syria by US and its allies completely ignoring the domestic rights of these countries who have not shown any aggression. The same excuse was used in 2006 to deploy UN peace troops in Darfur Sudan again on the excuse to "protect civilians".

The Gulf equals oil and the quest to secure and control the oil is the name of the game. The UN as a completely unbiased body tasked to maintain international peace and security needs to explain its justification for the use of military force in Iraq which has kick started a new model for the use of military force and intervention to take place.

That today has been more or less artfully accepted and documented in what we know as "responsibility to protect". Using the excuse of protecting civilians powerful nations are now invading countries while UN is helpless since it endorsed R2P. Over the years the disproportionate authority exercised by the US over decision-making and implementation has contributed to the UN losing its credibility. For this only the UN has itself to blame.

With this subversion arise weaknesses within the UN system. UN is now reduced to a passive bystander and its officials either taking part in the global manipulations taking place or simply doing their job only. The commitment for peace is not part of anyone's vision or mission unfortunately.

Failures within the UN

UN has become an organization that is corrupt, mismanaged and lacks accountability. Its budget is shrouded in secrecy, the performance outcomes of its specialized agencies are vague and one wonders whether there is conflict of interest in every area they branch out its activities! If the world body is accountable to all its member states why is the UN unwilling to go through audits and questions raised by its members?

There are over 50,000 employed in the UN and a large number of "consultants" which has become an abused practice. The personnel costs of the UN contribute 70% of the funding it receives and the UN pension scheme is what makes anyone desire to belong to the UN! What about the quality of the staff, with no proper records of personnel one can imagine why UN is in such a disarray confirmed by those who opted out of the system on the grounds of UN not practicing work ethics it preaches. The food-for-oil program is just one of the major frauds that have taken place within the UN where even its top executives hold accountability.

For speaking against UN peace keepers trafficking Eastern European women into sexual slavery in Bosnia, Madeleine Rees, was dismissed from her job at the UN office of the High Commission for Human Rights in March 2010. Her stand on the issue of sex slaves resulted in her transfer to Geneva in 2006 to head the UN Women's Rights and Gender Unit division but she clashed with Navi Pillay the UN High Commissioner for Human rights before she was out of a job with the UN altogether. Her story has even inspired the film - "The Whistleblower" though UN officials claimed her dismissal had nothing to do with her role in Bosnia. There are plenty more scandals that has embarrassed the UN over the years.

The UNSGs over the years have had their share of conflicts of interests. Former Secretary General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali is said to have played a key role in supplying weapons (disguised as relief material) to Hutu regime (through a $26million arms deal in 1990) which carried out the Rwanda genocide in 1994 against the Tutsis as disclosed in a book by Linda Melvern. Boutros-Ghalis' contacts with Hutus were never investigated. Kofi Annans son was involved in the $9billion oil-for-food scandal. Annan is now brokering peace in Syria! Kurt Waldheim a former Secretary General was also a Nazi.

What the UN has done is to distance nations from respecting international laws, and watched nations use the tool of ideology to take unilateral or arbitrary use of force. Needless to say international law has been a rhetorical convenience for the US/its allies and it has used the UN to legitimize and provide legal cover for its actions. In such a situation can the world really turn to the UN for meaningful solutions when permanent members end up taking actions to secure their own interests only?

What can the UN really do to maintain peace and security? If it can't do anything what is the point in spending billions on an international organization and utilizing resources towards meetings and conferences that are nothing more than an official photograph and a diplomatic handshake with an official statement released simply for courtesy!

If every nation/its citizens individually decide to uphold international and individuals laws, respects rights as well as duties the world doesn't really need permanent or non-permanent members who know very little about the ground situation in countries and rely only on the dossiers prepared by their "advisors" or "consultants". In 62 years, when it cannot put its own house in order perhaps the best thing UN should first start doing is to count the number of civilians that have died simply because it could do nothing against the aggressors - the terrorists of the world created by these world powers!

Courtesy: defence.lk