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October 24, 2005
UN-happy Birthday
It was sixty-one years ago on October 24, 1945 that the United Nations came into existence as an instrument of peace with a vision to make the world a better place for succeeding generations - a world where nations are at peace with one another, where people's human rights are protected, where the equal rights of men and women are guaranteed, where the rule of law is observed and respected, and social progress and better standards of life are ensured for all.
Sadly, the United Nations has not only failed miserably, but has become a protector of terrorists and a supporter of the regimes which breed them.
When the President of the United States spoke to the United Nations in October of 2004, he spoke of the need for change and called for a new course of action against the threat of terrorism, to stop the killing of school children in Russia, the beheading of construction workers in Iraq, the murder by suicide bombers. He spoke of how, rather than engineers, doctors, scientists and social workers, the Muslim world has become the world's largest exporter of hatred and murder. He spoke of how Muslim equality for women has emerged under the guise of female suicide bombers. He spoke of the consequences of terrorism that have been perpetuated by the Muslim world for over a decade in New York, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kenya, Tanzania, and Bali, Jakarta, Moscow, Madrid and Istanbul.
The President urged action against terrorism, admitting that "for too long, many nations, including my own, tolerated, even excused, oppression in the Middle East in the name of stability." He promised to implement the radical changes that would lead to freedom, to take the fight to the enemy instead of waiting for them to come to us. He acknowledged that it would not be easy and he urged the world to unite in the effort.
What effect could such powerful words have when most of those oppressors, most of those violators of human rights and decency, most of those dictators that our President was referring to in his speech sat before him as members in good standing of the United Nations?
Sitting on UN Commission on Human Rights are some of the world's worst mass murderers and violators of the very human rights they are supposed to protect, including Cameroon, China, Congo (DRC), Cuba, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Uganda, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe. The Chairman of the Commission is one of the worst human rights offenders, Libya. These are the very same human rights violators that the Commission is supposed to investigate and expose.
No wonder, then, that the UN has failed to even criticize China's human rights violations, failed to even discuss slave labor when the former Soviet Union existed, failed to even consider the sale of white women and children in Saudi Arabia, failed to investigate the denial of the most basic human rights to women in Asia and Arab countries, and failed to examine the slave trade in Arab countries.
The Commission voted against "special observation" of Zimbabwe's violations of human rights; and voted for the upgrading of the human rights status of Sudan, even while its dictatorship is committing genocide against its southern black Christians, carrying on slavery, and approving of systematic rape.
Consider the actions of Commission member Cuba. Castro had thrown into prison seventy-five dissidents, including journalists and librarians; and it had executed three men who hijacked a ferryboat to escape from this communist hellhole. No matter. The Commission reelected Cuba to another three-year term, "undoubtedly a recognition of the Cuban Revolution's work in human rights in favor of all our people," so Cuba proclaimed.
Ever careful to protect itself and its member dictatorships, the UN went so far as to terminate its relationship with the free speech organization Reporters Without Borders after it criticized the UN's human rights record. Reporters Without Borders had the audacity to suggest reforms that included the restricting of voting by dictatorships and claimed "that granting the chair to Qadhafi's [Libyan] regime has been a disgrace to the commission." The Commission voted 27 to 23 to suspend its relationship with the organization. All of the democratic members voted against it.
As Victor Davis Hanson said in the Wall Street Journal, "It is not the same United Nations of decades past, helping the poor nations with hunger, and sending troops around the world to keep the peace. Gone are the days when UNESCO and UNICEF provided selfless service around the world to fight disease and famine. Now it is a political body with a different agenda. Its membership is rife with tyrannies, theocracies and Stalinist regimes."
Immediately prior to the President's speech, Kofi Anan declared the Iraq War illegal to a BBC reporter. No surprise, considering that at the time of Iraq's blatant defiance of the United Nations resolutions on its weapons of mass destruction, one of Saddam Hussein's henchmen chaired the May sessions of the UN Conference. No surprise considering Kofi Anan's participation the Oil for Food scandal currently under investigation. No surprise considering the UN was silent while Saddam Hussein starved, tortured, maimed and murdered his own people.
Indeed, the UN was silent while Slobodan Milosevic methodically practiced ethnic cleansing in his country. The UN was silent while the Taliban systematically murdered their own people, repressed all human rights, and enslaved women. The UN was silent while in Rwanda and Burundi, half a million lives were lost in civil war.
The UN was silent while 800,000 people were murdered in 1994 during a systematic genocide organized by the Hutu government, and carried out against the Tutsi minority by its troops, police, and specially trained death squads. In 1999, an independent report condemned the UN's reluctance to accept evidence of a genocide, and reluctance to act once the genocide was undeniable.
The UN was silent while in North Korea hundreds of thousands have been murdered in the last decade, and possibly three million have been starved to death in a government created famine.
The UN was silent while 8,000 Muslim men and boys were murdered in Srebrenica, Bosnia, during the Bosnian war of 1995. Another UN commissioned report on this asserted that the UN peacekeepers stood by while Serb troops massacred those to whom the UN had promised protection. The UN had refused to reinforce their peacekeepers with enough troops, and even then severely restricted the action of those that were there.
The UN was silent while over three million were killed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with UN peacekeepers standing by and watching.
And the UN remains silent through the genocide in Sudan.
By its own admission in the Report of the Panel on UN Peace Operation, the UN recognized that its peacekeeping efforts have failed. It undertook peacekeeping in only a third of the conflicts during the 1990s, and when the UN did do something, it failed or was not effective.
And yet, the UN raises its voice, loud and clear, in consistent and constant condemnation of Israel. In the last few decades, more than half of the UN resolutions passed were against Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East. Israel scores as high as the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom on political rights. On civil liberties, Israel scores much higher than the dictatorship members of the UN.
Consider the dictatorships of Algeria, China, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, all of whom are members of the UN Commission on Human Rights. The dictatorship of Egypt is a member of all six UN committees concerned with human rights treaties. The dictatorships of Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan participate on the Governing Council of the International Labor Organization. The bloody dictatorship of Iran is on the five-member UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
Dictatorships who treat women as second class citizens or slaves like Egypt, Iran, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates are all members of the UN Commission on the Status of Women.
"So Americans' once gushy support for the U.N. during its adolescence is gone. By the 1970s we accepted at best that it had devolved into a neutral organization in its approach to the West, and by the 1980s sighed that it was now unabashedly hostile to freedom. But in our odyssey from encouragement, to skepticism, and then to hostility, we have now reached the final stage--of indifference. Americans do not get riled easily, so the U.N. will go out with a whimper rather than a bang. Indeed, millions have already shrugged, tuned out, and turned the channel on it." - Victor Davis Hanson
The United Nations is still investigating about 150 allegations of sexual abuse by its staff and soldiers in the Congo. The charges include accusations of pedophilia, rape and prostitution, some of which have been recorded on videotape.
"I am afraid there is clear evidence that acts of gross misconduct have taken place," said Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Although it promises a full investigation and to hold those involved accountable, the fact is that the UN has never been open or honest and has been known to ignore evidence in the past – including accusations of rape and murder by "peacekeepers."
Look on the bright side Kofi: at least no one was forced to wear panties on their heads. Now that would be an outrage!
UN-Happy Birthday United Nations, may this one be your last.
Posted by LindaSoG at October 24, 2005 01:16 AM
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Comments
Nice long post there on the anniversary of the UN.
And well, though I agree that there have been horrible mistakes made in the life of the United Nations, I also believe that a lot of good has come out of it. The world certainly would be worse off (imho) had the UN been dissolved as happened to the League of Nations.
I do think that the past UN Summit, though not as great as well expected, was a step in the right direction for change and reform. After all, isn't "small progress" better than on progress at all?
I invite you to read the post I did on my BLOG: http://newsalamexicana.blogspot.com/2005/10/happy-60th-birthday-united-nations.html
And if you want, you can catch up to see the changes proposed at the UN summit. I know they might seem light to you as a citizen of the US, but the US has no right to define "terrorism" for the rest of the world.
Posted by: RodoMXOZ at October 24, 2005 09:01 PM
The UN is rotten to the core.
It is my first comment here, but I have been visiting for a while now because your posts are well writen and loaded with information.
I agree with you 100% even though I am not Jewish, hell! I am not even an american, I'm a canadian...a french canadian! Yeah I know I'm really not your typical french canadian; I'm pro Bush, pro - USA, pro Iraq war, pro -Israel, I believe french canadians should all learn to speak english, I'm a conservative french canadian that believes liberalism is a disease - maybe it was not a long time ago but it is now a disease.
Posted by: Friend of USA at October 25, 2005 05:31 PM
Sorry Rodo, I looked at your post and I agree with Friend of USA.
There was nothing in your post to convince me that the UN is anything but a failure and an abomination to peace loving people.
You say that America has no right to define terrorism. Let me tell you what terrorism is.
Terrorism is the the systematic use of terror as a means of coercion, the use of violence (as bombing) committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands.
Perhaps you view terrorists as "freedom fighters" and/or "militants" fighting oppression. Tell that to the children of Beslan. Tell that to teenagers in Israel, the 3,000 who died on 9/11, the hundreds killed on a train in Spain, the hundreds of Iraqis who were blown up in the street this year.
Perhaps you view America as the oppressor. The United States of America has done more to promote freedom throughout the world than any other country. We have sacrificed more and given more of ourselves, our people, our money and our time to stand up for freedom throughout the world.
There is no way to rehabilitate the UN as it is made up of the world's worst thugs, murderers, theives and tyrants. It is a group that supports, encourages and finances the monsters who killed those children in Beslan, who blew up the trains in Spain, who bomb pizzarias and buses in Israel and yes, the same ones who flew planes into the WTC. These are the same people who are blowing up innocent Iraqis even as they try to rebuild their lives after Saddam. And you support them.
Albert Einstein once said: "The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
The world is a dangerous place also because of the people who don't do evil but who make it easier for others to do it.
You support a group of some of the most evil people in the world. What that does that make you?
Posted by: LindaSoG at October 27, 2005 08:09 AM