>>>This sounds more like a reason to disband the UN (recall that "un" is also a
prefix, as in UN-peaceful or UN-realistic). The major emphasis is, of course,
to establish a pretext by which the Americans will always get to go fight
someone else's (read: Britlandic {as it is their suggestion} inspired) wars.
A<>E<>R <<<
>From www.wsws.org
WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : Britain
Britain proposes UN "peacekeeping" cover for great power military interventions
By Julie Hyland
6 September 2000
Back to screen version
Britain has submitted a report calling for a major revision of United Nations
�peacekeeping� operations to the organisation's Millennium Summit in New York.
The summit, which runs from Wednesday to Friday, will assemble at least 150
heads of state from every continent to discuss the role of the UN in the twenty-
first century.
The British submission was drawn up by the Labour government and the opposition
Liberal Democrats in a Joint Cabinet Committee on foreign policy. It is framed
as a response to a critical report on UN operations submitted last month by UN
Secretary General, Kofi Annan. Drafted by former Algerian foreign minister
Lakhdar Brahimi, Annan's report sought to counter criticisms that the UN had
proven ineffective in recent operations in the Balkans and Africa.
UN peacekeepers have suffered a series of humiliating setbacks, as in Sierra
Leone earlier this year when 500 blue helmets were taken hostage by the rebel
Revolutionary United Front. Moreover, the US refused to wait on a UN mandate
before commencing its bombing mission against Yugoslavia last year�preferring
to bypass the body due to the influence of Russia and France within it�and
assert its interests through NATO. The US has long been dissatisfied with the
UN and regularly fails to pay promised finance. In May, the Blair government
similarly bypassed the UN when it dispatched British troops to Sierra Leone to
intervene on behalf of the Kabbah government in the civil war.
The UN's crisis was deepened by the fact that its �peacekeeping� missions have
failed to prevent human rights abuses, and in the case of Kosovo have been
widely accused of facilitating them. The entry of UN forces gave a green light
for Albanian separatists to carry through the ethnic cleansing of Serbs and
Roma from the province.
Brahimi's report, which will be discussed at the Summit, is aimed at
accommodating the UN to the growing demands of the major powers for an
organisation more responsive to their immediate interests. To this end his
report states openly that the UN can no longer act as a �neutral� force in its
peacekeeping operations, but must be partisan against those regimes deemed to
be the aggressor, i.e., it would have an explicitly anti-Hussein mandate in
Iraq or an anti-Milosevic mission in Serbia/Kosovo.
As to the problems of financing and political divisions between the member
countries, Brahimi proposes that each UN member state should take
responsibility for training and equipping their own military units, which could
be used to provide contingents for UN missions.
The sweeping proposals essentially mean the UN will provide a flag of
convenience for military adventures by the major powers who will be able to
assemble their own national force, equipped with blue helmets, to be sent into
any chosen area under the guise of UN �peacekeeping�.
Recognising the far-reaching implications of these proposals, the UK has seized
the opportunity to press forward its own agenda. An article in the Financial
Times, September 4, co-authored by Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and Liberal
Democrat Foreign Affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell, presents the UK report as
an addition to Brahimi's report.
Calling for a �revised role� for the UN, the article praises the UK's �crucial
role� in the UN Security Council command, pointing to its �pivotal part in
support of UN operations in Kosovo, East Timor and Sierra Leone�. Whilst
welcoming much of Brahimi's report, Cook and Campbell state that �in the light
of the experience� in Sierra Leone �further initiatives� are needed.
The UK's unilateral decision to send 1,000 troops to Sierra Leone to support
the pro-government forces in the civil war was justified with �humanitarian�
rhetoric. Its real aim was to secure control of the lucrative diamond mines in
Britain's former colony. Cook and Campbell argue that the UN should formally
endorse similar interventions. They add that UN missions require �more robust
rules of engagement� so that they do not �lose the initiative to hostile
elements as they have in the past�. The most important task facing the UN is to
�identify the circumstances in which we should get involved in other people's
conflicts�, the authors state, quoting Prime Minister Blair.
In order to answer accusations that the UN is a select club, the UK report
calls for membership of the UN's five member Security Council to be extended to
include Germany, Japan and one member each from Africa, Asia and Latin America.
This would �bestow upon it greater legitimacy�, Cook and Campbell state.
This show of international solidarity and regulation is a fa�ade. The two
authors argue that what has been established de facto should be made
concrete�that �in exceptional circumstances� humanitarian interventions should
be �undertaken without the express authority� of the UN Security Council.
In their Financial Times article, Cook and Campbell stress that the definition
of what constitutes UN �peacekeeping� should also be extended. Besides
�restoring the peace�, the UN must be involved in �entrenching the peace�, they
state. As in Kosovo and East Timor, the UN should be able to draw up and impose
a �full economic, social and political programme� on the region or country into
which they intervene, as well as selecting�either by training or
importing��policemen and judges, economic planners and administrators�.
Cook and Campbell's proposals are nothing less than a blueprint for colonial-
style takeover of whatever country Britain deems appropriate�all under a UN
mandate of course. So as to facilitate its plans, the UK report proposes the
establishment of an international military college, which it modestly suggests
should be based in Britain. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Cook
said, �We have got to improve the quality of the peacekeeping forces and that
is why we have proposed there should be a UN staff college to continue to carry
out training on peacekeeping. We suggest that Britain would be a very logical
place to have it because of our own expertise in peacekeeping and our
commitment to the UN.�
Copyright 1998-2000
World Socialist Web Site
All rights reserved
A<>E<>R
Integrity has no need of rules. -Albert Camus (1913-1960)
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The libertarian therefore considers one of his prime educational
tasks is to spread the demystification and desanctification of the
State among its hapless subjects. His task is to demonstrate
repeatedly and in depth that not only the emperor but even the
"democratic" State has no clothes; that all governments subsist
by exploitive rule over the public; and that such rule is the reverse
of objective necessity. He strives to show that the existence of
taxation and the State necessarily sets up a class division between
the exploiting rulers and the exploited ruled. He seeks to show that
the task of the court intellectuals who have always supported the State
has ever been to weave mystification in order to induce the public to
accept State rule and that these intellectuals obtain, in return, a
share in the power and pelf extracted by the rulers from their deluded
subjects.
[[For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, Murray N. Rothbard,
Fox & Wilkes, 1973, 1978, p. 25]]
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