The United Nations, according to the popular fairy tale, an independent organizaiton, aneutral arbiter that somehow magically stand above the contentious, often bloody, battlefields of international politics. Its mission in life, the story goes, is to protect the weak from the strong and champion the cause of Human Rights, thus bring peace and harmony to an otherwise benighted planet. Far from it! >From its inception the U.N. was designed to be nothing but a cat's paw in the hands of the most powerful nations. To this end, its chief architects, France, Britain, the USSR and the U.S. (China was not admitted until 1971), granted themselves "permanent member" status in the Security Council along with the power to veto anything that conflicts with their interests. So, for example, a vote in the U.N. could be "180 to 1", but if that "1" happens to be the U.S., the measure is killed. What this demonstrates most clearly is that while its probably the case that members have to check their guns at the door, the U.N. is not at all independent of the very same hierarchical system of bullying and realpolitik that characterizes "international relations" in the real world. Nevertheless, we would have to admit that as an instrument of propaganda, the U.N. has proven to be highly effective. It has provided a stage for the Warmakers of the world upon which they shamelessly dress themselves in sheep's clothing in order tomake endless public proclamation of their eternal devotion to Peace and Human Rights. But meanwhile behind the scenes, these "apostles of Peace" have been arming themselves to the teeth as they carry out their insatiable drives for "spheres of influence" and world domination. Under a system of capitalism and imperialism there can be no such thing as a "Community of Nations" in any humanitarian sense, but only a war of each against all as nations are compelled to grab as much as they can for themselves whiles beggaring their neighbors in the process. Any organizaiton that claims to stand for Peace and Human Rights must be judged on the basis of what it actually does in the world and not by what it says. Therefore, it's important that we take a look at the U.N.'s track record. VIETNAM: For nearly 30 years the U.S. was involved in a bloody war of aggression against the people of Vietnam. it was described by the Department of "Defense" in the Pentagon Papers as a ruthless attach on civilian population for strategic military and economic interests (Howard Zinn, A Peoples History of the U.S., p. 555). During these three decades of mass murder the U.N. stood on the sidelines and watched as the U.S. dropped seven million tons of bombs, dispersed millions of gallons of assorted chemical weapons over forests and food crops, killing an estimated 2-3 million people. EAST TIMOR: In December 1975, one day after the departure of President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger from Jakarta, Indonesian troops invaded East Timor where they carried out a brutal 24 year campaign of warfare and terror that claimed the lives of 200,000 Timorese people. The U.N. "bravely" responded by issuing some paper condemnatins of the Indonesian occupatin, but took NO action, because this is what the U.S. wanted to happen. "As soon as the invasion took place the U.s. increased military aid.... the U.S. in fact was supplying 90% of the arms, and as we move into the Carter administraiton the arms flow increased an was renewed in 1978 as the slaughter reached its peak." In his memoirs, Daniel Moynihan, who was serving as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. in 1975, recalled the events on East Timor: "The U.s. wished things to turn out as they did and worked to bring this about. The U.S. State Department desired that the U.N. prvoe utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook." (Noam Chomsky, "East Timor: Lessons of a Tragedy," address given in Cambridge, Mass., 10/7/93) PANAMA: In December 1989, U.S. sends an invasion force to Panama with the expressed purpose of capturing one man, Manuel Noriega. They proceeded to bomb and destroy entire sections of poor working- class neighborhoods, killing 220 innocent civilians by their own admission. the U.N.'s own Human Rights Commission estimated 2,500 dead, while the Natoinal Human Rights Commission of Panama estimated that more than 4,000 civilians were murdered as a result of this cowardly deed (see Documentary film "The Panama Deception"). Even by bourgeois standards of "International Law" this was an outrageous act of criminality. So what did the U.N. do to punish the criminal? Absolutely nothing! IRAQ: In 1991, under the cover of U.N. resolutions, or what were actually nothing more than a "license to kill," a U.S.-led coalition of nations unleashed a rain of ruin on Iraq that killed at least 100,000 people. Ont its face, thismassacre was carried out for no higher purpose than to reassert U.s. dominance in the oil-rich region. In the wake of "Desert Slaughter," a successionof cruel ecnomic sanctions, dictated by the U.S. and carried out with the blessings of the U.N., have been imposed against the Iraqi people. Grotesquely, even the U.N. itself has admitted that these santions have contributed to the deaths of mroe than 1,000,000 people, including perhaps 600,000 children. And if the U.N. were at all serious about ridding the planet of weapons of mass destruction, it would have no better place to start deploying its UNSCOM inspectors than the numerous U.s. military bases and weapons facilities scattered all over the globe. RWANDA: In January 1994, Kofi Annan, who was then in charge of U.N. "peacekeeping" operations, was informed that the U.N. commander in Rwands, General Romeo Dallaire, had information that led him to suspect that the Kigli government ws planning to exterminated Tutsis. Despite being forewarned, Annan ordered U.N. "peacekeepers" not to intervene. In a letter to the Belgian government, Annan refused to permit Dallaire to testify before a panel investigating the massacre because he toughtit would not be " int the interest of the organization (AP report, 5/98. Also see the PBS Frontline report, "the Triumph of Evil"). General Dallaire later said he could have stopped the genocide in Kigali with 5,000 troops and thus would have prevented its spreading. There wasno shortage of soldies available (Manchester Guardian, 1/2/00). It must be said, however, that Annan did express his remorse, saying he would work hard to ensure the U.N. would never again fail to protect civilians from genocide (KPFK Radio news, 12/16/99). That's some cold comfort for the 800,000 dead victums and for the survivors of the Rwandan massacre, as well as the thousands of Iraqis who conitnue to die each month as a direct result of the U.N. approved sanctions. Obviously what unites this important den of thieves is not feigned concern for Peace and Hman Rights, but rather their universal embrace of the "Right" of Capital to rob and exploit, even to murder, the workers of the world. As much as theyt ry, no amount of phony "peace" proclamations delivered up on a power blue U.N. shield could possiblity conceal their bloody tracks. 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