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Dr Godfrey Chikowore Notwithstanding the noble humanitarian innovation which saw the name United Nations being devised by the then United States President Franklin D Roosevelt, the United States led by Mr George W Bush of today has considerably not only betrayed the expectations, for peace, prosperity and cooperation haboured by the peace-loving world community, but has further antagonised and divided the Developed and Developing World by virtue of the US explicit inclinations towards unilateralism. Officially coming into existence on 24 October 1945, the United Nations saw its constitutive Charter being ratified by China, France, the Soviet Union (now Russia) the United Kingdom and the United States, which subsequently became the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to date. Time has passed — 60 years to date — and Africa, which was arbitrarily marginalised from the Security Council as a veto wielding power still remains highly prejudiced, with the noble humanitarian cause unanimously adopted in 1945, at this global institution being shamelessly and purposely ignored. In that oppressive domination and subordination equation, the contemporary actors are the United States and United Kingdom flanked as big brothers by the other countries and some European Union member states versus the impoverished under-developed South, strictly excluding the controversial imperial Australia and New Zealand. Following the preamble to the United Nations Charter were very definitive purposes and principles of the United Nations with a deeply entrenched human-centred meaning quite essentially and diametrically opposed to the culture of domination, now punctuated by unilateralism so much practiced by George W Bush and Tony Blair. Highly compromised in the contemporary by the diplomatically wayward US and United Kingdom administrations, these human-centred purposes of the UN Charter on one hand were and better still are: l The maintenance of international peace and security; l Development of friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self determination of peoples; l To cooperate in solving international economic, social, cultural and humanitarian problems and in promotion of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms; l To be a centre for harmonisation of the actions of nations in efforts to attain their common goals; At the same time the human centred principles of the United Nations that would guide and inform its operations are: l Interaction of nations based on sovereign equality of all member states; l To receive and consider the reports from the Security Council and other United Nations organs; l To consider and approve the United Nations budget and apportion the contributions among members; l To elect the non-permanent members of the Economic and Social Council and those Members of the Trusteeship Council that are elected; l To elect jointly with the Security Council the Judges of the International Court of Justice; l Appointment of Secretary - General on the recommendation by the Security Council, etc. The sanctity of these principles and purposes are founded on their human-centred nature which essentially upholds the respect to the sovereignty of nation states whether big or small, rich or poor; the equality of nation states; and finally the right to freedom of choice. The significance of these fundamental principles is that they have deeply rooted historical underpinnings and should not be taken for granted being viewed as an end in themselves, or just as mere statements without the fundamental historical humanitarian underpinnings. This is exactly why the debate on the United Nations reform has indeed proved quite controversial with the Developed Countries in the image of the US administration visibly becoming more dictatorial, making highly undiplomatic maneuvers to force an inhuman UN reform agenda down the throat of the 191 Membership of the United Nations General Assembly. Forming the major bone of contention is the reform of the United Nations Security Council, which in the contemporary has become considerably unrepresentative because it emerged then after World War II as an institution for rewarding the Allied Forces/Countries which had prevailed over the Hitlerite Nazi Germany and the Mussolini Fascist Italy collectively known as the Axis Power. Notwithstanding the fact that most Africans who had been captured as slaves did actually participate in the Second World War against the Axis Powers, Africa was again not considered for membership on the United Nations Council and this remains controversial to date. Even if we were to go on the issue of veto-power permanent representation by continents, Africa remains without representation on the Security Council, with Euro-Asia already overwhelmingly represented having four solid permanent and veto power vote. Britain, China, Russia and France enjoy permanently these privileges. Being again unlawfully considered as the United Kingdom appendages, overseas territories Australia and New Zealand could be provisionally considered because of their historical allegiance to Britain already enjoy full insurance cover from the veto power Britain has on the Security Council at the moment. As regards the Northern American continent (the US and Canada lumped up) it could be well argued that the continent thus summarily enjoys veto power on the Security Council because the US has a permanent seat and a veto power on the council. With such great disparities and unjustified inequalities on representation in the council, why would it be so controversial to reform these dictatorial institution? Even going by the logic of continental representation, the Middle East just like Africa, Central and Southern America is again visibly far away from representation on the council as a wielder of a veto power and a permanent seat. Why then is it that these continents Africa, Central America, Southern America and the Middle East hardly have a permanent seat as well as veto power on the UN Security Council? Indeed according to the white supremacist theory, these geographical regions have to remain permanent sources of raw materials, human and natural resources reserves for the supreme white race and racists in the greedy North. This programme called maximum could be achieved by skillfully cheating the masses of the South into believing that the Eurocentric doctrine of democracy and human rights will lead to peace, prosperity and equality. The profound error of this approach is that it in most instances advocates that civilisations have to be born and adopt unconditionally a Eurocentric doctrine for a guaranteed existence on earth. As a principle of life, it grossly infringes on the rights of world communities especially in the Developing World, as it essentially dishonours the right to sovereign rule, let alone self-determination and freedom of _expression_ and choice by the weaker nations of the South. It inhumanly purports to dishonour the historical obligation which the North owes the South through the enslavement, colonialism, neo-colonialism and now unilateralism, a millennium destructive weapon which the US and Britain have adopted to coerce the weaker and impoverished nations of the South into ranks of Western democracy but in servitude. Again to express the global dictatorship that is epitomised by the UN Security Council now operating as it appears on behalf of the George W Bush and Tony Blair administrations, is it not that Africa is a continent and not a country, Africa is a continent comprising 53 states and a huge population of nearly 850 million yet not even a single country in Africa has a permanent seat or veto power on the Council? So Africa, both as a continent has no veto power or permanent seat on the Council yet the US, Britain, France, China and Russia are just but mere countries with a veto power and permanent seats on the council. The US, Britain, France, China and Russia are not continents and therefore have no countries in their composition as opposed to Africa. Where then is respect for democracy and human rights for the majority that is under-represented on the council, in Africa, Central and Southern America as well as in the Middle East? Even if we were to go by the logic of population composition, Africa has a population of nearly 850 million with over 70 percent living on less than US$1 per day but has neither a permanent seat nor veto power on the Council yet France with a population of over 59.1 million; Britain of over 59.9 million; China of over 1271.9 million; US with a population of over 284 million and finally Russia with a population of over 144 million (WDR: 2001) do enjoy permanent seats and veto power on the Council. Is it not that in a baptism ceremony the honourable priest baptises his own child first and subsequently proceeds to serve the rest? Indeed experience and the deplorable socio-economic circumstances so rampant in Africa, Southern and Central America and in the Middle East are among other factors an indication of the absence of their representation or misrepresentation by those powers on the Security Council, being taken for granted and always assigned the back seat as permanent members jostle to protect the interests of their nations in the final analysis. Africa, German, Japan, Brazil and India should have got both veto powers and permanent seats on the UN Security Council if at all peace, prosperity, development and cooperation is to prevail for both big and small; rich and poor nations of the North and South. The second bone of contention on the reform of the United Nations centred on turning the Commission on Human rights into a UN Council on Human rights. As of now, the commission operates as a subsidiary machinery of the UN Economic and Social Council and it carries the year round work of the Security Council and reports back to the council at regular intervals on issues of human rights. It is all hypocrisy and lies in its essence and world affairs managed on such principles are in themselves catastrophic as they build illusions that democracy is in the making when actually a process of fundamental disempowerment and deprivation of the world poor majority will be gradually entrenched by the North. Is it not that fighting of illustrious wars of liberation manifests how the developing countries well understand what human rights is all about and better than what the developed North in the image of the USA and Britain purports to know? Is it not that when the South through the UN General Assembly rightfully ask for military intervention by the UN Security Council in times when democratically elected governments in Africa, Asia, Central and Southern America, Middle East are threatened by armed rebellions, coups de tats, tribal conflicts and the same Council snubs them know their human and democratic rights better than those maliciously snubbing them who now again purport could best Reform the UN? What only emerges in the claim for the elevation of the UN Commission on Human Rights to a council is again to have a repetition of the diplomatic anarchic precedent set by the current UN Security Council to prepare a ground for a malicious victimisation of weaker nations of the South which are still in the process of reclaiming their legacy from the former colonial masters. The historical and ideologically qualitative differences between the North and the South would see the later being arbitrarily victimised by the former when in actual fact it is the former who historically and even now owes the South a lot in terms of human rights as they destroyed the social foundations and fabric of the South from slavery to the age of unilateralism. Essentially the elevation of the commission to a council would sooner imply legalisation of criminality against the innocent populations of the South, in a mad fit by the North to muzzle the South and run away from their historical obligation to compensate that very South for the historically inflicted suffering and inhuman human rights record. On the Millennium Development Goals, the developed world deliberately and purposely failed to honour the sovereign rights and fundamental liberties of the developing world and they have emerged as saints of virtue with the MDGs, pretending to bring salvation to Africa and the rest of the Developing World. If at all the world and mankind are to survive and prosper the best option for getting to such an end is respect for the sovereignty of nation states, respect for the equality of nation states, respect for the freedom of choice by nation states whether rich, poor; small or big. While this golden opportunity to reform the UN could have seen the world community turn into a progressive and homogeneous global family, the diplomatic recklessness and irresponsibility being manifested by the Mr Bush and Mr Blair's administrations as heads of superpowers threatens to immensely jeopardise such an outcome. For the betrayal of humanity and its noble values, history and let alone the Almighty will not pardon, those that advocate this unsolicited discord. Author: Dr G Chikowore Head: Dept of International Relations and |
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