The UN, Good for Nothing..!

In the year 1945, 50 original member countries signed the UN charter in San Francisco. Among many of the world body’s goals, the UN was initially established to support human rights, promote social and economic progress, protect the world against future wars and equalize men and women.

However, the most dominant member; the U.S., hindered the UN missions mainly through its Security Council veto power.

Even though, at every incident people would be encouraged by the presence or arrival of the “Blue Helmets” or peacemakers” as the international community prefers calling them; disappointment usually follows their mission. Mostly these peacemakers have caused more conflict and disruption than they have maintained peace enforcing agreements and aiding reconstruction.

Other than providing the right aid when it comes to health, education, food assistance and social development, the UN’s history holds many failures to maintain any of the most important tasks.

Despite the fact that the UN has been involved in Lebanon through the “UN Interim Force in Lebanon – UNIFIL” since March 1978, Israel has invaded and destructed many parts of the country without establishing any peace or security. As a matter of fact an Israeli bomb hit the UNIFIL base on the 25th of July 2006 killing four military observers. That’s not all, UNIFIL in South Lebanon is also known to be an ally to Israel and the US to the extent that it can engage in confrontation against Hezbollah and would do the fighting as well as the dying for Israel.

• Darfur

In Sudan, the UN has another failure for the history to record; in 2005, the UNMIS was established in Sudan to supervise the Comprehensive Peace Treaty between the Sudanese government and people.

And even though it was successful in ending the 22-year war, it is still unable to finish the conflict that is taking place in Darfur. The UN estimates deaths to total 6,000 Africans a month as a result of the military attacks, the cutoff of sources of food and water and disease. However, it might seem like a perfect mission for the Blue Helmets, the 8,000 member have so little chance to cover the 3 huge regions encapsulating all of Western Sudan.

On the other hand, Congo is one of the most disgraceful missions in the history of the UN. The MONUC began its operations in 1999 in an attempt to manage the ceasefire agreement, which wasn’t an easy task for the same reason in Sudan; the country is the size of Western Europe. The failures begin with being unable to effectively intervene during the second Congo War, which resulted in the deaths of five million people in 4 years. That’s not the most terrible part, it’s also reported that the UN peacemakers are sexually abusing and gang raping girls at the age of 12 and 13, which is wide spreading despite many revelations and probes by the UN office of Internal Oversight Services.

There is no end to the disappointments of the UN in many countries; Burundi, Ivory Coast and Liberia were among many countries, which uncovered the similar sexual abuse that took place in Congo.

The UN also holds a long list of failures; including failing to protect misplaced people in the civil war in Angola, also failing to condemn slavery in Sudan, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone and many more, not to mention its failure to prevent or intervene in Iraq war.

It’s become crystal clear that the controlling hand over the UN (that is the U.S.) has caused a defect in the performance of such organization that was established in the first place to help lift people’s sufferings instead of pushing them further in new ones.

--AJP and agencies