The UN undone

Whenever a decision was taken to initiate intervention by the UN it was on the basis of a genuine consensus in the Security Council. The dynamics of the Cold War manifesting itself through the veto power of one or other of the five permanent members of the Security Council, ensured that UN interventions were not unilaterally precipitated or entirely related to the perceptions of one important power or the other. This balance does not exist any more. The US has emerged not just as the most predominant political and military power but, under the Bush Administration, the US is inclined to disregard the views of other countries once the US has finalised its policy orientation on a given issue.

The second trend is the emergence of a self-righteous, collective and intrusive morality which has started characterising the foreign and security policies of western democracies. These two undercurrents have resulted in foisting on the UN a pre-emptive and unilateral role in dealing with international conflict situations. This has led to the legitimisation of powerful groups of countries taking action on their own on conflicts without having to base their decisions on Security Council deliberations.

Indications of these new trends in managing the world order emerged soon after the disintegration of the Soviet Union in January 1992, when in the first and only summit of the Security Council, the UN secretary general was asked to prepare proposals to strengthen the role of the UN in international crisis management. Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali prepared a document,8216;The Agenda for Peace8217;, in which he propounded certain concepts. First, that the UN need not wait for any member country or group of countries to come to the Security Council to respond to a critical situation. The UN could and should take notice of such situations suo motu, and act on them on the basis of the decisions of the Security Council. Second, the UN should move forward from peace-keeping responsibilities to peace-making responsibilities, implying that the UN has the moral right to undertake unilateral coercive action to bring about peace.

Inherent in these suggestions was also the proposal for the creation of a permanent UN military force consisting of personnel from various member countries. But that proposals was shot down because of the five permanent Security Council members, four were unwilling to take on the financial burdens of supporting such a force 8212; France being the exception. The document was accepted by the UN General Assembly in its sessions of 1992 and 1993. Boutros Ghali8217;s proposals were predicated on the assumption that there would be consensus on most issues among the permanent members of the Security Council. Despite this document being adopted, what actually happened between 1992 and 1999 was that on most critical issues 8212; particularly after the break up of Yugoslavia 8212; the US and NATO powers intervened unilaterally to normalise the situation according to their own terms of reference, whether it was Bosnia, Kosovo or Iraq. When Boutros Ghali opposed this assertion of unilateralism, he was denied a second term as UN secretary general.

The process of marginalising the UN ultimately culminated in the manner in which the US initiated military action against Iraq in the Second Gulf war this April. President Bush announced categorically that he would proceed with military operations regardless of whether the Security Council endorsed his move or not. It was with some difficulty that he was persuaded to wait for the weakly worded UN resolution endorsing punitive action against Iraq.

Moving on to an assessment why the UN offices in Baghdad was attacked last month, it is relevant to note a particular perception about UN peacekeeping operations in recent public opinion among Muslim countries. Most of these operations since 1990 have been led by the US and Western democracies. A majority of them have been in countries with Muslim populations. Secretary General Kofi Annan is perceived among these groups of having succumbed to US pressure in relation to Iraq. The UN8217;s inability to effectively temper US policy orientations has only strengthened the perception here that the UN now functions as an instrument of US foreign policy. The office of the UN in Iraq after the removal of Saddam Hussein was primarily engaged in reconstruction work but it was being carried out under the guidance of US Ambassador Paul Bremer8217;s Administration. All this confirmed the argument put forward by militant Islamic groups, like Al-Qaeda, that the UN is only a camouflage instrumentality of the US government8217;s policies. Also, whether it is operations in Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, or Iraq, the UN is perceived and projected as an anti-Muslim entity functioning in tandem with the US.

The destruction of the UN office in Baghdad and the assassination of its chief indicates that the international terrorism movements as well as pro-Saddam elements in Iraq have taken full advantage of this patently wrong perception and transmitted it into violence against the UN. The political fallout has been a groundswell of government and public opinion that the UN should be given an independent and dominant role in managing post-war Iraq. But the world body8217;s role in dealing with problems of international peace and order would depend very much on how UN members, as well as permanent members of the Security Council, try to remedy the damage done to the UN 8212; not just physically but politically.

What the US has done is to consciously reduce the role of the UN 8212; one which the US itself structured at the end of the Second World War. If there is any desire on the part of the US to have an effective international participation in stabilising Iraq 8212; as it says it has 8212; it must render to the UN the role envisaged for it in its Charter, without reservations.