Is It Time To Abandon The United Nations?
By Barbara Stock (12/18/03)
In 1942, FDR spoke of a “United Nations” and the hope it could bring to a world torn apart by war. The dream was a good one. The reality has become a nightmare. The future of the United Nations is far from secure as it becomes more bloated, corrupt and centered on its own desire to dictate to the world.
Do they do the job they were formed to do? From their own charter on Human Rights: Article 4: “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.” Article 5: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
As Secretary-General Kofi Annan is wined and dined all over the world, his own country is poor. It has one of the highest numbers of abandoned children in the world. His own African continent is in constant turmoil.
As to the rules against slavery, it is flourishing in Mauritania and Sudan. In Mauritania it is estimated that between 80 and 90 thousand people are owned and live in slavery according to Human Rights Watch/Africa and the U.S. State Department. Does the United Nations do anything about it?
In the Sudan, truckloads of children, sold into slavery can be seen traveling to meet their fate on any given day. Those who try to escape face branding, castration, beatings and rape. It is common knowledge and the U.N. does nothing.
Arabs in the Sudan kill those who refuse to convert to Islam. The Organization of African Unity refuses to “interfere” with any country’s internal problems. The people in those countries get no help from the almighty U.N to end their bondage.
April 6, 1994 the Rwandan and Burundian Presidents were killed when their plane was shot down. The genocide started immediately. Thousands died each day. The U.N. peacekeeping force, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda, stood by and watched forbidden to violate their monitoring mandate. Ten foolish Belgian members of UNAMIR surrendered their weapons. They were tortured and killed.
President Clinton, a supporter of the U.N., expressed his dismay over the genocide. Americans were airlifted out to safety, leaving their native staffs behind to meet their fates. Nothing more was done by the U.S.
By April 11, tens of thousands were dead. The U.N. troops were ordered to abandon their post and retreat to the airport. The 2000 people that had sought refuge within the compound the U.N. deserted were hacked to death.
On April 21st the U.N voted to abandon Rwanda and removed all U.N. forces. The Red Cross believed that hundreds of thousands of people had already died.
As the U.N. did what it does best, cut and run, the U.S. tried to justify its own inaction by splitting hairs on what the word “genocide” means. The U.N. follows Clinton’s lead to relieve itself of any responsibility. They passed a resolution condemning the acts of murder but refused to call it genocide. If they had called it what is was they would have been obligated to stop it. In one day alone a quarter of a million people flee the country, burdening their neighbors to the breaking point.
Kofi Annan, then head of the Peacekeeping forces, had this to say,“…here we are watching people being deprived of the most fundamental of rights, the right to life, and yet we seem a bit helpless ..." The understatement of the century. Perhaps they should pass another resolution. It’s the only thing they do well.
May 13, 1994 - the U.N. wanted to vote to send in troops to stop the massacres. U.S. Representative Madeline Albright held up the vote for four days. Finally, on May 17, the vote passed, but no action was taken because of infighting over who would foot the bill. Ms. Albright says the fate of Rwanda ultimately rests with the people of Rwanda thus washing her hands of any blood. By mid-May, as the U.N. continued to fight over cost, half a million people died.
In 100 days, over 800,000 people were dead and the U.N. still had not deployed any troops.
Four years later, now Secretary-General Annan expresses his regrets. The nearly million dead, however, can no longer hear him.
Nor can the estimated million dead in Iraq hear the U.N. spokesman as he condemns the U.S. for taking action to stop the killing. The Food for Oil program was very profitable for the U.N. Days after saying boldly that the terrorists would not drive the U.N. from Iraq, he ordered his people out of Iraq. He is now threatening to do the same in Afghanistan.
The genocide in the Balkans was carried out as U.N. peacekeepers watched. The U.N. and Europe preferred to wait and let the U.S. led NATO step in and stop the killing. We eventually did with the unorthodox method of carpet bombing. This brought death and misery to civilians they were supposed to be saving. Now under U.N. control, the killing continues in the Balkans and Kosovo, just on a smaller, unreported scale.
They repeatedly condemn Israel but refuse to condemn the terrorist acts committed against the tiny Jewish state.
One has to ask, what good is this body? As they go around the world promoting forced abortions and condemning the U.S. at every turn they ignore violation after violation of their own laws. They are a fat lion with no teeth. They cower at the first shot and abandon those they are there to protect.
They demand their collective blessing but have no real vision of the world except one that is totally under their incompetent control. The U.N. has delusions of grandeur with imagined visions of importance. Like most visions, it is far from reality.
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