The Developing World - Essay Example

Report: The Developing World & the Role of the UN 989 Words Introduction Despite the failure of the United Nations since its commencement to avert and resolve wars and arguments, and its inability to exterminate overwhelming poverty and stop climate change on a world scale, many still continue to promote it as a so-called world parliament. With reference to the article in The Sydney Morning Herald (15/7/07) entitled "The UN: A Global Perspective", this report will analyze the role that the United Nation plays in the prevention of disease, poverty and policy within the developing world. It will also argue that the UN is obliged to the world's major capitalist powers and cannot play an independent role. The conclusion will see that new methods need to be resorted to in order to provide a framework for unadulterated internationalism. Influence Despite its proficiency in providing aid and humanitarian support, like its predecessor the League of Nations, the UN is fundamentally reactive, unable to independently and resolutely mark its influence upon events. This wouldn't appear to be accidental as it cannot be an effective 'world parliament' or a conscientious objector when its policies and actions are determined by the interests of the main imperialist powers, predominantly the US ruling class. Since 1945 America has been the dominant force in the UN. In the Korean War of 1950-1953 fought under the United Nations Joint Command, 90% of all army personnel, 93% of air power and 86% of naval power came from the US (UNDP, 2001). Washington is supposed to provide 22% of the UN budget, but has often withheld huge sums owed in order to force compliance with its wishes. These arrears currently stand at $1.3 billion (UNDP, 2001). Keeping the Peace United Nations' peacekeeping interventions are often controversial affairs and lay bare the UN's inability to keep the peace when there is no peace to keep (GATT, 1985). The Security Council has been forced to explicitly accept responsibility for failing to prevent the 1994 genocide in Rwanda in which 800,000 people were killed (FAO, 2001). On the eve of the atrocities most of the 2,500 peacekeepers were withdrawn after the deaths of 10 Belgian soldiers, thereby sending a green light to the killers (UNDP, 2001). Moreover much of the subsequent UN aid was channeled through former Rwandan government officials who controlled refugee camps in Congo (FAO, 2001). Many of these camp leaders were implicated in the campaign of genocide. Similarly, the UN was widely criticized for rehabilitating the forces of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, even going so far as to provide them with funds for the 1993 election (UNCTAD, 2006). This policy suited both the US and China, both of which wanted to shore up any opposition to Vietnam. Then there is the shame of Srebrenica in Bosnia in 1995, where Serb forces overran a so-called UN safe area, butchering 7,000 men and boys in Europe's worst massacre since World War Two (UNCTAD, 2006). UN Secretary General Kofi Annan later wrung his hands and concluded that "peacekeepers must never again be deployed into an environment in which there is no ceasefire or peace agreement" (SMH, 15/7/07). In a sick postscript, the perpetrators of this massacre, Bosnian-Serb leader Karadzic and General Mladic are still in hiding, having thwarted the UN's attempts to bring them before the International Court of Justice at The Hague (SMH, 15/7/07). Worldly Struggle Savage fighting between ethnic African rebels and pro-government janjaweed militia in Sudan's vast western Darfur region has led to 200,000 deaths since 2003 (UNCTAD, 2006). A beleaguered 7,000 strong African Union force has been unable to stop the fighting and only now does it seem possible that UN troops will be permitted to enter the arena to try and uphold the Darfur Peace Agreement signed a year ago (SMH, 15/7/07). The impasse in Israel-Palestine is one of the clearest examples of the UN's inability to resolve complex crises. Despite first proposing a two-state solution in 1947, today the situation seems more intractable than ever (UNCTAD, 2006). In 1967 the UN drew up its famous Resolution 242 calling upon Israel to return the Palestinian occupied territories taken in the Six Day war. Nothing happened. In 1974 the UN General Assembly reaffirmed in grandiloquent terms the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, national independence and sovereignty, and to return to the homeland from which they had been deposed in successive waves since 1947 (UNCTAD, 2006). Now the UN pursues again a vision of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side within secure and recognized borders. But what forces can translate these words into deeds Not the representatives of the world's imperialist powers. The outgoing UN Middle East envoy Alvaro De Soto has castigated the role of the US. "There is a seeming reflex, in any given situation where the UN is to take a position, to ask first how Israel or Washington will react rather than what is the right position to take" (SMH, 15/7/07). Conclusions The ruling classes in the most highly developed capitalist countries, while preaching on the troubles of the world's poor, continue to pursue a neo-liberal agenda; For example, privatization, 'free trade', labor market deregulation, unrestricted movement of capital, - all of this results in sucking wealth out of the poorest countries and inflaming the assets of the big corporations and the rich. To facilitate such arrangements the world's big powers often cultivate local capitalists and corrupt politicians in the ex-colonial countries. And within the ACC the wealth gap between the social classes is also widening to an extent not seen for generations. The move towards equality will only happen when the workers and small farmers who produce the wealth take over the economy, nationally and internationally, and run it democratically under a socialist plan of production. The aim of the super-rich capitalists is to accumulate more and more personal wealth. The objective of the majority under collectivism would be to create a better life for humankind as a whole. References Economic and Social Council, Committee for Development Planning, Report of the Twenty-Second Session, New York, 19-22 March 1986, (NY), 1998. UN Doc. FAO, Things to Come: The World Food Crisis - The Way Out, 1999. GATT, Trade Policies for a Better Future: Proposals for Action, 1985. Report on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, UNAIDS, Geneva, 2000. The Role of TNCs in the Marketing and Distribution of Exports and Imports of Developing Countries, UNCTAD Document TD/B/C2 197, 2006. Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children, WHO/EMRO Publication No.2, Regional Office of the Eastern Mediterranean, Alexandria, 2002. The UN: A Global Perspective, Sydney Morning Herald Newspaper Article. 15/7/2007. The State of the World's Children in 2000, UNICEF, New York, 2000. UNDP, Pacific Partners: A Guide to the United Nations Agencies in the Pacific, UN Information Centre (Sydney), 2001. Read More