Is the Reform of the UN Security Council a Good Try in a Lost Cause?

February 5, 2024 Thalif DeenOpinion, World 0

(IPS) – The myriads of proposals for the reform of the much-maligned Security Council have been kicked around the United Nations for more than two decades—with no significant progress.

Speaking at the General Assembly’s (GA) annual debate, GA President Dennis Francis told delegates last November that without structural reform, the Council’s performance and legitimacy will inevitably continue to suffer.

“Violence and war continue to spread in regions across the world, while the United Nations seems paralyzed due largely to the divisions in the Security Council,” he said.

With the world changing quickly, the Council is “dangerously falling short” of its mandate as the primary custodian for the maintenance of international peace and security, he said.

Meanwhile, a proposed new model for reforms, initiated by the Group of Four (G4: Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan), has been doing the rounds.

Not surprisingly, all four countries have been longstanding contenders for permanent seats (P5s) which have remained the privilege of five countries since the creation of the world body 79 years ago: the US, UK, France, China and the Russian Federation (replacing the USSR of a bygone era).

The G4 is calling for a total of 11 permanent members (P11): China, France, The Russian Federation, UK and the US, plus six others.

In the event of possible expansion, and upon the adoption of a comprehensive framework resolution on Security Council reform, interested Member States prepared to assume the functions and responsibilities of permanent members of the Security Council would submit their candidatures in writing to the President of the General Assembly.

The General Assembly will then proceed, as soon as possible, at a date to be determined by the President, to the election of six new permanent members, by a vote of two thirds of the members of the General Assembly. through a secret ballot. The rules of procedure of the General Assembly will be applied to the election of the new permanent members.

The criteria of Article 23 (1) should also apply to the election of the new permanent members: “due regard shall be paid, in the first instance to their contributions to the maintenance of international peace and security and to the other purposes of the Organization, and also to equitable geographical distribution”.

The non-permanent members with a two-year term, currently at 10, will be increased to a total of 14/15 seats – The election process for non-permanent members will follow current practices.

According to the G4 proposal, the six new permanent members of the Security Council shall be elected according to the following pattern: (i) Two from African Member States: (ii) Two from Asia-Pacific Member States, (iii) One from Latin American and Caribbean Member States; (iv) One from Western European and Other Member States.

The four/five new non-permanent members of the Security Council shall be elected according to the following pattern; (i) One/Two from African Member States: (ii) One from Asia-Pacific Member States: (iii) One from Eastern European Member States; (iv) One from Latin American and Caribbean Member States.

Member States should give due consideration during the nomination and election of non-permanent members to adequate and continuing representation of small and medium size Member States, including Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

Andreas Bummel, Executive Director, Democracy Without Borders, told IPS any reconfiguration of the Security Council would have to be adopted in line with Article 108 of the Charter, which means it requires the support of two thirds of UN members and the P5.

“Given the fact that Security Council reform has been discussed for decades, I think it is legitimate to pursue such a vote instead of consensus. Whether it is politically wise is a different question.”

In essence, he said, the G4 are not willing to compromise. “If they can mobilize a two thirds majority and the P5, fine. But if not, it’s finally game over for them. I can’t see how a broad agreement is possible without introducing new concepts that go beyond today’s permanent and non-permanent seats.”

Re-electable seats rotating among the membership of certain regions is a good approach, in my mind. New permanent seats vested with a veto will make the Security Council even more unworkable.

This option should be off the table. Delaying a decision for fifteen years does not solve this, he declared.

On the question of the veto, the G4 says Member States should be invited to continue discussions on the use of the veto in certain circumstances.

The new permanent members, would as a principle, have the same responsibilities and obligations as current permanent members.

However, the new permanent members shall not exercise the veto-right until a decision on the matter has been taken during a review, to be held fifteen years after the coming into force of the reform.

Amendments to the charter shall reflect the fact that the extension of the right of veto to the new permanent members will be decided upon in the framework of a review.

The enlarged Security Council would be encouraged to, inter alia, hold regular consultations with the President of the General Assembly; submit an analytical and comprehensive evaluation of the Council’s work in the annual report to the General Assembly; submit more frequently special reports to the General Assembly in accordance with Articles 15 (1) and 24 (3) of the Charter, improve participation of the Chair of the Peacebuilding Commission and the chairs of the country-specific configurations of the Commission in relevant debates and, in an appropriate format, in informal discussions

Asked for her comments, Barbara Adams, Senior Policy Analyst, Global Policy Forum, told IPS: Surely, now 11 (not 5) veto-wielding powers, will not correct the inability of P5 or P11 to put their chartered responsibility for international peace and security above their national security interests.

She pointed out that the G4 proposal for a 15-year pause on use of the veto acknowledges the tension between expanding the number of permanent members and the veto.

Re the proposal for seats for developing countries, and countries from other regions, they should not need to be justified by the concept of regional representation, she argued.

“The privilege of permanency in the Security Council extends beyond the use of veto. The “chill factor” of this privilege reaches into many parts of the UN system in ways formal and informal such as preferential treatment for senior UN positions,” Adams declared.

Joseph Chamie, a consulting international demographer and a former director of the UN Population Division, told IPS reform of the United Nations Security Council is not a new proposal; it’s been around for decades.

Despite committees, discussions and calls by many Member States for reform of the Council, he pointed out, little progress has been achieved towards equitable representation, inclusiveness and legitimacy.

“Increasing numbers of both governments and people consider the Council to be ineffectual and unjust and require reform, including expanding membership and restricting vetoes”.

While enormous changes have occurred in the world over the past eight decades, he said, the Council continues to have the same five permanent members.

When established, the five permanent members accounted for about 35 percent of the world’s population. Today, they represent 25 percent and by mid-century they are expected to represent 20 percent of the world’s population, said Chamie, author of numerous publications on population and related issues.

In brief, the desire for reform of the Security Council is both understandable and reasonable and despite the geo-political challenges, reform should be undertaken without further delays, he declared.

IPS UN Bureau Report

American Weapons Used in Gaza Trigger War Crime Accusations Against US

November 28, 2023 Thalif DeenOpinion 0

(IPS) – The widespread use of American weapons by Israel, which has killed thousands of civilians in Gaza, has triggered accusations of war crimes against the United States.

But US has always escaped these charges in contemporary military conflicts –particularly in the killing fields of Afghanistan and Iraq –and also in the use of American weapons in Yemen where thousands have been killed.

The United Nations once described the deaths and destruction in the eight-year-old civil war in Yemen as “the world’s worst humanitarian disaster”.

The killings of mostly civilians have been estimated at over 100,000, with accusations of war crimes against a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), whose primary arms supplier is the US.

And now, the killings of Palestinians in Gaza have come back to haunt the Americans in a new war zone. But still, the US is unlikely to be hauled before the International Criminal Court (ICC).

American Weapons Used in Gaza Trigger War Crime Accusations Against US (Global Issues) — Picture: Global Issues

“If U.S. officials don’t care about Palestinian civilians facing atrocities using U.S. weapons, perhaps they will care a bit more about their own individual criminal liability for aiding Israel in carrying out these atrocities,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), an American non-profit organization that advocates democracy and human rights in the Middle East.

“The American people never signed up to help Israel commit war crimes against defenseless civilians with taxpayer funded bombs and artillery,” she noted.

According to DAWN, U.S. law requires that United States monitor and ensure that weapons and munitions it provides to Israel are not used to commit war crimes in Gaza.

The advocacy group reminded both Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III in a letter sent last week.

“Failure to comply with end-use monitoring requirements not only breaches U.S. laws but also could expose U.S. officials to prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for aiding and abetting war crimes,” warned DAWN.

In a separate letter to ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan, DAWN asked the Prosecutor urgently to issue a public statement reminding the parties to the conflict of the ongoing investigation there and send an investigative team to the Gaza region of Palestine to document and investigate potential crimes under the Rome Statute.

Mouin Rabbani, Co-Editor, Jadaliyya, an independent ezine produced by the Arab Studies Institute, told IPS the United States is in violation of international law, as well as its own domestic legislation, by providing weapons to Israel in the full knowledge that these are being used for the express purpose of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

www.jadaliyya.com

“I would go further and state that it is providing them to Israel for precisely this reason. This is because the US is determined to see Israel achieve its objectives in the Gaza Strip; Washington recognizes that Israel does not have the military capacity and political will to physically occupy the Gaza Strip for a prolonged period and eradicate Hamas and other groups, and has instead — with unqualified US support — adopted as its primary objective the systematic destruction of the Gaza Strip and mass killings of Palestinian civilians”, he pointed out.

As for international law and domestic US legislation, these are as irrelevant as Palestinian lives in this context. That’s how the US-designed rules-based international order works and was designed to work, he said.

“US legislation, the laws of war, and international law more generally, are rigorously applied to rivals and adversaries, while the US and its partners are free to violate them with total impunity, Rabbani argued.

It would be fair to say that ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan is the personification of this system — fearlessly prosecuting official enemies and adversaries with rabid zeal, but more docile than a dead canary when similar or greater crimes are committed by states his government and its Western partners support without qualification, said Rabbani.

If there’s one thing US officials complicit in Israel’s war crimes don’t have to worry about, it is prosecution by the ICC, he declared.

Asked about US weapons in killings in Gaza, Matthew Miller, Spokesperson for the State Department told reporters last week that American weapons cannot be deliberately used against civilians.

“Of course – and one of the tragedies of war –is that there are always civilian deaths. It is one of the great tragedies of war, and what we try to do is work to minimize civilian deaths to the greatest extent possible,” he said.

Asked if there is “any concern among the administration that by supplying this military assistance, the US might be involved in any possible war crimes against civilians”, Miller said: “No, I would say that we have made very clear that we expect Israel to conduct its operations in compliance with international law.”

“That is the standard we hold – uphold – that’s the standard we hold ourselves to; it’s the standard we hold our partners to; it’s the standard every democracy ought to be held to. And we will continue to work with them and continue to deliver messages to them that they should conduct their military operations in – and to the maximum extent possible to protect civilians from harm,” he declared.

According to the Washington-based Stimson Center, Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. military assistance since the Second World War, amounting to more than $158 billion over the past seven decades– not adjusted for inflation.

In recent years, U.S. assistance to Israel has been outlined in a 10-year memoranda of understandings, the most recent of which was signed in 2016 and pledges $38 billion in military assistance between FY2019-FY2028.

Dr Ramzy Baroud, Palestinian journalist and author, told IPS asking the US to clarify the End Use Monitoring (EUM) measures, or Israel’s compliance with the use of American weapons in its war against Gaza, may give the impression that Washington lacks awareness of how US weapons, and US tax payers money are being used.

https://ramzybaroud.net/

“Never before in the history of the US’s relationship with the Middle East has Washington been so directly involved in an Israeli war. The closest was the 1973 war, and even then, the US involvement arrived a week later, and was hardly as direct,” he said.

Every statement made by top US officials, starting with Biden, to Blinken to Sullivan, to all others, indicate that the US is a party in the war, not an outsider, a benefactor, and certainly not a mediator. They even sat in on meetings to discuss Israeli war plans on Gaza. They cannot claim ignorance, Dr, Baroud pointed out.

“In the past, Israel has violated the US’s rules on the use of US arms against civilians, and repeatedly so. Much has been written about this subject, particularly in terms of Israeli violation of the Lehy Laws.”

But what is happening right now is a whole different reality. By sending massive arm shipments, aircraft carriers, and even soldiers to Israel, the US has become a party in the world, therefore it is responsible for the unprecedented war crimes in Gaza, he argued.

“The fingerprints of US weapons are on the body of every Palestinian killed in Gaza, from the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, to UN schools, to every house and every street.

We don’t demand clarification regarding the use of these weapons. We know precisely how they are being used. We demand accountability from war criminals, whether in Tel Aviv or Washington,” he noted.

Meanwhile, a report on Cable News Network (CNN) October 22 said the death toll in Gaza since October 7 has risen to 4,651, with more than 14,245 wounded, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza.

IPS UN Bureau Report

UN Living In The 1940s Mindset, Urgently In Need Of Reforms

September 21, 2023September 29, 2023 Thalif DeenOpinion, World 0

(IPS) – Politically, the United Nations has largely been described as a monumental failure —with little or no progress in resolving some of the world’s past and ongoing military conflicts and civil wars, including Palestine, Western Sahara, Kashmir, and more recently, Ukraine, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan and Myanmar, among others.

Still, to give the devil its due, the UN has made some remarkable progress providing food, shelter and medical care to millions of people caught in military conflicts, including in Ukraine, Sudan, Syria, Libya and Somalia. Has the UN been gradually transformed into a humanitarian aid organization — diplomats without borders?

How fair are these characterizations?

Meanwhile, during the high-level meeting of the UN General Assembly beginning September 18, some of the world’s political leaders, representing four of the five permanent members (P5) of the Security Council, were MIAs (missing in action): Prime Minister Rushi Sunak of UK, President Emmanuel Macron of France, President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Xi Jinping of China.

The only P5 member present was US President Joe Biden. Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, a country described as one of the world’s rising political and economic powers willing to lead the Global South, was also missing.

Is there a hidden message here for the UN? And is the UN beginning to outlive its usefulness–politically?

Asked about the absence of four P-5 members of the Security Council, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was blunt when he told reporters: “I don’t think it is because we have or we have not a leader of a country that the high-level week is more relevant or less relevant. What’s important is the commitments that Governments are ready to make in relation to the SDGs, in relation to many other aspects of this week. So, this is not a vanity fair… What matters is not the presence of this or that leader. What matters is the commitment of the respective government in relation to the objectives of the summit.

Meanwhile, the reform of the UN – including the revitalization of the General Assembly, the increase in the number of permanent members of the Security Council and the lack of gender empowerment at the highest echelons of the UN hierarchy, with nine all-male Secretaries-General and only 4 women out of 78 presidents of the General Assembly – has been discussed for decades. But still these issues have never got off the ground. Or will they ever?

In an interview with IPS, Natalie Samarasinghe, Global Director, Advocacy, Open Society Foundations, said change is challenging at the UN. The organization is predicated on balancing principle with politics — and the former prevails only when it can be aligned with the latter. It has been subversive, supporting the fight against colonialism and apartheid, and helping the marginalized to advance their cause through development and human rights.

At the same time, it has helped to maintain the power structures of 1945. That is reflected in the UN’s priorities,programming and personnel. And this formula seems weaker now, with the UN now seemingly peripheral in the peace and security realm, and struggling to coordinate global responses to the shocks of recent years.

This does not mean the organization cannot change. Today’s UN would be unrecognisable to its founders: with its strong focus on sustainable development, nearly four times the number of member states, and bodies devoted to almost every dimension of human endeavour.

The UN’s charter does not mention the iconic blue helmets or UNICEF — perhaps the organization’s best-known ‘brand’, nor does it allude to the role of the Secretary-General as the world’s top diplomat. The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change and GAVI, the multistakeholder vaccine alliance — inconceivable seven decades ago — are further examples of the UN’s ability to adapt to new realities.

A wide view of the General Assembly Hall at the start of the Assembly’s seventy-first annual general debate.

Yet, other parts of the organization seem frozen in time, most obviously the Security Council. So, is change possible? It is depressing that the prospect of a female Secretary-General still feels remote, or that only four of the 78 presidents of the General Assembly have been women. This should not be our ceiling for reform but our floor.

We have regional rotation for positions. Why not gender rotation? This is surely as achievable a change as it is necessary.

The Security Council, meanwhile, is probably the least likely area of movement. But its gridlock — on substance and reform — has increased the appetite for the General Assembly to act as a counterweight to exclusive clubs.

The closest thing we have to a world parliament, the importance of the Assembly has grown as lower-income countries become increasingly frustrated at shouldering the brunt of global shocks without any real say in solutions.

This is part of a broader trend. At the UN, it encompasses improvements to the Secretary-General selection process in 2016, Liechtenstein’s success in ensuring that a Council veto automatically triggers a debate in the Assembly, and the Syria investigative mechanism.

But the real action is likely to be outside the New York. Leaders like Biden and Macron seem to have taken up the calls of Mottley, Akufo-Addo and others to reform the international financial architecture. The G20 in New Delhi echoed language in the Bridgetown Initiative and V20 Agenda on issues such as debt and access to capital.

All of this shows that we may have finally reached a point where smaller, more vulnerable countries can no longer tolerate the status quo, and where larger, richer countries realise that interdependence is not just a concept.

Q: At a press conference last month, Barbara Woodward, Britain’s ambassador to the UN, emphasized the “UK’s ambition to drive forward reform of the multilateral system,” saying, “We want to see expansion of the Council’s permanent seats to include India, Brazil, Germany, Japan and African representation.” But even if this proposal is adopted by the GA and the UNSC, it has to be followed up with an amendment to the UN charter. How arduous and long-drawn-out is the process of amending the charter?

A: Even in 1945, the composition of the Security Council was a compromise, with permanent membership and vetoes intended to encourage the five powers of the time to serve as guardians of the international order. That illusion was shattered before the ink had dried on the charter, as the Cold War cut short the organization’s honeymoon.

Today, our multipolar and polarised world is better described as a hot mess. Longstanding conflicts such as Palestine and Kashmir remain intractable, while crises pile up: Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Haiti, Myanmar, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine.

Some commentators argue that Russia’s wanton aggression is not the first time one of the five permanent members (P5) has invaded a country. Others adopt a reductionist view of the Council’s role: preventing conflict between the P5 rather than maintaining peace and security. But after 18 months of genocidal acts, it’s hard not to see it as emblematic of the UN’s failures and constraints.

Even areas where the UN previously banked successes are flagging. Most people go back two decades to Liberia or Sierra Leone when asked to cite successful peace operations. Until its collapse, the Black Sea grain deal was a rare example of mediation gone right.

Invariably, debates on how to strengthen the UN’s peace and security capacity focus on the Security Council. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, states including the US have been more vocal on the need for change. Yet renewed interest has not made reform more likely.

Procedurally, reform requires amending the UN charter. This needs approval by two-thirds of the General Assembly’s members and ratification by their legislatures, including the all of the P5. It has happened only once in relation to the Council (in 1965, when the number of members was raised from 11 to 15, and the voting threshold increased accordingly). Politically, one of the biggest hurdles is the lack of agreement within regions on who should get a seat.

Council reform is a prize worth pursuing — and one that merits more creativity, on the role of regional organisations, for instance. But it may be better to channel this energy into how to leverage the collective power of the UN system as a whole.

From sanctions to investigations, there is much more the General Assembly could do on peace and security, including by building on Liechtenstein’s proposal. The Peacebuilding Commission, too, could become more central, for example by bringing in actors such as the international financial institutions. And it is worth looking at how mediation could be done differently, with more resources and a more diverse pool of negotiators.

Q: Civil society organizations (CSOs) have played a significant role in UN’s mandate to provide international peace and security, protect human rights and deliver humanitarian aid. Has the UN given CSOs, their rightful place?

A: Over 200 civil society organizations were at the birth of the UN. Their presence helped to secure references in the Charter to human rights, gender equality and social justice.

Seventy-eight years on, thousands will come to New York for the opening of the General Assembly. Even more work with the UN every day, as its development and humanitarian activities have mushroomed. These areas now account for over 70 percent of its funds and roughly two-thirds of its staff.

But many CSOs engage from the sidelines. Only a fraction will be allowed into UN Headquarters, while those on the ground often face steep barriers to cooperation. For all the talk about partnerships, a similar situation exists for other actors, from local governments to business.

This ignores that perhaps the most profound transformation of the ‘‘international community’ in recent decades has not been geopolitical realignment but the rise of non-state actors.

We live in a world where private sector profits eclipse GDP, where social movements can mobilise millions of people, and influencers can wipe out billions with a single post; and where a girl sitting outside her school with a sign can change the global conversation. And yet the international system remains stubbornly state-centric.

Instead, partnerships should be the norm. CSOs are critical to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and addressing climate change. They provide essential assistance in humanitarian crises and step into the breach in conflict zones. They stand up for those who are ignored and abused, serving both as the UN’s partners and its conscience.

Their contributions should be valued and harnessed, through a high-level champion for civil society, greater resourcing of grassroots groups; and an overarching strategy for engagement. As concerns around legitimacy and power grow, this strategy should include a gradual transfer of the UN’s development and humanitarian functions to local partners.

This would foster a greater sense of ownership, agency and accountability. It could also breathe new life into the SDGs. From the UN’s vantage point, it would help to alleviate the unsustainable growth in its workload, free up limited resources and mitigate the incompatibility on the ground of various functions it is expected to perform – political, humanitarian, development and human rights.

Such a move is likely to meet with considerable resistance, including from inside the UN. It is easier to cite the number schools built or refugees rescued as evidence of success, especially when geopolitical tensions make advances in areas such as norm-setting and mediation more challenging.

But it is precisely in those areas where the UN is most needed: functions that cannot easily be fulfilled by others — even with two regional organisations on board, the G20 is not the G193; and where it is uniquely placed to make a difference — from emergency coordination to global solidarity.

That should be the guiding spirit leading up to next year’s Summit of the Future: a realistic task list for the UN, greater responsibility for partners, and higher ambition for the world’s people.

(Natalie Samarasinghe has also served as CEO of the United Nations Association – UK, becoming the first woman appointed to that role; she was speechwriter to the 73rd President of the General Assembly; and chief of strategy for the UN’s 75th-anniversary initiative.

A frequent commentator on UN issues, she has edited publications on sustainable development, climate change and conflict; written for Routledge and OUP on human rights; and co-edited the SAGE Major Work on the UN. She has also supported a number of civil society coalitions, including the 1 for 7 Billion campaign to improve the Secretary-General selection process, which she co-founded. IPS UN Bureau Report)

US Lawmakers Strip China of “Developing Nation” Status

April 6, 2023 Thalif DeenWorld 0

(IPS) – As signs of a new Cold War are fast emerging at the United Nations, the US continues its war of words with the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

The rivalry, which extends from Russia and Taiwan to Iran and Myanmar – where the UN’s two permanent members are on opposite sides of ongoing political or military conflicts– has now triggered a battle on semantics.

Is China, described as the world’s second largest economy ranking next to the US, really a “developing nation”?

The US House of Representative unanimously passed a bill March 27 directing the Secretary of State Antony Blinken to strip the PRC of its “developing country” status in international organizations

Titled “PRC Is Not a Developing Country Act” — the bill cleared the House in an overwhelming 415-0 vote. The legislation reads: “It should be the policy of the United States—

(1) to oppose the labeling or treatment of the People’s Republic of China as a developing country in any treaty or other international agreement to which the United States is a party;

(2) to oppose the labeling or treatment of the People’s Republic of China as a developing country in each international organization of which the United States is a member; and

(3) to pursue the labeling or treatment of the People’s Republic of China as an upper middle-income country, high income country, or developed country in each international organization of which the United States is a member”.

At the United Nations, China is closely allied with the 137-member Group of 77 (G77), the largest single coalition of “developing countries” (a group created in 1964 with 77 members).

Since China is not a formal member of the G77, the group describes itself either as “The G77 and China” or “The G77 plus China.”

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, a former Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the UN and a former UN Under-Secretary-General, told IPS the defining of a developing country is a complex challenge.

“There is no established framework or charter for defining a “developing country,” he noted

According to well-respected economist Jeffrey Sachs, the current divide between the developed and developing world is largely a phenomenon of the 20th century. Some economists emphasize that the binary labeling of countries is “neither descriptive nor explanatory”.

For the UN system, the G77, which provides the collective negotiating platform of the countries of the South, is in reality synonymous with nations which are identified as “developing countries, least developed countries (LDCs), landlocked developing countries and small island developing states” (SIDS).

“They are all sub-groupings of developing countries and belong to the G-77, he pointed out.

Outlining the group’s history, he said, the G-77 was established in 1964 by seventy-seven developing countries, signatories of the “Joint Declaration” issued at the end of the first session of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva.

Although members of the G-77 have increased to 134 countries, the original name was retained due to its historic significance. Developing countries tend to have some characteristics in common, often due to their histories or geographies, said Ambassador Chowdhury, Chairman of the Administrative and Budgetary Committee (Fifth Committee) of the UN General Assembly in 1997-98 and Chair of the Group of 27, working group of G-77, in 1982-83.

In October 1997, he said, China joined the G-77 while keeping its special identity by proposing the nomenclature as “G-77 and China”. China aligns its positions on the global economic and social issues with G-77 positions for negotiating purposes.

Being the largest negotiating group in the United Nations, and in view of the mutuality of their common concerns, G-77 is not expected to agree to separate China from the current collaborative arrangements.

“And more so, if the pressure comes from the US delegation, in view of the recent resolution of the House of Representatives of the US Congress, to take away the categorization of China as a developing country”, declared Ambassador Chowdhury.

In a World Bank Data Blog, Tariq Khokhar, Global Data Editor & Senior Data Scientist and Umar Serajuddin, Manager, Development Data Group, at the World Bank, point out that the IMF, in the “World Economic Outlook (WEO)” currently classify 37 countries as “Advanced Economies” and all others are considered “Emerging Market and Developing Economies” according to the WEO Statistical Annex.”

The institution notes that “this classification is not based on strict criteria, economic or otherwise” and that it’s done in order to “facilitate analysis by providing a reasonably meaningful method of organizing data.”

The United Nations has no formal definition of developing countries, but still uses the term for monitoring purposes and classifies as many as 159 countries as developing, the authors argue.

Under the UN’s current classification, all of Europe and Northern America along with Japan, Australia and New Zealand are classified as developed regions, and all other regions are developing.

The UN maintains a list of “Least Developed Countries” which are defined by accounting for GNI per capita as well as measures of human capital and economic vulnerability.

“While we can’t find the first instance of “developing world” being used, what it colloquially refers to — the group of countries that fare relatively and similarly poorly in social and economic measures — hasn’t been consistently or precisely defined, and this “definition” hasn’t been updated.”

“The World Bank has for many years referred to “low and middle income countries” as “developing countries” for convenience in publications, but even if this definition was reasonable in the past, it’s worth asking if it has remained so and if a more granular definition is warranted.”

In its legislation, the US House of Representatives says “not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of State shall submit to the appropriate committees of Congress a report identifying all current treaty negotiations in which—

(a) Any international organization of which the United States and the People’s Republic of China are both current member states, the Secretary, in coordination with the heads of other Federal agencies and departments as needed, shall pursue—

(1) changing the status of the People’s Republic of China from developing country to upper middle income country, high income country, or developed country if a mechanism exists in such organization to make such a change in status;

(2) proposing the development of a mechanism described in paragraph (1) to change the status of the People’s Republic of China in such organization from developing country to developed country; or

(3) regardless of efforts made pursuant to paragraphs (1) and (2), working to ensure that the People’s Republic of China does not receive preferential treatment or assistance within the organization as a result of it having the status of a developing country.

(b) The President may waive the application of subsection (a) with respect to any international organization if the President notifies the appropriate committees of Congress, not later than 10 days before the date on which the waiver shall take effect, that such a waiver is in the national interests of the United States.

Speaking during the debate, Representative Young Kim (Republican of California) said: “The People’s Republic of China is the world’s second largest economy, accounting for 18.6 percent of the global economy.”

“Their economy is second only to that of the United States. The United States is treated as a developed country, so should PRC,” Kim said. “And is also treated as a high-income country in treaties and international organizations, so China should also be treated as a developed country.”

“However, the PRC is classified as a developing country, and they’re using this status to game the system and hurt countries that are truly in need,” she added.

Elaborating further, Ambassador Chowdhury said the World Bank, as a part of the Bretton Woods institutions, classifies the world’s economies into four groups, based on gross national income per capita: high, upper-middle, lower-middle, and low income countries.

In 2015, the World Bank declared that the “developing/developed world categorization” had become less relevant and that they will phase out the use of that descriptor. Instead, their reports will present data aggregations for regions and income groups.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) accepts any country’s claim of itself being “developing”.

He said certain countries that have become “developed” in the last 20 years by almost all economic metrics, still wants to be classified as “developing country”, as it entitles them to a preferential treatment at the WTO – countries such as Brunei, Kuwait, Qatar, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates.

The term “Global South“, used by some as an alternative term to developing countries, began to Scinbe mentioned more widely since about 2004.

The Global South refers to these countries’ interconnected histories of colonialism, neo-imperialism, and differential economic and social change through which large inequalities in living standards, life expectancy, and access to resources are maintained. “Most of humanity resides in the Global South,” declared Ambassador Chowdhury. (IPS UN Bureau Report)

Autocratic Leaders To Skip UN General Assembly

September 16, 2022November 16, 2022 Thalif DeenWorld 0

(IPS) – When the high-level segment of the UN General Assembly sessions begin September 20, the official list of speakers include 92 heads of state (HS) and 56 heads of government (HG).

But the “usual suspects,” mostly leaders of authoritarian regimes, are missing, including Vladimir Putin of Russia, Xi Jinping of China, Kim Jong-un of North Korea, Bashar al-Assad of Syria, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and the much-maligned military leaders of Myanmar.

Some of these autocrats stand accused of war crimes, genocide, human rights abuses, persecution of journalists and clamping down on gender empowerment and civil society organizations (CSOs)—all at cross purposes with the UN.

A Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the absentees as “a veritable political rogues gallery”.

And as world leaders gather, the UN will also go into a lockdown mode next week with movements within the Secretariat severely restricted—and the building a virtual “no-fly zone.”

Thomas G. Weiss, a distinguished scholar of international relations and global governance, with special expertise in the politics of the United Nations, told IPS: “I don’t believe you can read much into their absence as they have held forth in previous sessions.”

“The General Assembly is an equal opportunity forum—thugs and champions have the podium and need not respect time limits”, said Weiss, who has been Presidential Professor at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, and Director Emeritus of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies.

Other authoritarian leaders, who skipped the UN in a bygone era include Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Hafez al-Assad of Syria and the two Kims from North Korea: Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-Sung.

So did some leaders from the West, including Germany, which for unaccountable reasons skippedt he UN sessions and sent in their second-in-command.

But Fidel Castro of Cuba, Muammar el Qaddafi of Libya and Yasir Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) did address the General Assembly (GA) in the 1960s and 70s.

Samir Sanbar, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General and one-time head of the Department of Public Information told IPS the level of participation and the extent of coverage would reflect a degree of U.N. relevance at these uncertain times of perplexed international disorder.

He said “distinguished speakers would aim to present their national credentials to an international audience and display their international standing to their national audience.

“Despite political rhetoric, even heads of state with public criticism of the United Nations find a personal need to appear there,” he noted.

Sanbar pointed out that former US President Donald Trump, who had persistently attacked the UN, appeared at the main table of the GA opening luncheon.as head of the host country (and later welcomed a number of visiting heads of state at his nearby Trump Tower residence).

President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil would seek to maintain his country’s habitual place as the first speaker. In the past, Libya’s Qaddafi marked his GA attendance by theatrically tearing the UN Charter. But still he sought to keep his delegate Abdel Salam Ali Treki as President of that same GA session.

“Let us hope that the attendance of so many heads of state and governments this session would draw more coverage and public interest than the past two years (when the UN suffered a pandemic lockdown).

“As you would recall, statements by over 90 heads of state at a previous session did not receive a single mention while a number of participant left for a “Global Concert” in Central Park, said Sanbar who had served under five different secretaries-generals during his UN career.

Andreas Bummel, Executive Director, Democracy Without Borders, told IPS it is sad that the UN is a stage for totalitarian autocrats to disseminate their propaganda.

“Whether or not they come to New York to do this each September can depend on many variables. Each case needs to be looked at separately. In general terms, if they stay away, I believe one should not read too much into it,” he noted.

UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters September 9 “the mood within the UN Secretariat is business like and very busy, as we do before any General Assembly. Of course, this is the first General Assembly we’ve had in person since 2019. So, it does create a sense of excitement and a return to in person.”

“I think the message is to look around and look at all the challenges that we face today. Not one of them can be solved unilaterally by one country. Whether you look at climate change, whether you look at conflict, hunger, which are all interlinked, I don’t know what more… what greater definition we can give than multilateral problems that need multilateral solutions,” he argued.

“And we hope that Member States will recommit to finding solutions for future generations and for these generations in an atmosphere of cooperation, even if they continue to disagree on many issues,” declared Dujarric.

Speaking at the closing of the 76th session of the General Assembly, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the current session, like the previous one, was marked by a series of deepening challenges.

“Rising prices, the erosion of purchasing power, growing food insecurity and the gathering shadows of a global recession”, plus a “global pandemic that refused to be defeated — and the emergence of another health emergency in monkeypox”.

And deadly heatwaves, storms, floods and other natural disasters, he added.

But speaking of the coming 77th session, Guterres said it will continue to test the multilateral system like never before.

“And it will continue to test cohesion and trust among Member States. The road ahead will be challenging and unpredictable.”

“But by using the tools of our trade — diplomacy, negotiation and compromise — we can continue supporting people and communities around the world. We can pave the way to a better, more peaceful future for all people”.

“And we can renew faith in the United Nations and the multilateral system, which remain humanity’s best hope,” he declared. (IPS UN Bureau Report)

Rise of the Super Rich & Fall of the World’s Poor

May 28, 2022 Thalif DeenBusiness, Economy, Editorial/Opinion, Money 0

Michael Bloomberg, the three-term Mayor of New York city and a billionaire philanthropist, was once quoted as saying that by the time he dies, he would have given away all his wealth to charity – so that his cheque to the funeral undertaker will bounce for lack of funds in his bank account.

Sounds altruistic – even as the number of billionaires keep rising while the poorest of the world’s poor keep multiplying.

The latest brief by Oxfam International, titled “Profiting from Pain” and released May 23, shows that 573 people became new billionaires during the two-and-a half-year Covid 19 pandemic —while the world’s poverty stricken continued to increase.

“We expect this year that 263 million more people will crash into extreme poverty, at a rate of a million people every 33 hours,” Oxfam said.

Billionaires’ wealth has risen more in the first 24 months of COVID-19 than in 23 years combined. The total wealth of the world’s billionaires is now equivalent to 13.9 percent of global GDP. This is a three-fold increase (up from 4.4 percent) in 2000, according to the study.

Asked about the philanthropic gestures, Gabriela Bucher, Executive Director of Oxfam International, told IPS wealthy individuals who use their money to help others should be congratulated.

“But charitable giving is no substitute for wealthy people and companies paying their fair share of tax or ensuring their workers are paid a decent wage. And it does not justify them using their power and connections to lobby for unfair advantages over others,” she declared.

Oxfam’s new research also reveals that corporations in the energy, food and pharmaceutical sectors —where monopolies are especially common— are posting record-high profits, even as wages have barely budged and workers struggle with decades-high prices amid COVID-19.

The fortunes of food and energy billionaires have risen by $453 billion in the last two years, equivalent to $1 billion every two days, says Oxfam.

Five of the largest energy companies (BP, Shell, Total Energies, Exxon and Chevron) are together making $2,600 profit every second, and there are now 62 new food billionaires.

Currently, the world’s total population is around 7.8 billion, and according to the UN, more than 736 million people live below the international poverty line.

A World Bank report last year said extreme poverty is set to rise, for the first time in more than two decades, and the impact of the spreading virus is expected to push up to 115 million more people into poverty, while the pandemic is compounding the forces of conflict and climate change, that has already been slowing poverty reduction.

By 2021, as many as 150 million more people could be living in extreme poverty.

Yasmeen Hassan, Global Executive Director at Equality Now, told IPS Oxfam’s report demonstrates systemic failings in the discriminatory nature of countries’ economies and underscores the urgent need for financial systems to be restructured so that they benefit the 99%, not the 1%.

“As with any crisis, Equality Now foresaw that gender would influence how individuals and communities experienced the pandemic, but even we were shocked at how exceptionally and intensely pre-existing inequalities and sex-based discrimination has been exacerbated”, she said.

While billionaires — the vast majority of whom are men — continue to amass vast sums of wealth, women around the world remain trapped in poverty. Wealthy elites are profiting off women’s labor, much of which is underappreciated, underpaid, and uncompensated, she pointed out.

“Economic hardship and inadequate policy responses to the pandemic have eroded many of the hard-won gains that have been achieved over recent years for women and girls. From increases in child marriage, sexual exploitation and human trafficking, to landlords demanding sex from female tenants who have lost their job, and domestic workers trapped inside with abusive employers, women and girls around the world have borne the brunt of the pandemic,” Hassan declared.

The Oxfam study has been released to coincide with the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual meeting—which includes the presence of the rich and the superrich—taking place in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland from 22-26 May. The meeting, whose theme is ‘Working Together, Restoring Trust’, will be the first global in-person leadership event since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020

“Billionaires are arriving in Davos to celebrate an incredible surge in their fortunes. The pandemic, and now the steep increases in food and energy prices have, simply put, been a bonanza for them. Meanwhile, decades of progress on extreme poverty are now in reverse and millions of people are facing impossible rises in the cost of simply staying alive,” said Oxfam’s Bucher.

She said billionaires’ fortunes have not increased because they are now smarter or working harder. But it is really the workers who are working harder, for less pay and in worse conditions.

The super-rich, she argued, have rigged the system with impunity for decades and they are now reaping the benefits. They have seized a shocking amount of the world’s wealth as a result of privatization and monopolies, gutting regulation and workers’ rights while stashing their cash in tax havens — all with the complicity of governments.”

“Meanwhile, millions of others are skipping meals, turning off the heating, falling behind on bills and wondering what they can possibly do next to survive. Across East Africa, one person is likely dying every minute from hunger. This grotesque inequality is breaking the bonds that hold us together as humanity. It is divisive, corrosive and dangerous. This is inequality that literally kills.”

Elaborating further, Hassan of Equality Now said women are more likely to be informally employed, low-wage earners, and this disadvantaged position has resulted in higher rates of women losing their jobs, particularly in sectors that were not prioritized in government relief packages.

“Women are also more likely to be primary caretaker and many have had to absorb increases in unpaid duties while schools and nurseries shut down. As a consequence, some women have been forced out of jobs as they found it impossible to juggle full-time work while also providing full-time childcare. This loss of income has been especially catastrophic for women in poverty and has made them more vulnerable to a range of human rights violations.”

She said world leaders must stop pursuing policy agendas that benefit the rich and hurt the poor.

“Instead, we urgently need a committed and coordinated response from governments and policymakers to reduce inequality and poverty, and address discrimination that is holding women and girls back while allowing the super-rich to get richer still,” she added.

The Oxfam study also says the pandemic has created 40 new pharma billionaires.

Pharmaceutical corporations like Moderna and Pfizer are making $1,000 profit every second just from their monopoly control of the COVID-19 vaccine, despite its development having been supported by billions of dollars in public investments.

“They are charging governments up to 24 times more than the potential cost of generic production. 87 percent of people in low-income countries have still not been fully vaccinated.”

“The extremely rich and powerful are profiting from pain and suffering. This is unconscionable. Some have grown rich by denying billions of people access to vaccines, others by exploiting rising food and energy prices. They are paying out massive bonuses and dividends while paying as little tax as possible. This rising wealth and rising poverty are two sides of the same coin, proof that our economic system is functioning exactly how the rich and powerful designed it to do,” said Bucher.

Oxfam recommends that governments urgently:

–·Introduce one-off solidarity taxes on billionaires’ pandemic windfalls to fund support for people facing rising food and energy costs and a fair and sustainable recovery from COVID-19. Argentina adopted a one-off special levy dubbed the ‘millionaire’s tax’ and is now considering introducing a windfall tax on energy profits as well as a tax on undeclared assets held overseas to repay IMF debt. The super-rich have stashed nearly $8 trillion in tax havens.

— End crisis profiteering by introducing a temporary excess profit tax of 90 percent to capture the windfall profits of big corporations across all industries. Oxfam estimated that such a tax on just 32 super-profitable multinational companies could have generated $104 billion in revenue in 2020.

— Introduce permanent wealth taxes to rein in extreme wealth and monopoly power, as well as the outsized carbon emissions of the super-rich. An annual wealth tax on millionaires starting at just 2 percent, and 5 percent on billionaires, could generate $2.52 trillion a year —enough to lift 2.3 billion people out of poverty, make enough vaccines for the world, and deliver universal healthcare and social protection for everyone living in low- and lower middle-income countries.

Taliban’s Quest For Legitimacy – And A Seat At The United Nations

September 29, 2021 Thalif DeenGlobal 0

When the Taliban captured power back in 1996, one of its first political acts was to hang the ousted Afghan President Mohammed Najibullah in Ariana Square in Kabul. The newly-installed government played a triple role: judge, jury and hangman, all three rolled into one. Fast forward to August 15, when the Taliban, in its second coming, assumed power ousting the US-supported government of Ashraf Ghani, a former official of the World Bank, armed with a doctorate in anthropology from one of the most prestigious Ivy League educational institutions: Columbia University. In a Facebook posting, Ghani said he fled to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) seeking safe haven because he “was going to be hanged” by the Taliban.

If that did happen, the Taliban would have earned the dubious distinction of being the only government in the world to hang two presidents. But mercifully, it did not. Ghani, however, denied that he had bolted from the presidential palace lugging several suitcases with millions of dollars pilfered from the country’s treasury. Meanwhile, when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan during 1996-2001, only three countries recognized its legitimacy: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and UAE.

But now 20 years later, the first four countries most likely to provide legitimacy to a Taliban government may include China and Russia (two permanent members of the Security Council), along with Iran and Pakistan, while others could follow. At a meeting of the 15-member Security Council on August 30, a resolution condemning the “deplorable” terrorist attack on the Kabul airport, was backed by 13 countries, with two abstentions: China and Russia. But since they didn’t exercise their vetoes, the resolution was adopted 13-2.

Predictably, Taliban has now pledged a new era and a promise to cooperate with the Americans, perhaps as part of a strategy to gain international legitimacy– and eventually a seat in the UN General Assembly, a seat now held by the ousted Ghani government. Still, its sordid past—including public floggings and executions, enforced disappearances and violations of basic civil liberties—may come back to haunt the Taliban.

Dr. Simon Adams, Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), told IPS there is no evidence that Taliban version 2.0 will be any different from the original Taliban, despite their attempts to convince the world that this time around they will be more user-friendly. For decades, he pointed out, the Taliban have been responsible for war crimes, and when they last ruled Afghanistan, they perpetrated crimes against humanity.

Last time they were in government, Taliban forces systematically persecuted the country’s vulnerable Hazara minority and stripped millions of women and girls of their universal human rights. The Taliban have not changed, he argued. Beyond the glare of TV cameras and press conferences, Taliban fighters are already carrying out summary executions and evidence has already emerged of a recent massacre of Hazara men, said Dr Adams.

As an armed extremist group, as perpetrators of atrocities and as a state power, the Taliban stand in direct opposition to everything that the United Nations stands for. “They belong in handcuffs, not sitting in the UN General Assembly hall”, he declared. James M. Dorsey, Senior Fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute, told IPS there is no doubt that the Taliban will claim Afghanistan’s UN seat once they form a government.

They cannot do so before that. In terms of the International Criminal Court (ICC), there is equally no doubt that the Taliban have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. “The problem is they are in good company: China, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, just to name a few”. Asked why the US wants to deal with a Taliban government that is not legally recognized by Washington, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said the US has been “engaged with the Taliban for some time diplomatically going back years in efforts, to try to advance a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Afghanistan”. “Going forward, we will judge our engagement with any Taliban-led government in Afghanistan based on one simple proposition: our interests, and does it help us advance them or not?”.

“If engagement with the government can advance the enduring interests we will have in counterterrorism, the enduring interest we’ll have in trying to help the Afghan people who need humanitarian assistance, in the enduring interest we have in seeing that the rights of all Afghans, especially women and girls, are upheld, then we’ll do it,’ said Blinken, leaving the door open for a political relationship with the Taliban government.

He said if a future Taliban government upholds the basic rights of the Afghan people, if it makes good on its commitments to ensure that Afghanistan cannot be used as a launching pad for terrorist attacks “directed against us and our allies and partners, and in the first instance, if it makes good on its commitments to allow people who want to leave Afghanistan to leave, that’s a government we can work with” “If it doesn’t, we will make sure that we use every appropriate tool at our disposal to isolate that government, and as I said before, Afghanistan will be a pariah,” he declared.

Samir Sanbar, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General, who served under five different secretaries-generals, told IPS: “I do not recall (the former) Taliban government seeking recognition or claiming a seat during the 1996 General Assembly session, attended by U.S. President Bill Clinton”. But he did remember the former Permanent Representative of Afghanistan seeking a U.N. job. “If the Taliban decides to claim the Afghan seat, the UN’s Credentials Committee will have to review that claim”. Sanbar said the Taliban delegation would also need U.S. visas to visit New York, which would require the blessings of the Biden administration.

He also pointed that the UAE may not recognize the current Taliban, as it did in 1996, because it is now hosting the ousted Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. Sanbar said it will be interesting to watch what happens at the upcoming 76th session of the General Assembly which opens on September 21.

Thalif Deen, Senior Editor at the UN Bureau of Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency, is the author of a newly-released book on the United Nations titled “No Comment – and Don’t Quote Me on That.” Published by Amazon, the book is mostly a satire peppered with scores of anecdotes– both serious and hilarious. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

US Holds UNICEF Monopoly For 74 Years – In A World Body Where Money Talks

July 22, 2021 Thalif DeenGlobal, USA 0

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 19 2021 (IPS) – With Henrietta Fore’s decision last week to step down as UNICEF Executive Director, her successor is most likely to be another American since that post has been held– uninterruptedly — by US nationals for almost 74 years, an unprecedented all-time record for a high-ranking job in the UN system. The seven U.S. nationals who have headed the UN children’s agency since its inception in 1947 include Maurice Pate, Henry Labouisse, James Grant, Carol Bellamy, Ann Veneman, Anthony Lake and Henrietta Fore. Pate held the job for 18 years, from 1947 to 1965, and Labouisse for 14 years, from 1965 to 1979. No other agency has had a national stranglehold on such a senior position in the 76-year history of the United Nations.

As for individuals monopolizing office, Dr Arpad Bogsch, another US national, held the post of director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva for 24 long years (1973-1997). But more recently, however, the professional life span of senior officials in the UN secretariat is mostly five years, with a possible extension for an additional five years. Since money talks, the US has continued to stake its claims for the UNICEF job, primarily as its largest single financial contributor. But that claim also applies to several UN agencies, which depend on voluntary contributions, and where some of the high-ranking positions are largely held by donors or big powers, mostly from Western Europe, or China and Russia.

James Paul, former Executive Director at the New York-based Global Policy Forum (1993-2012) and a prominent figure in the NGO advocacy community at the United Nations, told IPS much is at stake in the appointment of the head of a major agency in the UN system. Powerful governments battle over prestige and the shaping of policy, he said, pointing out, that “interest is intense now, as the appointment of a new head of UNICEF comes up”. “Observers inevitably wonder: what country gets the post, what is the region of the appointee, what ethnic or national group does this person represent, what is the person’s gender identify, and finally, last but not least, what is the policy inclination and administrative record of the person selected?” said Paul, author of “Of Foxes and Chickens”—Oligarchy and Global Power in the UN Security Council (2017).

He said some candidates may be serious people with years of experience while others may be personal friends of a powerful head of government. How will the selection process work and how much pressure will be put on those with a say over the appointment process: the UN Secretary General and Executive Boards or committees? he asked. In the early years of the UN, he said, there was a tendency to appoint male candidates who were US nationals. The US government often acted very bluntly about getting its way and it threatened many times to withhold funding or punish UN officials if its candidate was not selected. Two well-known cases of US hegemony are UNICEF, the UN Children’s Fund, and UNDP, the UN Development Programme.

UNICEF is notorious because its Executive Director has been a US national continuously since the organization’s founding 74 years ago, said Paul. Now that the current head is stepping down, the question inevitably arises – will Washington once again be able to get its way? Admittedly, it did make one concession over the years. Under pressure in 1995 to accept a very accomplished Scandinavian woman, the US agreed to drop its male candidate. Washington then proposed a woman and turned up the heat. Carol Bellamy, the US candidate, was eventually appointed. The present head, Henrietta Fore, is also a woman but she too carries a US passport, said Paul.

Former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1992-1996), who had a love-hate relationship with the US, tried to break the US monopoly back in 1995. But he failed. In his book “UN-Vanquished–a US-UN saga,” (1999), Boutros-Ghali says he was thwarted by then US President Bill Clinton and US ambassador Madeline Albright. Clinton wanted William Foege, a former head of the US Centres for Disease Control, to be appointed UNICEF chief to succeed James Grant, also an American. Since Belgium and Finland had already put forward “outstanding” women candidates — and since the US had refused to pay its UN dues and was also making ”disparaging” remarks about the world body — “there was no longer automatic acceptance by other nations that the director of UNICEF must inevitably be an American man or woman,” said Boutros-Ghali.

“The US should select a woman candidate,” Boutros-Ghali told Albright, “and then I will see what I can do,” since the appointment involved consultation with the then 36-member UNICEF Executive Board. ” Albright rolled her eyes and made a face, repeating what had become her standard expression of frustration with me,” he writes. When the US kept pressing Foege’s candidature, Boutros-Ghali says that “many countries on the UNICEF Board were angry and (told) me to tell the United States to go to hell.” The US eventually submitted an alternate woman candidate: Carol Bellamy, a former director of Peace Corps. Although Elizabeth Rehn of Finland received 15 votes to Bellamy’s 12 in a straw poll, Boutros-Ghali said he asked the Board president to convince the members to achieve consensus on Bellamy so that the US could continue a monopoly it held since UNICEF was created in 1947. And thereby hangs a tale.

According to the latest published figures, total contributions to UNICEF in 2020 were over US$7 billion. The public sector contributed the largest share: US$5.45 billion from government, inter-governmental and inter-organizational partners, as well as Global Programme Partnerships. The top three resource partners in 2020 (by contributions received) were the Governments of the United States of America (US$801 million), Germany (US$744 million) and the European Union (US$514 million). As UNICEF’s largest donor, the US was considered “an indispensable partner”. “Our partnership with the US Government is broad and diverse, spanning humanitarian and development programmes across key areas of UNICEF’s work, including health; education; early child development; water, sanitation and hygiene; nutrition; child protection; gender equality; HIV and AIDS; immunization; and research programmes,” according to UNICEF.

Samir Sanbar, a former UN assistant secretary-General and head of the Department of Public Information, told IPS the argument over the post of UNICEF Executive Director was the first clash between Boutros-Ghali and Ambassador Albright who otherwise was very friendly, as both were “former professors”. As Boutros-Ghali once quipped: “I may be America’s yes man (as he was described in the Arab press when he was elected secretary-general) but certainly not, yes sir “. Initially, American UNICEF Executive Directors like Henry Labouisse and James Grant proved their value not merely by bringing U.S. funds but by their proven accomplishments, said Sanbar.

Guterres, an experienced politician, will most likely explore options: perhaps await proposals from the Biden Administration while keeping open possible interest by members of the Security Council like Norway–and others, which could offer a substantive contribution, as long as its candidate is a woman, said Sanbar who had served under five different secretaries-general during his longstanding UN career. Paul pointed out that UNDP provides an interesting basis for comparison. It had a US head (the title is Administrator) for thirty-two years consecutively, from its founding in 1967.

In 1999, when the moment for a new appointment arose, the UN membership stepped up pressure for a more diverse pool of candidates. At last, the magic spell of US dominance broke, as Mark Malloch Brown of the UK got the nod. And since 1999, there hasn’t been a single US national in that post of UNDP Administrator. That was a sign that Washington’s grip on the UN was slipping and that its global influence was waning – slowly perhaps but unmistakably. A capable woman from New Zealand, Helen Clark, was one of the new breed, along with a Turk, Kemal Dervis, and a German, Achim Steiner, who currently holds the post. But not all US nominees have turned out badly, said Paul.

James Grant, was a widely-respected head of UNICEF, and Gus Speth won plaudits as head of UNDP. But symbolism is important in a multi-lateral organization with a world-wide membership and a very diverse constituency. “No matter how competent the US candidate might be, and no matter how independent-minded, color-coded and engendered, it is time for UNICEF to get a non-US Executive Director. The world of 1947 has long gone. US hegemony is not what it was.” “A bit of fresh air at UNICEF is long overdue,” declared Paul.

(ThalifDeen is the author of a newly-released book on the United Nations titled “No Comment -– and Don’t Quote Me on That.” Peppered with scores of anecdotes-– from the serious to the hilarious-– the book is available on Amazon worldwide. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/)

US Casts 45 Vetoes – And Counting—While Protecting AClient State

May 19, 2021May 19, 2021 Thalif DeenGlobal, Nation USA 0

UNITED NATIONS, May 14 2021 (IPS) – The UN Security Council (UNSC), the most powerful political body at the United Nations, has largely remained silent or ineffective in resolving one of the longstanding military conflicts in the Middle East involving Israelis and Palestinians.

But, at the same time, several attempts to condemn Israel for its excesses have been thwarted by successive US administrations, which have exercised the veto power in the Security Council to protect a client state whose survival has depended largely on billions of dollars in US economic and military aid, state-of-the-art weapons systems and outright military grants doled out gratis.

Stephen Zunes, professor of Politics and chair of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco and who has written extensively on the politics of the Security Council, told IPS the US has vetoed no less than 45 resolutions critical of Israel, “thereby rendering the Security Council effectively impotent”.

Asked if any other UN member state has been protected by so many vetoes, he said: “Not even close”.
In January 2017, he pointed out, an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress passed a resolution opposing United Nations involvement on the question of Israel and Palestine, insisting all matters should be resolved only through direct talks between the Palestinians and their Israeli occupiers, a position which thus far appears to being upheld by the administration of President Joe Biden.

Still, said Dr Zunes, it is unlikely the Biden administration will allow any resolution to pass that is critical of Israeli attacks in East Jerusalem or Gaza, even if balanced by criticism of Palestinian actions, since in the view of Washington, every military action by Israel is by definition “self-defense.”

Early this week, a State Department spokesperson defended the Israeli air strikes in a crowded urban area in the Gaza Strip on the grounds that every state has a right to self-defense.However, when pressed, he was unwilling to acknowledge–even theoretically–that Palestinians also have a right to self-defense, said Dr Zunes, a columnist and senior analyst at Foreign Policy in Focus.

As US Presidents go, Biden was no exception when he told reporters early this week that his expectation was that tensions would be “closing down sooner rather than later” but pointed out that “Israel has a right to defend itself, when you have thousands of rockets flying into your territory.”
But he ignored the lethal Israeli airstrikes with US-supplied fighter planes that have so far killed 67 Palestinians, including women and children, while turning houses and buildings into rubble, including a 12-storeyed office building.

In the US, the Israeli lobby has remained so powerful that few Americans politicians dare challenge the Jewish state or its violations of Security Council resolutions.Pat Buchanan, a senior advisor to three US Presidents and twice candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, once infamously described the United States Congress as “Israeli-occupied territory” -– apparently because of its unrelentingly blind support for Israel.

Meanwhile, according to Cable News Network (CNN), riots and violent clashes between Arab and Jewish citizens have swept through several Israeli cities after days of deadly airstrikes and rocket attacks.“Militants in Gaza have fired more than 1,000 rockets into Israel since the latest round of violence began Monday afternoon, and Israel has responded with devastating airstrikes in Gaza.”

At the same time, residents have reacted with fury, and there have been reports of attacks and raids at places of worship, said CNN.Dr. Simon Adams, Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), told IPS the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories has been justify to fester and rot for a generation.
In the past, he said, the United States routinely used its veto to provide political cover for Israel, making the UN Security Council irrelevant.

“The new Biden administration should make it clear that the US will no longer provide diplomatic excuses for Israel’s violations of international law, its collective punishment of civilian populations or its apartheid-like policies,” he said.“Otherwise, the UN Security Council will be justify on the sidelines watching as yet another senseless war kills both Israeli and Palestinian civilians,” declared Dr Adams, a former member of the international anti-apartheid movement and of the African National Congress in South Africa.

Zunes said since the United Nations and virtually the entire international community recognizes East Jerusalem as territory under foreign belligerent occupation, responding to the escalating violence is very much within the purview of the Security Council.

Since 1993, however, the United States has blocked—either by a veto threat or an outright veto—every UN Security Council resolution which has included criticisms of Israeli actions in Jerusalem in its operational clause.
It was under the Clinton administration when the United States began to informally recognize occupied East Jerusalem as part of Israel and blocking UN Security Council resolutions that confirmed greater East Jerusalem as occupied territory.

Meanwhile, an “Atrocity Alert” issued by the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protec, said Israel has controlled East Jerusalem since the 1967 war, but Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from transferring parts of its civilian population into occupied territory.

JahaanPittalwala, Research Analyst at the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, said that, “forced evictions of Palestinian families from East Jerusalem are rooted in the Israeli government’s apartheid policies. The illegal transfer of Israeli settlers into occupied territory may amount to a war crime.”

With tensions already high in Jerusalem, last Friday, 7 May, Israeli security forces stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound as tens of thousands of worshippers finished their prayers during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Israeli authorities fired rubber bullets and stun grenades at Palestinian protesters who were throwing rocks.The situation escalated further when Israeli forces carried out another raid on the Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of the holiest sites in Islam. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 1,000 Palestinians were wounded between 7-10 May. At least 17 Israeli police were also injured.

On 11 May two UN Special Rapporteurs issued a joint statement asserting that, “the recent scenes of Israeli police and security forces attacking large crowds of Palestinian residents and worshipers is only intensifying a deeply inflammatory atmosphere in the City. A militarized response to civilian protests against discriminatory practices only deepens social divisions.”

(ThalifDeen is the author of a newly-released book on the United Nations titled “No Comment – and Don’t Quote Me on That.” Published by Amazon, the book is mostly a satire peppered with scores of anecdotes– from the sublime to the hilarious. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/)

World Military Spending Rises to a Hefty $2.0 Trillion Despite UN Pleas for Cutbacks

April 28, 2021 Thalif DeenBusiness, Economy, Global 0

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 26 2021 (IPS) – The United Nations– which is desperately seeking funds to help developing nations battling a staggering array of socio-economic problems, including extreme poverty, hunger, economic inequalities and environmental hazards– has continued to be one of the strongest advocates of disarmament.

The world body has relentlessly campaigned for reduced military spending in an attempt to help divert some of these resources into sustainable development and humanitarian assistance.

But according to a new report released April 26 by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), world military expenditure rose to nearly $2 trillion in 2020, an increase of 2.6 percent, in real terms, from 2019.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which brought the world to a virtual standstill for the last 14 months, apparently has had no impact on military spending.

Ironically, four of the five biggest spenders were permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC), namely the US, China, Russia and UK. The fifth biggest spender was India, currently a non-permanent member of the UNSC.

Military spending by China, which is currently in a new Cold War with the US, grew for the 26th consecutive year.

The latest figures of rising arms expenditures by some of the big powers makes a mockery of the UN’s longstanding pleas for cutbacks and diversion of funds from the military into sustainable development.

William D. Hartung, Director, Arms and Security Program at the Washington-based Center for International Policy told IPS: “At a time when a global pandemic, climate change, and racial and economic injustice pose the greatest risks to human lives and livelihoods, the increase in global military expenditures in 2020 marks a dismal failure by policymakers across the world to address the most urgent challenges we face”.

He argued that even a fraction of. the nearly $2 trillion spent on the military last year could have gone a long way towards sustainable investments in public health, environmental protection, and combating inequality. “World leaders can and must do better,” said Hartung.

The UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) points out that over the past century, governments have sought ways to reach a global agreement on reductions in military expenditures. Various proposals were discussed in the League of Nations, and later in the UN. Early proposals in the UN focused on reducing the expenditures of States with large militaries, and on freeing up funds for development aid.

“But proposals for cutting military spending did not materialize,” says UNODA. However, they led to the development of the UN Standardized Instrument for Reporting Military Expenditures in 1981—later renamed United Nations Report on Military Expenditures (MilEx)—under which countries are encouraged to report on their military expenditures.

Dr. Natalie J. Goldring, a Senior Fellow and Adjunct Full Professor with the Security Studies Program in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, told IPS “the latest military spending data from SIPRI are difficult to reconcile with the reality of the world we live in today”.

In a year in which the global community was dealing with the horrors of the Covid-19 pandemic, SIPRI’s data show that military spending continued unabated. Military spending increased in nine of the 10 countries with the highest military expenditures, she pointed out.

Even though the global economy as measured by global gross domestic product (GDP) decreased by 4.4 percent, she said, global military spending increased 2.6 percent over the year. Global military spending is going in exactly the wrong direction.

“Unfortunately, the United States continues to lead the world in military spending, accounting for 39 percent of the global total,” said Dr Goldring, who is Visiting Professor of the Practice in Duke University’s Washington DC program and also represents the Acronym Institute at the United Nations on conventional weapons and arms trade issues.

According to SIPRI’s data, that’s more than the rest of the top 10 military spenders combined. And It’s more than twice the total of the countries which are most commonly perceived by US policymakers as its main military competitors, Russia and China, she added.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir, professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, told IPS it is indeed ironic that four of the five permanent members of the UNSC are the largest military spenders.

“The more ironic problem is the fact that all of these countries spend a small fraction of these amounts on social programs, which explains to a great extent the growing poverty in all of these countries”. Needless to say, he noted, the key to reducing military budgets is directly connected to the level of tension between the various countries.

“I do not expect any serious discussion about world disarmament unless many of the consuming conflicts are resolved, and in particular the growing, rather than diminishing, tension between the United States, Russia, and China,” Dr Ben-Meir declared.

‘The recent increases in US military spending can be primarily attributed to heavy investment in research and development, and several long-term projects such as modernizing the US nuclear arsenal and large-scale arms procurement,’ said Alexandra Marksteiner, a researcher with SIPRI’s Arms and Military Expenditure Programme.

Meanwhile, China’s military expenditure, the second highest in the world, is estimated to have totalled $252 billion in 2020. This represents an increase of 1.9 per cent over 2019 and 76 per cent over the decade 2011–20. China’s spending has risen for 26 consecutive years, the longest series of uninterrupted increases by any country in the SIPRI Military Expenditure Database.

In an open letter to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last September, the Berlin-based International Peace Bureau called for world disarmament and the reduction of global military spending. “We write to you on behalf of the International Peace Bureau and more than 11.000 signatories to express our support for your call for a global ceasefire. We would also like to emphasize the need for (nuclear) disarmament and the reallocation of money from the military to healthcare, social, and environmental needs – to the fulfilment of the Social Development Goals.”

This pandemic has also made clear that states need to re-prioritize their spending. While many of the problems raised by the pandemic could have been at least partially solved, it was the lack of funding which hindered it, the letter declared.

Last month, the United Nations was hoping to raise soma $3.85bn from more than 100 governments and donors at a virtual pledging conference. The funds were meant to avert widespread famine in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in Yemen,

But the total pledges amounted to only $1.7bn – less than half – in what the UN secretary general described as a “disappointing outcome”. “Millions of Yemeni children, women and men desperately need aid to live. Cutting aid is a death sentence,” António Guterres said in a statement.

In its latest study, SIPRI said even though military spending rose globally, some countries explicitly reallocated part of their planned military spending to pandemic response, such as Chile and South Korea. Several others, including Brazil and Russia, spent considerably less than their initial military budgets for 2020.

‘We can say with some certainty that the pandemic did not have a significant impact on global military spending in 2020,’ said Dr Diego Lopes da Silva, Researcher with the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure Programme. ‘It remains to be seen whether countries will maintain this level of military spending through a second year of the pandemic.’

Dr. Goldring pointed out that in 2020, approximately 1.8 million people around the world died of covid. SIPRI’s military spending figures suggest that the countries with the highest military expenditures decided that business as usual was the correct direction to follow, despite the covid pandemic.

“This is a time for reevaluating priorities. Countries should be giving priority to the health and welfare of their people, rather than continuing to fund the military-industrial complex. Cutting military spending would free funds for human needs and sustainable development.”

“The UN has suggested diverting funds from military expenditures to fund sustainable development. But in reality, this isn’t a question of diverting funds – it’s devoting them to what they should have been allocated to in the first place.”

“In the early days of his Administration, President Biden has not shown an inclination to reverse the United States’ excessive military spending patterns. He is proceeding with expensive new nuclear weapons and continuing to propose bloated military budgets.

There’s still time to reevaluate this approach, restructure US military spending, and focus on human needs. Cutting the military budget would also free US financial resources to help deal with the urgent global problems of the covid pandemic and the climate crisis.”

“More than a decade ago, then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, “The world is over armed, and peace is underfunded.” Unfortunately, this statement continues to be true.”

(Thalif Deen is the author of the newly-released book on the United Nations titled “No Comment – and Don’t Quote Me on That.” The 220-page book is peppered with scores of anecdotes– from the serious to the hilarious– and is available on Amazon worldwide and at the Vijitha Yapa bookshop in Sri Lanka. The links follow: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/ https://www.vijithayapa.com/)

UN’s Most Powerful Political Body Remains Paralyzed Battling a New Cold War

April 20, 2021April 20, 2021 Thalif DeenEditorial/Opinion, Global 0

UNITED NATIONS: (IPS) – A new Cold War – this time, between the US and China —is threatening to paralyze the UN’s most powerful body, even as military conflicts and civil wars are sweeping across the world, mostly in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

The growing criticism against the Security Council is directed largely at its collective failures to resolve ongoing conflicts and political crises in several hot spots, including Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, Ukraine and Libya — and its longstanding failure over Palestine.

The sharp divisions between China and Russia, on one side, and the Western powers on the other, are expected to continue, triggering the question: Has the Security Council outlived its usefulness or has it lost its political credibility?

The five big powers are increasingly throwing their protective arms around their allies, despite growing charges of war crimes, genocide and human rights violations against these countries.

Last week, Yasmine Ahmed, UK Director at Human Rights Watch, called on Britain “to step up as penholder on Myanmar and start negotiating a Security Council draft resolution on an arms embargo and targeted sanctions against the military”.

Over 580 people, including children, have been killed since the February 1 coup: “it is time for the Security Council to do more than issue statements and begin working towards substantive action,“ she warned.

But in most of these conflicts, including Myanmar, arms embargoes are very unlikely because the major arms suppliers to the warring parties are the five permanent members of the Security Council, namely the US, UK, France, Russia and China.

US President Joe Biden has described the growing new confrontation as a battle between democracies and autocracies.

In a recent analytical piece, the New York Times said China’s most striking alignment is with Russia, with both countries drawing closer after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. The two countries have also announced they will jointly build a research station on the moon, setting the stage to compete with US space programs.

“The threat of a US-led coalition challenging China’s authoritarian policies has only bolstered Beijing’s ambition to be a global leader of nations that oppose Washington and its allies,” the Times said.

Ian Williams, President of the New York-based Foreign Press Association and author of ‘UNtold: The Real Story of the United Nations in Peace and War’, told IPS that in the early years, with a secure majority in the General Assembly (GA), the US could pretend virtue and eschew using the veto. The embattled Soviets resorted it over and over.

“But as with so much UN and international law, the Israeli exception had the US making up for lost time. Now the Russians have been catching up with vetoes for Serbia and Syria”.

China, he pointed out, avoided using the veto unless Taiwan or Tibet was mentioned. In the old days there was a hint of an ideological element — Third World and Socialism versus Imperialism.

“But now it is entirely transactional, veto holders looking after their clients and allies, so no one should entertain illusions about China and Russia acting in a progressive and constructive way. But the US is no position to point fingers about Syria while it protects Saudi Arabia and Israel”.

“We can hope that the majority of members will grow indignant enough to try to effect indignation. But sadly, historical experience suggests many governments have almost unlimited tolerance for mass murder in far-away countries of which they know little,” he noted, including Darfur, the Balkans, Rwanda and now Myanmar.

The breakthrough would be the US saying, end the Occupation and then inviting others to join in a reaffirmation of the Charter.

“But since I don’t really believe in the tooth fairy, I would have to settle for a coalition of the conscious-stricken in the GA united for peace – and international law and order”, said Williams, a senior analyst who has written for newspapers and magazines around the world, including the Australian, The Independent, New York Observer, The Financial Times and The Guardian.

Asked about the killings in Myanmar, and the lack of action in the UNSC, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters on March 29: “We need more unity in international community. We need more commitment in the international community to put pressure in order to make sure that the situation is reversed. I’m very worried. I see, with a lot of concern, the fact that, apparently, many of these trends look irreversible, but hope is the last thing we can give up on.”

Vijay Prashad, Executive Director, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, who has written extensively on international politics, told IPS the United Nations is an essential institution, a process, in many ways, rather than a fully-finished institution.

The agencies of the UN – including WHO, UNICEF, UNHCR, he said, provide vital service to the world’s peoples; “and we need to make these institutions more robust, and we need to ensure that they drive a public agenda that advances the UN Charter’s main goals (namely to maintain peace, to end hunger and illiteracy, to provide the basis for a rich life, in sum).”

The Security Council is a victim of the political battles in the world, he argued. “There is no way to build a better framework to handle the major power differentials”., said Prashad, author of 30 books, including most recently ‘Washington Bullets’ (justifyWord, Monthly Review),

“It would be far better to empower the UN General Assembly, which is more democratic, but since the 1970s we have seen how the US – in particular – undermined the UNGA to take decision making almost exclusively to the UNSC”.

Ever since the fall of the USSR, he said, the UN Secretary-General has become subservient to the US government (“we saw this shockingly with the treatment of former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali”). The new ‘Group of Friends to Defend the UN Charter’, which includes China and Russia, is a positive development, said Prashad.

US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters on March 31: “And then in terms of working with my counterparts in the Security Council, I know that there are areas – and this is a discussion that I’ve had – with both my Russian and Chinese colleagues – we know that there are red lines”.

“There are areas where we have serious concerns, and we’ve been open and we’ve been frank about those concerns. In China, what is happening with the Uyghurs, for example. With Russia, in Syria, and there are many others. We know what the red lines are”, she added.

“We tried to bridge those gaps, but we also try to find those areas where we have common ground. We’ve been able to find common ground on Burma (Myanmar). With the Chinese, we’re working on climate change in, I think, a very positive way. We’re not in the exact same place, but it’s an area where we can have conversations with each other.”

“So as the top U.S. diplomat in New York, it is my responsibility to find common ground so that we can achieve common goals, but not to give either country a pass when they are breaking human rights values or pushing in directions that we find unacceptable,” she declared.

Meanwhile, harking back to a bygone era, during the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1960s, the United Nations was the ideological battle ground where the Americans and the Soviets pummeled each other– either on the floor of the General Assembly hall or at the horse-shoe table of the UN Security Council.

Perhaps one of the most memorable war of words took place in October 1962 when the politically-feisty US Ambassador Adlai Stevenson (1961-65), a two-time Democratic US presidential candidate, challenged Soviet envoy Valerian Zorin over allegations that the USSR, perhaps under cover of darkness, had moved nuclear missiles into Cuba—and within annihilating distance of the United States.

Speaking at a tense Security Council meeting, Stevenson admonished Zorin: “I remind you that you didn’t deny the existence of these weapons. Instead, we heard that they had suddenly become defensive weapons. But today — again, if I heard you correctly — you now say they don’t exist, or that we haven’t proved they exist, with another fine flood of rhetorical scorn.”

“All right sir”, said Stevenson, “let me ask you one simple question. Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the USSR has placed and is placing medium and intermediate range missiles and sites in Cuba?” “Yes or No? Don’t wait for the translation: Yes or No?”, Stevenson insisted with a tone of implied arrogance.

Speaking in Russian through a UN translator (who faithfully translated the US envoy’s sentiments into English), Zorin shot back: “I am not in an American courtroom, sir, and therefore I do not wish to answer a question that is put to me in the fashion in which a prosecutor does. In due course, sir, you will have your reply. Do not worry.”

Not to be outwitted, Stevenson howled back: “You are in the court of world opinion right now, and you can answer yes or no. You have denied that they exist. I want to know if …I’ve understood you correctly.”

When Zorin said he will provide the answer in “due course”, Stevenson famously declared: “I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over.”

*Thalif Deen is the author of a newly-released book on the United Nations titled “No Comment – and Don’t Quote Me on That.” The 220-page book is filled with scores of anecdotes– from the serious to the hilarious– and is available on Amazon worldwide and at the Vijitha Yapa bookshop in Sri Lanka. The links follow:

Author: Thalif Deen