MUSLIMS UNDER SIEGE
The United Nations: After 75 Years of Existence, is it Worth Anything? Measured by the yardsticks of international peace, human rights and self-determination, the UN has been incredibly ineffective BY GHULAM NABI FAI
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ast September, H.E. Volkan Bozkir, president of the UN General Assembly, commemorated the organization’s 75th anniversary under the theme of proclaiming, “The future we want, the United Nations we need; reaffirming our collective commitment to multilateralism.”
Bozkir further added, “I intend to place an emphasis on the need to advance the UN collective agenda for humanity with particular attention to vulnerable groups, people in need and the people under oppression.” UN Secretary-General António Guterres stressed, “And it’s very important that we now create the conditions to address the smaller but still dramatically deadly conflicts that we are facing in today’s world.” Success is measured not only by the objectives achieved but also by whether an alternate strategy would have been an improvement. Considering the dismal situation today, it might be said that the UN is the worst international organization for achieving peace, self-determination and human rights — except for all the alternatives that have been attempted or contemplated. Success is also measured by the goals achieved. The UN Charter’s Article I identifies a cluster of primary purposes: the maintenance of international peace and security, collective efforts to prevent and remove threats to peace and to suppress acts of aggression, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations that might lead to a breach of international peace and security, the cultivation of 60 ISLAMIC HORIZONS JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021
amity among nations based on the principles of equal rights and self-determination of peoples and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion. Before surveying its historical record, consider a few earthbound observations. Candor and fair-mindedness relate that measured by the yardsticks of international peace, human rights and self-determination, the UN has been painfully ineffective. The most gifted men and women have toiled since time began to end conflict and warfare, but without much visible success. Look at the world as it comes before you day after day. Conflict and carnage seem ubiquitous: Palestine, Kashmir, Syria, Xinjiang, Myanmar, Afghanistan and Iraq ... the list seems horrifyingly endless. The UN has no excuse for its failure to pluck universal peace from the profoundly flawed human species. Counted among the UN’s greatest failures is the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica. Only 10 miles from the Serbian border, the Serbs attacked it in July 1995 during the Bosnian war. And yet despite already knowing the Serb plan not only to attack but also to separate Bosnian men and boys from women and children and then kill them, U.S. and British officials did nothing to prevent the massacre, UN forces were not reinforced and there was no evacuation plan. Despite being guaranteed as a “safe zone” by the UN, the official policy was to allow the Serbs to take the town they had besieged, as it was indefensible. More than 8,000 men and boys were slaughtered in a matter of days. In 1994, a far worse genocide occurred in Rwanda when Hutus slaughtered about a million Tutsis. Despite its foreknowledge, the UN allowed this genocide to
