We don’t want the United Nations’ Organization (abbreviated UN or UNO) to become another League of Nations. We don’t want it to fail in it’s objectives. Because we know, without the UN, the world is certainly going to face a nuclear war.
The UN was established on October 24, 1945. As the world celebrates the establishment of this world organization, I present my views on the UN based on my recent observations. First, my comment on my friend Roshan Bhandari’s post on Write, Share and Discuss:
The UN had big challenges when it was established. Its charter promises a war-free world. But wars have not come to an end. The UN failed to stop the Kuwait-Iraq war, the American attacks on Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. The Israel-Palestine conflict never seems to resolve under the UN. The underdeveloped countries are still suffering. The organizations under the UN such as FAO, UNDP are affected by corruption. You heard the case of rotten cereals and pulses distributed in the remote areas of Nepal and also during the earthquake last year, didn’t you?
The UN looks like a puppet organization to me. Well, it’s almost true that the veto-nations rule it. Especially, the US, Russia and China. If avoiding conflict with Syria didn’t serve Russia a purpose, the nation would have been churned and the UN would not have said anything. The Americans and Europeans have already marched to fight “Islam” in the name of fighting the terrorism, though, and the UN cannot overrule it. The UN is in a state of coma. It does not seem to come out of it anytime sooner.
Criticisms of the UN
I had not thought about my views until last month. I wanted to know if other people also thought that the UN has problems. I googled “Has the UN failed?” and discovered several articles on the internet that represent my thoughts above. There is a
Wikipedia article on the criticisms of the UN,
infographics that show the failures the organization has met and several other articles related to its problems.
I don’t understand most of the things the Wikipedia article says but I think the biggest problems in the effectiveness of the UN are the five permanent member nations of the Security Council. These five nations- the USA, the UK, France, Russia and China have veto power by the use of which they can force the SC to make certain decisions. Veto must have been suggested as a way to stop wars but it is not effective. The USA and the USSR (now Russia) have used the power indiscriminately to overrule policies that are against their interests. No permanent nation, like I’ve said above, is going to use veto or stop war if they don’t have their own interests. The USA, the UK and France are also the members of
NATO. As the UN cannot stop military activities of the NATO, these nations can participate in war through the latter thus making the decisions of the former useless.
Another problem with the permanent members is that
they are top fives among the major arms exporting countries. There is no use of arms in the absence of war. If these arms exporting nations have continued to supply arms and gaining profit, it means wars are continuously going on around the world. The UN seems to check these wars. An even more frightening scenario is the one in which the arms producing and exporting countries are backing up wars in various parts of the globe. If wars help them improve their economy, why wouldn’t they do so?
The another big problem is bureaucracy. Anthony Banbury says in an article on the New York Times:
The world faces a range of terrifying crises, from the threat of climate change to terrorist breeding grounds in places like Syria, Iraq and Somalia. The United Nations is uniquely placed to meet these challenges, and it is doing invaluable work, like protecting civilians and delivering humanitarian aid in South Sudan and elsewhere. But in terms of its overall mission, thanks to colossal mismanagement, the United Nations is failing.
The article says that the UN bureaucracy is slow. As a result, immediate response to a particular situation is difficult. Banbury also criticizes the role of peace-keeping forces in countries like, Haiti, Sudan and Mali. Peace-keeping forces have not been able to bring peace in these countries. If they have, it’s been temporary. And in some countries such as Haiti, where there is not much need for the peace force, they are still there.
Nepal and the UN
In Nepal, the UN and its different agencies have been working in providing basic needs of food, shelter, health services, and in activities related to human rights. United Nations’ Mission In Nepal (UNMIN) helped in the peace-process of Nepal. The WHO, UNFPA and UNICEF have helped in health sector, the WFP is working to provide food in the rural areas, the UNDP on development works, and so on.
Last year,
the WFP got into a controversy*. Most Nepalese media and parliamentarians criticized the distribution of rotten food products in the earthquake affected areas. Such claims had also been heard earlier. We don’t know if the WFP is actually providing anything bad, but if such things come up regularly, we’ll be inclined to think that something is wrong. It also questions the effectiveness of the UN agencies.
What we Want
We want the UN to work democratically, and don’t want some nations decide the future of the world. We want the members, especially the permanent members of the Security Council UN to support peace and humanity, not wars. We want all the nations to work together selflessly. We want the developed nations to invest in uplifting the economic status of the poverty-stricken people over the globe, not just on nuclear weapon research and space travel. We want the UN to take these initiatives to bring eternal peace and happiness.
* The title of the article in this link might be misleading.
