Daily Times

After having seen the U.N’s role in resolving Kashmir dispute and restraining Israel from its atrocities of the Palestinians, it has become seriously debatable if one can do away with the present charter of the U.N altogether and replace it with a more effective and powerful organ where vote of majority of the nations should not be brushed aside or vetoed by one of its stronger members. That is where the rule of might is right may be eschewed to prevent sheer injustice and loss of lives.

The United Nations has completed more than 70 of its existence, but the Kashmir dispute being the oldest and most serious of all is still lying unresolved on its agenda since 1948. The dilatory mechanism of the world body led one of the parties to the dispute to audaciously take a complete somersault over its avowed stand and taking a 90 degree U-turn revoked the autonomous status of Kashmir merging it in its federal territory.

This brazenfaced act of India was done in the full glare of the U.N and in flagrant violation of its earlier stand which India’s Founder and its first P.M. Pandit Nehru and all its great leaders had been taking at U.N’s platform during the last 70 years to the effect that (1) Kashmir is a disputed territory, and (2) that issues involved needed to be resolved through bilateral dialogue. The present Indian Prime Minister Narender Modi had the nerves to call the Founder of India and all other leaders as ‘Fools’ in this perspective without fear of exposing her past stand as preposterous, or her present action as villainous. We must understand that neither the U.N nor the conscience of the powers that be can make India accountable for taking this volte face against its declared and committed stand. Neither the United Nation is strong enough to do that, as the forces creating it had never meant it to act under any high moral grounds, but it was meant to act under the compulsions of the Great Power game now and always led by the United States. Kashmir case, as for India and U.N are concerned, is over and dead, and if we are wise enough, we must not bother the U.N anymore in this matter. A matter which was allowed to putrefy for over 70 years on its table cannot be expected to be ever resolved in future.

The most we can do is to make the world become aware of the tribulations and torture being faced by the hapless Kashmiris which must be immediately stopped, if at all there is a body working under the U.N to prevent human rights violations. As for the enforcement of our perennial rights in Kashmir are concerned, the use of force is the only option left to us, which we must not, at any cost, exercise it because that would not only mean mutual destruction of both the countries, but it would seriously imperil the peace of the entire world.

Since the second half of the 20th century, there have been countless wars, some of them still ongoing, all under the watch of the United Nations. However, the UN has failed several times across the world mostly because of the right to veto at the disposal of five countries

We have to refurbish our image as a peace loving nation against all odds. We must also firmly stop the non-state actors from disturbing the regional peace. Our past experience has amply demonstrated that the non-state actors have always caused more harm than any good to our image in the comity of nations. Nor we have gained anything out of their activities. The use of force between two nuclear nations is mutually destructive, and therefore must always be avoided.

In the case of Kashmir, the U.N has miserably failed to resolve the dispute, or to maintain peace in the troubled region. Now let us see if this world body has effectively brought peace in other regions of the world.

In the case of Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians, the entire world’s independent press has leveled some of the most damning indictments of the UN’s ineffectiveness. Ever since the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, Palestinians have been fighting against what a UN investigator once described as Israel’s ethnic cleansing.

At least 15,000 Palestinians were killed and some 750,000 out of a total population of 1.9 million were forced to take refuge far from their homelands between 1947 and 1949. More than 7,000 Palestinians and 1,100 Israelis have died in the conflict between 2000 and 2014.

Today Israel controls 85 percent of historic Palestine. It also imposes a crippling blockade on Gaza and continues its construction of illegal settlements on occupied lands in defiance of several UN resolutions calling for an end to those activities.

The United States has invariably used its veto power to counter UN Security Council resolutions that have condemned Israel’s use of force against Palestinian civilians. Thus the U.N has also failed to prevent genocide in Gaza and exodus of Palestinians from their homeland.

The United Nations is maintaining a peacekeeping force of nearly a million men, who are used as its peacekeeping force whenever need arises. Presently it has been deployed to many of the world’s trouble spots like Papua New Guinea to Haiti, with varying levels of effectiveness.

A survey report reveals that the UN peacekeeping missions routinely avoid using force to protect civilians who are under attack, intervening in only 20 per cent of cases despite being authorized to do so by the UN Security Council.

While some peacekeeping missions perform adequately, others have failed to protect civilians – notably at Srebrenica, where Dutch peacekeepers watched on powerless as thousands of men were murdered.

On July 11, 1995, towards the end of Bosnia’s 1992-95 war, Bosnian Serb forces swept into the eastern Srebrenica enclave and executed 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the days that followed, dumping their bodies into pits. It was the worst massacre in post-Second World War European history. The UN had previously declared the town one of the safe areas, to be “free from any armed attack or any other hostile act”.

As Serb forces began shelling Srebrenica, Bosnian Muslim fighters in the town asked for the return of weapons they had surrendered to the UN peacekeepers but their request was refused. The Dutch peacekeepers were obliged to watch as the large scale killings continued.

Another major failing of the UN peacekeeping was not doing enough to prevent the 1994 Rwandan genocide that left up to one million people dead. In 1999 an inquiry found that the UN ignored evidence that the genocide was planned and refused to act once it had started. More than 2,500 UN peacekeepers were withdrawn without cogent cause which led to the massacre of thousands of people.

Kofi Annan, who was then head of UN peacekeeping forces was accused of failing to pass on warnings of the massacre. UN soldiers did not return to Rwanda until June, by which time hundreds of thousands of people were dead. The UN was accused of “leaving Rwanda to its fate”.

In Somalia, the UN operation was made for the first time for “humanitarian intervention”. However, the peacekeepers were met with a hostile resistance in Mogadishu and several American soldiers were killed. Frustrated by this resistance, the US withdrew its troops. In 1995 the UN withdrew all its forces admitting its defeat in peace making. The Secretary General also later described it as “the greatest failure of the UN in our lifetime”.

In Sierra Leone, the UN peacekeeping force operated from 1999 to 2005 and was hailed as a success. It was created to help implement a peace agreement after the country’s devastating civil war.

Burundi is also frequently cited as a success story for the UN peacekeeping operation, helping it recover from decades of ethnic war. Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, helped the country through elections, that took place peacefully later the same year.

Since the second half of the 20th century, there have been countless wars, some of them still ongoing, all under the watch of the United Nations. However, the UN has failed several times across the world mostly because of the right to veto at the disposal of five countries. In smaller regions where the big powers had no vital interests, the U.N’s peacekeeping proved helpful, but in more vital places where the big powers had vital interests, the bloodshed and injustices continued as usual, and the U.N remained ineffective. But despite its failures, it is the last hope of the suffering humanity.

The writer is a former member of the Provincial Civil Service, and an author of Moments in Silence