People's Democracy

 THINKING TOGETHER

Recent developments in the world have shown that the biggest world body, United Nations has merely become a talking shop as the member countries had to remain helpless and idle spectators when US-UK imperialist combine had the audacity to attack Iraq in a most brutal and cruel manner ignoring international consensus and massive protests world over. Is there any future for this world body? What can be its fate?

 ARK, Coimbatore

IT is true that US imperialism in recent years has been either hijacking the United Nations or ignoring it when necessary in pursuit of its plans for global hegemony. But this in no way should make us ask for the dismantling of the United Nations; Instead efforts must be made to make it more effective.

The only way to make the United Nations more effective is by democratising it. The first step in this direction must be the abolition of the power of veto of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. We are seeing repeatedly how the United States is bypassing the universal opinion of all member countries by exercising the veto in pursuit of its interests. It has done so recently when the general assembly condemned Israeli actions against Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. The US exercised its veto in favour of Israel preventing the Security Council from taking any action. Likewise, for over a decade every year the General Assembly votes overwhelmingly for the withdrawal of the criminal US blockade of Cuba. This year, the United States received four votes in favour of the blockade including those of itself and Israel. The other two were small island countries named Micronesia and Marshall Islands!

Such an anomalous position can be changed to prevent imperialism led by USA from refusing to implement overwhelming world opinion only by changing the structure of the United Nations and making the General Assembly decisions obligatory on all countries. At the present moment the General Assembly is indeed a talking platform where world leaders express opinions but as a body it has no teeth. The Security Council is the decision making body of the United Nations.

We shall therefore have to work for such democratisation of the UN by empowering the General Assembly instead of the Security Council and removing the right of veto from the five permanent members.