Revamp the UN

In her speech in front of the 58th United Nations General Assembly in New York last Tuesday, President Megawati Soekarnoputri rightly raised two issues of great significance to the current conflict-ridden global community, as well as to Indonesia in its fragile transition toward democracy.

The first issue the President raised, concerned the principle of multilateralism. As UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has pointed out, the UN has "come to a fork in the road." In the last 10 months at least, there has been a growing concern in countries around the globe as to the effectiveness of the UN in combating terrorism, genocide and the spread of nuclear weapons.

During that period, the world has helplessly and painfully watched the dissolution of the Security Council consensus on confronting Iraq, the slow response to massacres in the eastern Congo and Liberia, and the Aug. 19 bombing attack on the Baghdad headquarters of the UN that killed 22 people, including the world body's chief representative, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

Instead of empowering the legitimate multilateralism of the world organization on which world peace and stability have rested for the last six decades, the United States of America -- which engineered and supervised the birth of the UN at the end of World War II -- has chosen a unilateral path in handling perceived threats to peace.

Kofi Annan rightly accused the U.S. of endangering world peace with its policy of pre-emptive force. That policy represents a fundamental challenge to the principles of the UN. Moreover, as President Megawati emphasized, the Iraq war has created far more problems than those it intended to solve.

Indeed, the UN is in need of fundamental reform. Fundamental weaknesses in the architecture of the institution must be remedied if the global community wishes it to retain its effectiveness. Its members should embark immediately on the tough political work of revamping the institution, beginning with the most crucial part, that is, the overhaul of the Security Council.

This is not a question of either expanding it or making it smaller. Rather, the fact is, that the status of the five permanent members of the Security Council is the obsolete heritage of the post-World War II era. It no longer reflects the current balance of world powerhouses and as such erodes its own legitimacy and authority.

President Megawati, as the leader of the world's most populous Muslim nation, appropriately chose another relevant issue in her speech: international terrorism. She correctly aired the grievances expressed by many other Muslim countries, that they are suffering from a bad image because they are perceived to be "hotbeds" of terrorism.

During the last few years, Indonesia has painfully borne the brunt of a chain of terrorist bombing attacks on religious buildings and public places, including the horrendous bombing attacks in Bali on Oct. 12 of last year and the JW Marriott Hotel early last month. President Megawati noted that the Indonesian police had arrested dozens of people allegedly involved in the two incidents and that two perpetrators of the Bali bombing have been sentenced to death. Major Muslim organizations in Indonesia have condemned the terrorist attacks.

The outside world -- especially the United States, Australia and other western countries -- however, have failed to appreciate and adequately support the seriousness of Indonesian efforts to combat terrorism. Instead, what the country gets is bashing, castigating and the label of "hotbed of terrorism". Indonesia finds it very difficult to convince the world that it has become the "victim" of terrorist attacks.

To make things worse, the world's "Western" leaders tend to overlook the root issue behind the terrorist attacks. President Megawati was right to stress that the "unfair and one-sided" handling of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the weapons of mass destruction issue, that triggered the recent Iraq war, have provided fertile ground for violence.

The global war against terrorism will not achieve its goal as long as it does not attack the root issue behind it. That is, the unfair treatment of Muslim countries in many international conflicts. The injustice and unfairness have been too glaring for the world to ignore. To quote James Wolfensohn in his opening speech at the World Bank annual meeting in Dubai earlier this week: "The whole planet is not balanced. Too few control too much, and too many have too little to hope for."

The global war against terrorism cannot be separated from the global war against injustice and unfairness. That should be the underlying theme in revamping the UN.