Revamp the UN
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.