UN needs to take new initiative

By Agus Tarmidzi and Imron Cotan

JAKARTA (JP): When the Cold War era closed its final chapter, many enthusiastically predicted that the world would then be pacified and, hence, conflicts would also become a thing of the past.

History has accurately recorded the fact that the international community has been successful in avoiding a head-on collision between the superpowers. We, however, failed to contain the emergence of the new types of conflicts originating inter alia from racial hatred, religious discord and ethnic animosity. Some have occurred within internationally recognized boundaries of a sovereign state, while others have crossed national boundaries.

These conflicts have caused the loss of life of many innocent people and incalculable material damages. Worse still, while wasting the already infinite natural resources, these conflicts also provided grounds for irresponsible elements to flagrantly violate the human rights upon which the fundamental fabric of society is based.

At the global level, many attempts have been taken to prevent such tragedies from continuously unfolding. Boutros-Boutros Ghali, the former United Nations secretary-general, introduced "An Agenda for Peace" as a road map to preserve and promote international peace and security. The agenda contained the concept of "peacekeeping, peacemaking and peace-building", which required the settlement of any conflicts by using peaceful means in accordance with the principles contained in the UN Charter.

The objectives were indeed noble. Unfortunately, the initiative went unheeded, for members of this global organization differed on how to implement the concept. The expensively prohibitive costs incurred by such peacekeeping, peacemaking and peace-building activities had sent the concept to its final rest.

As we witness the conflicts continue unabated. It is for this particular reason that UN secretary-general Kofi Annan recently introduced a new concept of "humanitarian intervention". It envisages that the international community, the UN in particular, should be able to intervene in any conflicts around the world to save the lives of innocent people, to protect human rights as well as to put off and find solutions to the prevailing conflicts.

Developing countries have cautiously studied this initiative, for they would obviously be at the receiving end of such humanitarian intervention for at least the following reasons: first, conflicts normally occur in the developing countries, second, humanitarian intervention cannot successfully be performed without military backups, and, third, humanitarian intervention can only be performed against the developing countries.

This is because developed countries -- especially those permanent members of the UN Security Council -- will block any decisions to conduct such an operation in their own backyards. There is no doubt that Russia, for instance, will veto any decision of the UN Security Council to conduct a humanitarian intervention in Chechnya or in the Ingushtia Republics.

Another issue of similar importance over which the world has so far failed to properly address is nuclear disarmament. We have recently been confronted with an unprecedented phenomenon in which two archrivals in the South Asian region, Pakistan and India, finally posited themselves as the new nuclear-weapon states.

While adding a new dimension to the regional political interactions, this mere fact has furthermore cast doubts over the achievement of nuclear disarmament under strict and effective international control, as required by the 3rd UN Special Session Specially Devoted to Nuclear Disarmament (1978), and the objectives and principles agreed upon in the Conference of Non- Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (1995).

The situation becomes more alarming for the two major nuclear weapon states, the United States and Russia, have continued to develop their nuclear technology. The world was stunned when the media reported that the United States had managed to produce a prototype of a mini-nuclear warhead (W-88) which could be used to achieve a limited military target. The three major nuclear weapon states, especially China, will certainly use this discouraging development as a pretext to develop their own "mini-nukes". A new nuclear arms race now looms large, making it almost impossible to achieve nuclear disarmament.

The efforts of the United States to review the Anti-Ballistic Missiles Treaty (ABM Treaty) and the failure of this country to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) have furthermore aggravated the situation. As a sign of relentlessness, Russia has recently conducted a missile test capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads. If the international community fails to check these worrisome developments, the reemergence of a new round of Cold War will be unavoidable.

In short, as the new millennium inches nearer, the world is still being confronted with conflicts with ethnic, racial, religious and human rights notions and, second, a nuclear arms race which may trigger a new Cold War. It is therefore timely for the UN to ponder organizing a "millennium summit" to deal with all the remaining issues of the 20th century in which all countries could, on an equal footing, participate in charting the future of our planet. The summit's agenda should be overarching, covering social, economic, environmental, and political issues including the two most pressing issues identified earlier.

If the UN manages to organize the summit, we may hope the world would be a safer place to live in the next millennium.

Agus Tarmidzi is former Indonesian ambassador/permanent Representative to the UN Office in Vienna and Geneva Switzerland respectively. Imron Cotan is currently the deputy assistant state secretary for political affairs.