Of what use is the UN Security Council to the Republic of South Sudan?
8 min readBy Simon Yel Yel, Juba, South Sudan
April 5, 2016 (SSB) — At 34th UN General Assembly in 1979, former Cuban president Fidel Castro asked a question when he delivered his speech to the UN General Assembly with regard to the guiltiness of the imperialist organization, asking “ Of what use is the United Nations”?, he went further and add “ The exploitation of poor countries by rich countries must cease”. Therefore, now with the comeback of another cold war between the West and East over supremacy on the third world; the USA’s dangerous quest to build a global emperor and more noticeably the horrendous takeover of the United Nations by only five member states which called themselves “United Nations Security Council (UNSC)” deciding and taking decisions for all members (193) of the United Nations and subsequently the UN establishment of the “ oil–for–food program”; thus, the question is “Of what use is the UNSC?”
Since the failed coup attempt in South Sudan on 15th Dec 2013, the United States of America in the UNSC had numerously attempted to demonize and discredit the effort of the government of South Sudan to bring about peace. USA ambassador to the UN Mrs. Samantha Power proposed the targeted sanctions and discriminately lobbied the council to sanction top SPLA Generals, unsuccessfully tried to convince the council to adopt: economic sanctions regime, arm embargo and UN trusteeship on South Sudan. The United States of American at its own capacity as a country had also imperially issued the executive order of the National Emergency in April 2014 branding South Sudan as a threat to its National Security and foreign policy. This order was again extended for the second times on 1st April 2016 despite the fact that the parties to the conflict are committed to implementing the peace agreement and they have taken tremendous steps toward visible and meaningful implementation of the peace agreement.
Indeed these are indications that clearly show that some members of the UNSC have used the UN as an instrument to promote their imperialist agenda and to oust the leaders of independently-minded governments by means that don’t worship or adore the permanent member States of the UNSC especially the USA and UK.
The manipulation of the United Nations by the powerful (Western) countries for neocolonialism agenda goes back to its inception. Without any doubt, the United Nations was formed stringently to kick upstairs the global influence of the United States of America after the Second World War. This organization was meant to be used as a tool to control most former Western European and American colonies of the Third World.
The United Nations, which was got its name from the military coalition (called the United Nations) on 1st January 1942 of the allied 26 countries fighting against Germany and the Axis countries, was established on an agreement drafted by the UK and the USA during the Second World War. This agreement, the Atlantic Charter, was drafted while the USA was sitting on a fence but silently supplying the British with weapons through Canada. The USA didn’t stay long on neutral side but quickly use the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as gist for entering the war and later the formation of the United Nations at the San Francisco Conference in 1945.
In that conference, the USA, UK and France formed the UN Security Council and made their countries permanent members giving themselves veto power. Consequently, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) which is now the driving wheel (remote control) of the organization deciding the future for all members of the UN is undemocratic body given the fact that the so-called permanent members were not democratically elected by the UN Generally assembly. The absent of term limits for the so-called permanent members of the UNSC bits the logic of democracy. The elected 10 non-permanent members of the UNSC strictly serve for only two years while the so-called permanent members serve to the infinity. Arguably, China is the only democratically elected permanent member of the UN Security Council by the UN General Assembly in 1971.
According to the UN charter’s permeable, the organization was created “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war […] to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained […]” in Article 2 sub article 1, it says “ The organization is based on the principle of sovereign equality of all its members”
However, this appealing charter has been totally deformed by the so-called UNSC and the USA. As a matter of fact, some countries in the United Nations are now more equal than others; they are the ones deciding the destiny of the world, making sure that everything suits their interest using their veto power and military prowess and claim to be holding democracy and freedom so dearly above everyone on this planet. Late Mumar Gadaffi of Libya had once expressed his rejection of unfair treatment of some member states of the UN by West in his historical speech to the UN General Assembly in 2009; he said “The Preamble says that all nations, small or large, are equal. Are we equal when it comes to the permanent seats? No, we are not equal. Do we have the right of veto? Are we equal? The Preamble says that we have equal rights, whether we are large or small; that is what is stated and what we agreed in the Preamble. So the veto contradicts the Charter. The permanent seats contradict the Charter. We neither accept nor recognize the veto”.
Because of his anti-imperialist stance, he was brutally killed two years later by the three permanent members of the UNSC, the USA, UK and France. Indeed the West use UNSC to kill any arising dissent voice challenging their neocolonialism in the UN and would dictate every country to knee for them or bomb to extinction. There is no equal right of all nations now in the UN whether powerful or weak nation as stipulated in the charter. The existence of permanent members of the UNSC oppugns the practical sovereign equality of all the members of the UN.
The USA had been using the UNSC for decades as a mean to promote its interest, invading countries and expanding its evil empire on the pretext of human right abuses, despotism and etc. The UN Security Council has gone beyond function of protecting USA’s interest after the collapse of the Soviet Union but unashamedly went on imperially to project US interest globally; using force against the sovereign states, building coalitions based on principle “if you are not with us, you are against us” invading countries, destroying infrastructures, killing people and install their puppets to siphon the natural resources to the USA.
The Preamble of the UN Charter states that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest. That is the preamble of the UN and it supposed to be what the UNSC and the UN could operate under when it comes to the use of armed force but astonishingly, it turns otherwise. It says the armed forces shall only be used in the interest of all member states, but what happened since then? Sixty seven wars have broken out since the inception of the organization and de facto Security Council_____ with more deaths of civilians and destructions of states infrastructures. The question that lingers in everyone’s mind is; are those aggressions or armed forces that were used in 67 wars are in the common interest of all members of the United Nation? Definitely No, they were only in the interest of one or four member states but not in the interest of all members of the organization. From invasion of Yugoslavia to Somalia, Iraq to Afghanistan, Yemen to Libya, the armed forces used by the UNSC to invade these countries were only in the interest of the United States of America, France and the United Kingdom.
The USA, in their self-anointed role as “masters of world” trying to bring about the “new world order”, deluded by their own belief of exceptionalism continued to sell their aggressive wars to the people as “democracy operation” using the platform of the UNSC. Mendacity is indeed the hallmark of the United States of America to press on the UNSC to adopt either economics sanctions or arm embargo on the targeted countries on the account of human right violations or despotism. Sometimes the technical invasion (responsibility to protect) can be approved by the UNSC only in the interest of the UK and USA and it worked very well on the Libya in 2011.
In conclusion; it is crystal clear by any objective assessment that the takeover of the United Nations by only four countries in the UNSC to promote imperialist agenda and to build evil empire of destructions and deaths is the root cause of instability in the world today. USA has used its seat in the UNSC to instigate foreign regimes change for decades either by supporting the rebels with arms and logistics against the legitimate governments or by training them; and if it all failed it can aggressively and barefacedly invades sovereign countries, destroying states and kill millions of people. Now is a time for all member states of the United Nations especially African countries to stand up and end this cynical manipulation of the United Nation by the West. The UN has lost its independence and utility as force for peace because of this manipulation by the West. The so-called permanent membership of the UNSC must cease and all 15 members of the UNSC must be democratically elected by the UN General assembly with term limits.
Simon Yel Yel, is co-editor of the essential writings and speeches of the President Salva Kiir Mayardit, published as “Salva Kiir Mayardit: The Joshua of South Sudan”. He can be reached at maandeng2017@gmail.com or 0955246235
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