June 06 , 2008
Yanking in the UN
So, the UN is being tasked to investigate BB’s slaying. It seems that some want it to follow the Rafik Hariri model, in that when the Lebanese leader was killed in February 2005, the UN Security Council (UNSC) adopted a resolution whereby an investigative team was dispatched to Lebanon.
Arguably, the UNSC – which has been rubber-stamping big power moves in the Middle East – may have had a stake in implicating Syria for it being a member of the ‘axis of evil’ and a ‘roadblock’ to the ‘peace process’ there. It bears mentioning here that, in 2004, the 67-year-old nearly blind wheelchair-bound paralyzed Palestinian spiritual leader Sheikh Yassin was gunned down by an Israeli helicopter gunship. One does not recall a similar effort or outrage from the UNSC.
Nor did the UN come into play when, during June 1968, Presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy was slain in California, or in February 1965 when the legendary American Muslim leader Malcolm X was martyred in Manhattan.
Where does the Charter of the United Nations, which was signed on June 26, 1945 in San Francisco, stand on such matters? Article 2(7) of the UN Charter couldn’t be more explicit. It reads: “Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.”
Some parts of the UN record do not make pretty reading. In July 1995, the greatest mass murder after World War II took place in the small Muslim town of Srebrenica in Bosnia. Prior to it, the UNSC had declared Srebrenica as a safe haven, which was then put under the protection of UN troops from Holland. But the Dutch fled like rabbits, leaving an estimated 10,000 Muslims to be massacred by Serbs.
Similarly, during 1994, the UN melted away while nearly one million Tutsis were hacked to death in 90 days by the Hutus in Rwanda.
Since 1990, the inhabitants of Held Kashmir have undergone a mini-Hell through torture, disappearances, murder, and widespread rape at the hands of Indian security forces – all of which were amply documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. United Nations Security Council Resolution of January 5, 1949, clearly calls for the Kashmiri people to exercise their right of self-determination through a free and fair plebiscite under UN supervision. This resolution remains a part of applicable international law.
Chechnya has undergone a horror similar to Kashmir at the hands of Russian armed forces, in full view of a mute UN and supine international community, which saw Time magazine anoint Vladimir Putin as “Person of the Year”.
The shenanigans of the UN in the Middle East are too well known to be recounted here, and put a big question mark on UN credibility as an impartial peacemaking or peacekeeping body. Suffice it to say, it is no longer the UN of Secretary Generals Dag Hammarskjold (1953-1961) and Kurt Waldheim (1972-1981). What later befell Waldheim for apparently not following the script is beyond the scope of this piece. The more recent Secretary Generals, including Kofi and Ban, seem to be thoroughly vetted and carefully handpicked for their lack of backbone, charisma, and eloquence.
Therefore, to yank in the UN to investigate a matter which is properly within the domestic jurisdiction of the Government of Pakistan is not only a tacit admission of hapless incompetence but also, in effect, a breach of national sovereignty. It is difficult to hold the line once it has been yielded.
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto first stamped his presence on the national consciousness during the September 1965 war when he made his speech at the UN calling for the international community to intervene in Kashmir. It is an irony that 43 years later, his successors are urging the UN to intervene in Pakistan.
For standards to have declined to this level and for matters to have reached this point is a sorry reflection on state, society, and the so-called ‘leaders’ including, but not limited to, the Presidency.
