By Ercole Ercoli

According to the American Media “at the heart of the United Nations’(UN) mounting problems lie an almost total lack of accountability, which gives rise to suspicions of whole-sale corruption. Such mal-administration goes further than the routine fraud, waste, and abuse of resources that makes all public sector enterprises inefficient.” United Nations budgets are surrounded in an absolute confidential situation, and the activities of its numerous agencies (12) can be reduced in two or three agencies.

Naturally, the American Media attacked Boutrous Boutrous Qali, for saying that “the world body is accountable to all of its 185 member states”. We know from the attitude and behavior of the United States towards this respected adjudicator and expert of international law, that a United Nations with an independent thought on global policies and issues is good for international relations. This however, was contrary to the vision of the White House, which approached him with enmity.

The truth is that the UN as an organization today is corrupt and Boutrous Boutrous Qali’s position does not exempt or excuse him from being part of the corruption in the UN organization.

The Media has rightfully said, through the pen of Stephen Halber that “the United Nations is in dire need of reform, starting with a comprehensive, independent audit. Even if a complete audit were performed, however, there are no guarantees that anything would be done about the problems that are identified.” Adding that “radical change may not be possible, no matter how obvious the need is”.

What Stephen Halber said is not only valid for the United Nations, but for organizations that consider themselves giants, whether international bodies, or states. For example the scrutiny of the UN Security Council and of the General Assembly should be binding to all of its members. However, stratagems of bombing civilians and unprotected people by single states, has become normal procedure when the powers that consider themselves the mightiest realizes that other members of the United Nations would not agree with their plans. Since it is normal procedure, such arrogant actions come without consequences, as seen in the cases of Lebanon , Iraq and Afghanistan . Due to this barbaric way of dealing with international conflicts, the realm of international relations has become lawless, similar to the law of the jungle where only force rules.

This way of handling international problems creates wear in the United Nations, as was the case with its predecessor, the League of Nations. Particularly due to the atomic era, there is a pressing need to have a capable international security organization. Yet, spontaneous aggression of the supposed super power, without consulting the restricted body of the United Nations (Security Council), seems directly aimed at destroying this international organization. Therefore, if “a kleptocratic culture of non-accountability at home was easily transferred to the world body”, a kleptocratic culture of non accountability at the Security Council is now transferred to the supposed sole superpower in matters such as international conflicts and global problems.

It looks like some journalists are trying to cast all responsibility for ills of the UN on the Chairman of the advisory committee on Administrative and Budgetary, Mr. Conrad SM Mselle Tanzanian native. Due to him being African, the West will believe everything said about Mr. Mselle, since they consider him inferior. However, it is forgotten that this man was not Secretary General of the U.N., nor was he a member of the Security Council. Africans have occupied the position of Secretary General for only one and a half term. Scrutiny started during this exact period, while the corruption dated back to the Secretariat of Westerners such as D.H. and the former SS officer of Austria who later became President of that nation.

The Media’s goal is to blame Africans and people from other developing countries for all the corruption and amorality currently presiding at the UN, failing to acknowledge that a culture of amorality and corruption had been originally established by the West.

Non-African Secretary Generals designed the generous pensions and the salary packages the media is speaking of, long before Boutrous Boutrous Qali and Koffi Annan even dreamt of becoming U.N. Secretary Generals. Perhaps, the men and women of the Western Media were hoping that Westerners exclusively held such a position in the United Nations.

A responsibility of an international organization that includes all nations of the world is to act outside of one countries interest in situation of hardship. This cannot be compared to the responsibilities of officials that operate and live in their native country, where they have all the homelands facilities at their disposal, which foreigners cannot obtain. According Stephen Halber, the bulk of U.N. employees’ worldwide come from what he calls the ‘third world’. However, he does not mention how many souls and how many states, the continents of Africa, Asia and Latin America, encompasses. Most of these regions were colonized and enslaved, or dominated by the West. He obviously does not have a sense of proportionality, since the population density of the globe would make it only logical that most of the UN staff comes from the so called ‘third world’, this was obviously not factored into his calculation of the UN staff.

The mismanagement and the theft in Kenya and in Somalia should alert UN officials and regional directors of UN offices to these areas. The words of Stephen Halber suggest that developed countries should run the administration of the United Nations, and others should be front men or front women. Anyone who observes the behavior of the West in regards to the elections in Iran, Palestine and Afghanistan, where political forces won elections that opposed the West, will understand that such victories had caused a beating of war drums in the United States. Now-western world opinion seems to have reverted to the belief that people from the developing world cannot grasp the meaning of democracy. We admit that the United Nations is corrupt, but we are also asking others and ourselves whether it was westerners that began the history of corruption in the United Nations? Are they by birth preserved, guarded and protected from mistakes and wrongdoing? According to the Media of a certain part of the Western hemisphere, they could and would restore the integrity and decency of this world body in a manner acceptable to the majority of its members, and not only acceptable to a minority.

If those whom Mr. Halber and Thornburg are speaking on behalf of want to control everything without the presence of the other members of the world conglomerate, then such a society will no longer be an international association, instead it will be a racket. The groan about waste, fraud and abuses can be corrected without transforming the international community into khawacha organization (community of whites). The UN, which is supposed to be the world’s parliament should not be given to the White House, which is not even acting in the best interest of the United States , although the tone of the US Media seems to suggest such an intent.

The answer of the question: can the United Nations be reformed? Is yes, it can be reformed collectively, not by one sector of its membership. It can be ameliorated and amended with the participation of all its nations. It can be improved after a long debate involving all its members. Through a clash of ideas, proposals and theories, and after a vote by the majority of its affiliates, from which no one can dispute the outcome of such a vote, which is a collective elaboration, then improvements can be realized.

We would like to tell Mr. Halber and Mr. Thornburg, that a state, which believes faithfully in the charter of the United Nations, would be ready for the reform. However, no one is ready to accept the narrow interests of one section of the international conglomerate, ignoring the needs and the principles of an organization that groups together all of humanity.

The organization should not only satisfy the wishes of its donors, but also satisfy the needs of humanity. No one should betray humanity because of money. The law of the jungle should not prevail in the world.

The above named individuals, or at least one of them stated: “the United Nations must either be radically reformed, and its various bodies and agencies made strictly accountable to their primary donors, or failing that – and the record of failed reform warrants pessimism –the principal donors, especially the United States, should end any further obligation to support financially an organization that is inherently corrupt and unfixable.” This above quote makes it clear for us to see and understand that the Media wants a United Nations, which belongs to the U.S, and not to the world as a whole. It is a clear attempt of blackmail. Their accentuation on the inappropriateness of the ‘third world’ holding key positions shows that they have no understanding of how large a percentage of the world’s population and nations reside in the developing world. Yet, they are accepting the current world order as an outcome of a meritocracy, where the West earned their superior position through merit. This arrogant and ignorant worldview disregards the historical facts, which demonstrate that the developing world owes its inferior position to the brutal and savage exploits of colonialism inflicted to them by the West, rather than to their own lack of merit. “Anyone who tries to fool others is foolish himself.”

The other problem, which should be addressed, is whether the UN agencies use money given to them decently, such as for solutions to burning problems, and whether they used such money honestly, or if they utilized it to the advantage of its staff. It is also incomprehensible that money guarded by an army of 25.000 was stolen from the very premises of the United Nations. It is also absolutely incomprehensible that hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars advanced by a department of the UN to a supplier of fuel became impossible to track down.

It is appropriate to quote one words uttered by the crooked dictator Ahmed Sekou Ture’, when he stated that “we prefer freedom in hunger, rather than satiety in humiliation (status of colonized or oppressed)”, which means that the people from the so called ‘third world’ are ready to die for freedom, rather than having full stomachs under the current status quo which dominates.

Therefore, to put on the table more negotiable proposal would be convenient for both sides!

Thursday, July 27, 2006