www.una-connecticut.org

Dear UNA of SWCT,

Thank you for the information regarding jUNe Day. I inquired because I'm very concerned that the United Nations appears to have become a failed organization, as exemplified by its failure to act in time to save at least many hundreds of thousands of lives in the genocides of Rwanda and Darfur, and by its most recent failures in achieving reasonable reform in regard to administrative and human rights structures.

It appears that billions of dollars illegally swindled from the UN's Oil for Food program for Iraq played a role in the failure of the UN Security Council to approve an invasion to punish the regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Following the invasion and liberation by a U.S.-led coalition, the UN was totally ineffective not only in promoting military and economic assistance by member nations for stabilization of Iraq, but even in publicizing the unanimous UN Security Council resolution that urged such assistance and in effect recognized the important role played by the US. (I presume that a majority of Westporters hosting jUNe Day guests this weekend don't even know about that resolution.)

I have been appalled that the UN has been all but paralyzed in addressing the current ongoing genocide in Darfur, and was feeling an urgent need to air my opinion when I requested the jUNe Day information from you. I finally decided that it would be inappropriate for those Westporters who feel generally negative about the UN to protest or otherwise interfere with jUNe Day activities. That would be inhospitable and probably ineffective. Instead, given the urgency of the situation in Darfur, I've suggested that friends and supporters of the UN participating in jUNe Day activities should "search their consciences to find appropriate ways to raise the issue...."

I am curious about the respective functions of the Town of Westport's "UN Hospitality Committee" and the Town's "International Hospitality Committee." I notice that the latter and not the former are given credit for "jUNe Day" planning. Please clarify.

I truly wish that the United Nations could be reformed to become an effective and efficient organization for world peace and human rights. I have very serious doubts after failed attempts at reform during the past year. What do you think?

More and more it appears to me that the very existence of the UN, like the continuing existence of the League of Nations in the 1940's, may be the most difficult impediment to the establishment of a world organization of nations that might be organized and governed to be more effective than the UN in our present era. Considering how much hope I had for the UN in my youth, I find this state of affairs very sad.

I didn't attend the ceremony or festivities on jUNe Day, and imagine that the weather was not helpful! Did any of the speakers or hosts add anything constructive that might help induce the UN or member nations to act more decisively to end the genocide in Darfur?

Do you agree that it's most likely the friends and supporters of the UN who may be most effective in influencing the UN in this matter?

Thank you very much.

JoeOkon

Dear Mr. Okon,

Your points represent common perceptions in our society, and since you claim to be a supporter of the UN's mission, it's appropriate for us to address how to achieve the desired reform while also clearing up misconceptions that contribute to the US media cynically representing the UN as a failing institution.

From its inception, the United Nations has been the child of the Security Council nations, whose permanent members are the US, United Kingdom, France, China, and the Russian Federation. Although an additional ten members are elected for two-year terms and the SC presidency rotates, for all rights and purposes the five permanent members hold the power cards, since any one of them can veto any resolution or allocation (in spite of the fact that any action requires 9 out of 15 votes).

The Secretariat of the UN, under the leadership of the Secretary-General (who is appointed by the Security Council) is composed of 8900 civil servants who do the bidding of the Security Council. Thus, Kofi Annan's bosses are essentially the US, Russia, China, France, and GB. If you can imagine having five bosses with such conflicting agendas, you can thus imagine the tightroping that Kofi Annan must do on a daily basis.

Clearing up a central point, the Secretariat does not create policy nor oversee itself. That is the domain of the Security Council nations and their appointed representatives. The Secretary General does not "rule over" or "control" any policy or initiative of the UN. He is substantially an administrator who uses the international influence of his position to attempt to get the member nations to resolve their differences in a peaceful manner. Furthermore, contracts are given by committees dominated by the most influential nations, not by UN bureaucrats.

Thus, using the Oil for Food Program as an example of US media disinformation, the possibility for corruption in the program was well-known for many years. The Secretariat team alerted the Security Council’s 661 committee (on which the US sat and which alone approved all deals with Hussein) to pricing irregularities in Hussein’s contracts over seventy times. The American government ignored virtually every kickback report. Instead, it blocked or vetoed over 5,000 contracts solely for reason of Iraq's potential use for military purposes.

It bears mentioning that between 1991 and 1996, the US illegally smuggled Iraqi oil, working with Hussein, to its allies Jordan and Turkey, this being the source of the first $11 billion of Hussein's ill-gotten gains. The Oil for Food program commenced in 1996, and was the source for the remaining $1.8 billion of Hussein's illegal skimming. The UN civil servants were powerless to interfere with Security Council endorsed contracts and relationships. In fact, interdiction responsibilities for Iraqi oil shipments was sub-contracted to the US Navy, not the UN Navy!

Typical of much of the US media, published accounts in this country turned the facts upside down, such that the good guys (Kofi Annan and most, not all, UN civil servants) became bad guys and the bad guys were the ones calling for reform. Irony.

Using this as a single yet not isolated example, the facts indicate that essential UN reform must start with reform of the Security Council and its power over policy and spending. Yet this is exactly the area that the permanent SC members, led by the US and its representative John Bolton, most forcefully reject.

You mention UN ineffectiveness in both supporting post-invasion Iraq and in acting more forcefully in Darfur. I would agree with you that each is an ascendant and critical issue; however I would reiterate that the global politics of the Security Council nations plays the most fundamental role in priorities in the Security Council, which controls the peace-keeping operations.

I personally witnessed a fair amount of publicity about the numerous UNSC resolutions on Iraq and calls for assistance in 2003-04. What more would you propose the UN do without any power to compel its member nations to contribute to a US-led coalition that effectively ignored the large majority of its membership in unilaterally pursuing its policies and military actions?

The General Assembly and its various agencies and funds have often been the only hope for Darfur victims, with their refugee assistance, coordination, food and medical programs. To say the UN is ineffective in Darfur is to misrepresent the incredible and dangerous commitments that members of UNHCR and other UN agencies face on a daily basis.

In Iraq, the UN became victims of one of the most deadly attacks in August 2003, losing over 20 civil servants and the acknowledged single most effective diplomat in Iraq, Sergio Vieira DeMello. DeMello was the US's (and UN's) best hope for bringing Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds together. Losing him was not only symbolic of the depth of UN commitment, but also a powerful rejoinder to anyone who might say the UN was "not effective" or "not doing enough". Sacrificing a great diplomat's life certainly constitutes a powerful commitment, and the dearth of publicity in the US about DeMello's importance to Iraq's reconstruction borders on the unethical.

Regarding our organization and its membership, you will not find any more dedicated individuals in raising awareness about Darfur and pushing for more forceful action. We recently sponsored a program, attended by more than 100 people, with Darfur documentaries, a panel discussion, and a speech by the UN Chief of the Sudan Commission, Vladimir Zhagora, who gave first-hand accounts of the situation and what the UN (and its member nations) are doing about it. It's a pity you couldn't attend, as you would have found many like-minded people pursuing justice in Darfur. I have attached here our poster, which we put up in public places all over Fairfield County.

As to UN reform, I would like to refer you to one of our websites, www.una-connecticut.org, where you will find several outstanding essays on true and effective UN reform. Our members are among the most vocal in asking for UN to become more effective, through reform as necessary, but it will certainly require first an understanding of the core causes of its ineffectiveness.

I hope this response will be a first step in enlisting you in helping us promote a fact-based approach to UN reform, by pursuing the Security Council nations to adopt the necessary steps. Unfortunately, the first barrier to overcome is often our own government and its media mouthpieces, who fail to properly represent the actual dynamics behind the recent US rejection of the new Human Rights Commission reforms, or who fail to note that Darfur inactivity is largely due to a political quid pro quo for Sudan ejecting al-Quaeda from its borders.

Your ideas and energy would be most welcome in our organization, if you would like to attend any of our weekly meetings Wednesdays at 10:30 am in Westport Town Hall.

Our local chapter is simultaneously the UNA of Southwest Connecticut and the International Hospitality Committee of Fairfield County, hence some of the confusion about our name. Since our founder, Ruth Steinkrauss-Cohen, lived in Westport, it evolved as the center of activity, and due to Westport's embrace of international visitors, we became the natural locus for the annual entertainment of UN staff, which we have now been doing for 40 years as jUNe Day.

Our chapter website, www.ihcfc.org, can answer most of your questions about our mission and programs.

Finally, thank you for your interest in us and your probing questions.

Brock Hotaling
ExecutiveDirector

DearMr. Hotaling,

Thanks for your response and for the invitation to attend Wednesday a.m. meetings.  Some of the detailed information that you provided was new to me, but you do not appear to rebut my concerns regarding needed reforms, ineffectiveness, and that perhaps the only way to overcome the basic structural problems of the UN may be to  start again almost "from scratch" -- as happened when the UN was created out of the ashes of the League of Nations.

It's easy to be supportive of the UN mission.  I recall being inspired by UNO publications as a child more than forty years ago.  However, UN performance during the past half century has been very disappointing overall.  The facts that permanent members of the all-important Security Council often don't agree and that some of the most murderous and authoritarian governments powers on earth have had veto power don't provide much hope for a smoothly operating and effective United Nations in the future.

Dear Mr. Okon,

I sympathize with your wishes for a more effective body for international peace, but the reality of big-power politics, which alone drives the shape and effectiveness of such a body, will not change without a major war. The UN was formed not so much from the ashes of the League of Nations (in fact, the LON's failure was a major impediment to the credibility of resurrecting a new such body), as from a one-time opportunity following WWII when the world was essentially bi-polar (politically!) and the US, USSR, and their allies could dictate world policy and economic structures. The special circumstances that led to the US, China, USSR and UK collaborating on the fundamental agreements at Dumbarton Oaks in 1944 could not possibly be replicated in today's environment.

In fact, it is exactly that issue that underlies the most explosive negotiations about UN reform - the inclusion of India, Brazil, Nigeria and possibly Japan and Germany as permanent members reflective of their economic power and population - was acidic to the US and other current powers. They don't want to expand the club to accommodate new world powers, so how would we even get these nations to come together to form a new body from scratch? They can't even agree on a single rational element of structural effectiveness, due to barriers put up by most passionately by the US! To achieve what you want would first require reform of US thinking in regard to how to appropriately use its power in collaboration with other international powers. That effort must begin in the corridors of Washington, DC. Not the UN.

Whatever shape such a body would take, the US, Russia, and China would be the parents in any case, and they are precisely the nations most responsible for the current ineffectiveness of the UN (and its corruption).

What is truly extraordinary is how effective the UN has been, considering the myriad of ways the member nations try to use it to forward their own agendas. Please go to their website (www.un.org) and acquaint yourself with the hundreds of UN programs that are preventing war, disaster, and disease around the globe on an insufficient budget constantly under attack (once again, most passionately and misguidedly by the US).

Once one understands the full scope of the UN's responsibilities and the realpolitik of the modern world, one can only arrive at the conclusion that the UN is the biggest bargain in the world. Although "starting from scratch" and "reform" are enormously appealing concepts, the reality is much less appealing, in that whatever progress is made is hard, hard diplomatic work hammered out one little agreement at a time by the self-same stubborn nations currently erecting barriers to just such proposals as you and I would like to see.

A good place to start for either "reform" or "starting from scratch" is to convince our current Congress, administration, and John Bolton to stop putting up barriers to the inclusion of other nations in the decision-making process, to implement independent oversight and auditing of contracts, to negotiate respectfully with its big-power colleagues, and to live up to contracted commitments.

Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts to negotiation between big-powers (it's a political-science issue, not a United Nations issue), unless you consider nuclear war an alternative, which I don't.

Brock Hotaling