United Nations-The continuam of Failure

States first established international organizations to cooperate on specific matters. The International Telecommunication Union was founded in 1865 as the International Telegraph Union, and the Universal Postal Union was established in 1874. Both are now United Nations specialized agencies.

In 1899, the International Peace Conference was held in The Hague to elaborate instruments for settling crises peacefully, preventing wars and codifying rules of warfare. It adopted the Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes and established the Permanent Court of Arbitration, which began work in 1902.

The forerunner of the United Nations was the League of Nations, an organization conceived in similar circumstances during the first World War, and established in 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles "to promote international cooperation and to achieve peace and security.

The Decision making-making structure of the United Nations was set up by the victorious powers to make them the core of the organization and the guardians of peace. The members of the United Nations are represented in a General Assembly, each with one vote. This is democratic, although it does give undue voting power to tiny countries. However, the allies added to this General Assembly another body, the Security Council. This body must also agree to any significant action of the UN, and each of the World War II victors (The United Sates, France, Britain, Russia and China) was made a permanent member of the Security Council. Ten other states rotate on and off the council for terms of two years each. Not only were the victors made permanent members of the Security Council, but each was given and individual veto over its decisions. That is, each of the five permanent members was given the right to veto significant actions of the UN.

After 6 weeks of genocide, France, which offered no troops to the UN mission, suddenly decided to intervene in Rwanda. Within a week of the decision, Operation Turquoise was able to deploy 2500 men with 100 armored personnel carriers, 10 helicopters, a battery of 120 mm mortars, 4 Jaguar fighter bombers, and 8 Mirage fighters and reconnaissance planes---all for an ostensibly humanitarian operation. The French forces created a safe haven in the south-west of the country which provided sanctuary not only to fortunate Tutsi but also to many leading Rwandan government and military officials as well as large numbers of soldiers and militia---the very Hutu Power militants who had organized and carried out the genocide. Not a single person was arrested by France for crimes against humanity. All were allowed to escape across the border into then-Zaire, entirely unrepentant and often still armed. Soon these genocidaires were launching murderous excursions back into Rwanda, beginning a cycle that led to the subsequent bloody conflict that destabilizes central Africa still. France long remained hostile to the post-genocide government in Rwanda and sympathetic to the previous French-speaking Hutu regime. Many of the leaders of the new government were from English-speaking Uganda and were considered the “anglo-saxon” enemy by the French government. In November 1994, barely four months after the end of the genocide, Rwanda was deliberately excluded from the annual Franco-African summit hosted by France. Zaire’s President Mobutu, who had been ostracized by the French government in recent years, was invited, as was Robert Mugabe, the anglophone president of anglophone Zimbabwe.

The UN has slowly acted upon or looked blindly to a lot more other regional or global conflicts that have caused a lot of suffering and deaths. With these few examples one would definitely question the legitimacy of this organization and where is it when the world truly needs it.

George W. Bush, during the campaign for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination, was asked by a TV interviewer what he would do as president if, “God forbid, another Rwanda” should take place. He replied: “We should not send our troops to stop ethnic cleansing and genocide outside our own strategic interest. I would not send US troops into Rwanda.”

The United Nations main agencies and the focuses are:

Some topics in this essay:
United Nations, Security Council, Hutu Power, Rwanda UN, George Bush, Church Rwanda, Rwanda French, Belgian UN, Operation Turquoise, Beyond UNAMIR’s, united nations, security council, world war, cold war, soviet union united, peacekeeping operations, un mission, un headquarters, rwandan government, soviet union, troops un, permanent security council, united kingdom united, troops un mission, union united kingdom,