Who calls the shots at the UN?

Columnist Brig (Retd) SHER KHAN enquires as to who is really in charge in the United Nations.

The “incursion” in Kargil last year once again made the Western world sit up for a short while and take notice of the unresolved Kashmir dispute which has bedeviled relations between Pakistan and India for over fifty years. Caught completely off guard due to a massive intelligence failure, as is becoming evenly clearer with the publication of the Kargil Commission Report in the print media, Indian and Pakistani alike, the Indian government threw whatever arms, equipment and troops it could muster to dislodge the Mujahideen holding the heights in Kargil/Drass and the surrounding region. For about two months the battle raged, becoming a war of attrition for the Mujahideen holding the heights as they faced the pounding of massed Indian artillery and aerial bombardment, and the day and night infantry attacks. Finally, they were made to vacate their positions, after immense loss of life and holding out against the odds, not so much by the Indian onslaught as by the sellout by the then government of Pakistan when it capitulated in Washington last July. Although the Indians paid dearly in men, material and morale, finally they succeeded in getting the heights vacated and the “sanctity” of the Line of Control restored because our political leadership chickened out. Despite the immense sense of being let down that the nation generally felt, if there was no other gain from the intense conflict last summer, at least it did send out an urgent wake up call to the arbiters of the New World Order that here was a possible nuclear flash point which needs to be doused before things get out of hand. However, like all human beings, the attention span of the powers that be is also no longer than that of small children; as soon as active hostilities along the LoC ceased for a while, the world’s attention passed on to other conflict situations and possible brush fires, while the repression of the people across the LoC started again with a vengeance. There have been, however, two other consequences of the Kargil crisis last summer. First, as a result of the ensuing tension between the Prime Minister and the Army Chief, the former overplayed his hand and now stands in the dock pleading to save his skin and avoid going to the gallows. Second, the Indians have become even more belligerent and arrogant as regards Indo-Pakistan relations, and have embarked on a major rearmament, expansion and modernization programme, as evidenced by the whopping twenty eight percent increase in the Defence allocation in the newly announced federal budget, thus tipping the scales even further in their favour. While this increased allocation, Rs 155 billion, more than the entire Pakistani Defence Budget, will gladden the hearts of the Indian military, enabling it to go shopping around the world with a big wish list of the latest and best munitions that money can buy, it threatens to unleash yet another totally unnecessary arms race on the Sub-continent, much to the detriment of the millions of people living in abject poverty on both sides of the border. As for Indian irrationality and obduracy vis-a-vis the Kashmir dispute, let alone agreeing to sit across the table for a dialogue, they have ruled out any outside interference, arbitration or mediation on the issue, and quite recently Mr. Vajpayee has gone to the extent of asking for the vacation of “Pakistani Occupied Kashmir”. Also, since last summer the Indians have gone on a worldwide offensive to have Pakistan declared a Terrorist State, or at least a State that sponsors and supports international terrorism; the recent hijacking of the India Airlines Airbus appears to have been a staged drama towards that end, and the all-out effort to dissuade Mr Clinton from even touching base in Pakistan late in March seem to be part of the same game plan.

With the recent change in government, the Kashmir dispute has regained a renewed urgency and a new lease of life, with the Chief Executive unequivocally declaring the primacy and centrality of the dispute to Indo-Pakistan relations. In the last few months there have been a spate of seminars, panel discussions on the electronic media, a blitz in the print media, etc, so as to revive domestic and international interest in a resolution of this festering dispute. How successful this torrent of activities is open to conjecture. A sense of betrayal is widely voiced towards the United Nations for not being able to, or being unwilling to, do anything about implementing its Security Council Resolutions dating back to over half a century to determine the will of the Kashmir people about their future, while the UN has been prompt in using its good offices elsewhere in the world over the years, the latest being in East Timor. Amongst other things, it does make many aggrieved people wonder whether the religion, colour or creed of the people residing in an affected area have something to do with mobilizing the UN and spurring it into action. Its profound humanitarian charter notwithstanding, perhaps we Pakistanis, with our deep sympathy with the people of Kashmir and a sense of righteousness, have been relying too much on the UN to resolve the dispute and enforce its writ, when in fact it has no such capability and no mind of its own, depending as it does on just a few countries for its funds and thus its sense of direction. In fact it might do us a world of good if we were to question the role and stature of the UN, which is sometimes referred to by its detractors as “a useless talking shop”. Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War this august body, on which such high hopes have been pinned by so many small and powerful nations, seems to have been reduced to the role of a hand maiden of the sole surviving Super Power, i.e. the USA, even though the latter continues to be the greatest defaulter in paying its dues to the UN (sounds familiar, with possibly yet another role for NAB when it is done and finished with its domestic Terms of Reference?). The UN gets into gear when the USA so desires or deems it necessary, be it in The Gulf, Somalia, Bosnia or elsewhere. Kashmir, the Middle East Peace Process, or other such issues appear to be of no consequence for the UN since they do not seem to merit the attention or intercession of the USA. The Gulf War, as would be recalled, was a largely US led, managed and manned war, to further US policy objectives and national interests, and was only legitimized as a UN operation. After the war too, it is the USA that decides how Iraq is to be run, how and when sanctions will be applied or eased, etc, all under the nominal facade of the UN.

Much is being made of international terrorism and the determination of the USA in particular about fighting it whenever and wherever necessary when US interests are involved anywhere in the world. Yet, does this resolve mean a licence to engage in terrorism in an attempt to fight the menace? A short trip down memory lane will help to recall that in mid-August 1998, the USA let loose a fusillade of a million dollar a piece Sea Launched Cruise Missiles from two of its naval flotillas anchored in the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean onto a cluster of training camps just across the border in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan, to target the alleged hideout of Osama Bin Laden and a purported chemical weapons factory respectively. The avowed purpose of the SLCMs was to take the war against terrorism to the doorsteps of the terrorists in the aftermath of the bombing of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar us Salaam. Both these attacks, carried out in violation of international laws regarding inviolability of the sovereignty of states, caused immense loss of innocent lives in the target areas, but left the perpetrators unmoved for the simple reason that that the victims were non-American, non-White and non-Christians. So what are a score or two of Black African or Brown Asian fatalities so long as the sole Super Power can be seen to be asserting its formidable might against elusive terrorists who allegedly dare target Uncle Sam’s facilities and employees abroad? Not that one is in any way condoning terrorism by anybody in any form or shape, but one is left wondering why a similar massive response did not emanate from Washington D.C. in the wake of the Oklahoma bombing in the US or in Ireland after the terrorist bombing of Omagh? Perhaps such a determined response would not go down well with the electorate? To add insult to injury, at the very moment that the US missiles were cruising over Pakistani air space from its territorial waters, a US Army general was sitting in the VIP lounge at Chaklala Airport with the then COAS, holding a manoeuvred meeting at the former’s request to assuage any wounded pride. No wonder then that the official Pakistan government response to the violation of its air space was lukewarm and muted, and came only after a few missiles had been found to have gone astray and landed in remote parts of Balochistan. Yet, this brazen action of the USA drew not a word of censure from the UN nor from the European community or other champions of democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

The foregoing leads one to ask, “Just who calls the shots at the UN? The answer could well lie in the statement of the former US President George Bush’s Under Secretary of State for International Organizations. John Bolton, the State Department’s linchpin connection to the UN: “There is no United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that is the United States, when it suit our interest, and when we can get others to go along... The success of the United Nations during the Gulf War was not because the United Nations had suddenly become successful. It was because the United States, through President Bush, demonstrated what international leadership, international coalition building, international diplomacy is all about... When the United States leads, the United Nations will follow. When it suits our interest to do so, we will do so. When it does not suit our interest, we will not.”  (The role of the UN could not have been put more explicitly)

To revert to the possible role, if any, of the UN in helping to resolve the Kashmir dispute in accordance with its own Security Council Resolutions dating back to over half a century, the legitimacy of our principled stand notwithstanding, we have surely overplayed it, and a new approach, a change of tack is the need of the hour if we are to make any headway. Raising the ante by the spectre of an all-out war, or even a nuclear holocaust, as was done last summer, has not brought the dispute any closer to an amicable resolution. We have tried the formation of the so-called Kashmir Committees to raise international awareness about our stand on the issue. Many years and millions of dollars later, after having enabled so many to globe trot to the flesh pots of the world, perhaps to enrich themselves to boot, where do we stand, other than broke, and up the creek without a paddle? The very Chairman of the Committee who so staunchly advocated the cause of Kashmir on our electronic media and junketed all over the globe shamelessly and brazenly extolled the virtues of the “Climb Down from Kargil” last year as a great act of statesmanship on Pakistan Television! The same familiar faces are again being seen at the seminars, holding forth on the State-run electronic media, mouthing the same stuff that has been their stock in trade, claim to fame, perhaps even their meal ticket. If we are indeed going to be heard on the Kashmir issue, and on any other issue for that matter, we will need to wean ourselves away from the feed bottle of hand outs and loans from the West, we must cut the apron strings that tie us to the West. Above all else, we must become a strong, resilient and, most importantly, a self-respecting and dignified nation. All this and more we can do if the elite that has always been ruling Pakistan were to shed its love for anything and everything Western, the easy life, its lavish life style, its subservience, etc. At times one gets the feeling that some of our policy makers are in the pay of the West, if not secretly citizens of the West, and out to promote their masters’ agenda. We need look no further than Iran to see what a self-respecting nation with the right kind of leadership can achieve against all the odds, to realize what we have been direly lacking for so long. One only hopes that we will now be able to make a clean break with the past, and learn to fight our own battles under our own steam. Only thus can we hope to prevail and be heard. n

End note: Readers wishing to learn more about ‘Who’s Calling the Shots’ in the UN may want to read a book by this name by Phyllis Bennis.

About the Author

Brig (Retd) Sher Khan is a graduate engineer who was commissioned in the Corps of Electrical and Mechanical Engineers in 1962. He attended Army Pilots Fixed Wing Course in 1966/67, served in an Army Aviation Squadron for two years, learnt to fly helicopters, did the parachutists course as a lieutenant colonel and continued flying and parachuting till he retired from the Army. After that he obtained a Commercial Pilots Licence from CAA, and obtained a balloonists licence when he turned 58 years. He loves the mountains and has travelled extensively in the Northern Areas.