How To Buy & Influence the UN
**It was founded on humanitarian principles, but now the interests of money and power are driving the UN **
When Yemen voted against attacking Iraq in 1990, the American government described its vote as “the most expensive ‘no’ in history”. Yemen may have been a member of the United Nations security council, but with a per capita income of around 2% of that in the United States, its diplomatic rights were no match for the dollar’s might.
Following its refusal to back the first Gulf war, America cut off aid and pushed to make it a virtual pariah state.
In 1999, UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, told the Business-Humanitarian Forum: “The business community is fast becoming one of the UN’s most important allies - that is why the organisation’s doors are open to you as never before.” Two months later, the United Nations Development Programme accepted $50,000 from 11 multinationals in return for privileged access to their offices.
Likewise, one of Russia’s key concerns about a war on Iraq is not loss of life, but the loss of billions of pounds in contracts. “There are very legitimate interests that Russia have got,” said Tony Blair, before heading to Moscow last month. “There are outstanding contracts with Iraq. They want to know we are sensitive to them, and we are.”
**As Yemen found out to its considerable cost, the UN operates, by and large, according to the golden rule - that those who have the gold make the rules. Those without are left to fend for themselves. It is the UN’s inability to deliver for the poor, on aid, trade, the environment and development, that makes it appear “irrelevant” to most - not its tardiness in delivering war for the wealthy. **
Condoleezza Rice, asked senior staff at the National Security Council to think seriously about “how do you capitalise on these opportunities” in order to change US foreign policy. The answer was a strategy that would formalise America’s role as the world’s most powerful rogue state - like a well-armed vigilante, acting in its own interests and outside of the law.
Yet so long as a few pick and choose which laws should be followed or flouted, then none can have confidence that legality has any relevance over and above what you can get away with. So long as the UN is prey to bribery and bullying, then the resolutions that it passes will have no more moral authority than the cheques that are drawn on their account.
comment: UN is useless organisation they are basically employed as the USA’s administartion department. Muslim nations should see the futility of such an organisation which punishes them at every opportunity.
In a world where nothing seems to stay constant, it’s always nice to know some things never change.