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Why do people put their faith in the UN?
Dominic Lawson, Independent (UK)
May 15, 2007

http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/dominic_lawson/article2542380.ece

It has been an excellent few days for Robert Mugabe KCB, the 83-year-old President of Zimbabwe. Not only has he celebrated the resignation of Tony Blair, but last Saturday his environment and tourism minister, Francis Nhema, was voted in as the leader of the UN's Commission on Sustainable Development.

The leading article in the state-controlled Zimbabwe Herald declared: "We totally agree with progressive Britons that Mr Blair has been a complete disaster, whose departure was long overdue." Robert Mugabe's mouthpiece, however, did not mention Iraq: Blair's real crime, said the Herald, was to have been the root cause of all the "political and socioeconomic problems in Zimbabwe ... [by] roping in his allies in the EU and the US who imposed ruinous sanctions".

In fact, as even the author of that article will know, the few sanctions that are in place apply only to the ability to travel of a hundred or so leading members of Mugabe's Zanu-PF party - and those are frequently flouted.

No, to Robert Mugabe, rather than Tony Blair, must go the distinction of reducing the former "bread basket of Africa" to near-starvation and the life expectancy of the average Zimbabwean from 63 to 35. Times are still good for Mugabe's associates, however, as they sell their ever-more privileged allocations of petrol and maize via the black market.

Mr Nhema, who was educated at Strathclyde University, in Scotland, is one of those who also benefited from being handed a once-thriving farm expropriated by Zanu-PF. According to recent reports, its more than 1,000 hectares are now largely idle. Mr Nhema is also in charge of the country's national parks, where the wildlife has been allowed to be all but be wiped out by poachers. This is just the chap, apparently, to be nominated to run the UN's sustainable development programme.

It was, in the way of these things, Africa's "turn" to take the chairmanship of this UN body, and Zimbabwe's fellow African nations voted en bloc to ensure Mr Nhema's election. The strident opposition of the EU, Canada and the US appears to have had the entirely predictable effect of enhancing Mr Nhema's campaign. As the Ambassador to the UN of Sudan, a regime which could teach even Mr Mugabe a thing or two about dealing with internal opposition, said: "This is not good: it is the right of regional groups to choose whoever they want."

Such countries may not be great enthusiasts for democracy in their own backyards, but at UN headquarters in New York the noble principle of "one delegate, one vote" is rigidly adhered to. This was the system which a few years back elected Libya to the chairmanship of the UN's Human Rights Commission. Amnesty International could express as much outrage as it wanted; but it could do nothing about the UN's reliably cynical way of doing business.

Try as I might, I find it hard to feel a similar amount of outrage at the nominations of Libya and Zimbabwe to apparently important roles at the UN. Perhaps that is because I don't regard these commissions as much more than a generous waste of time. There are some UN bodies -such as the various aid agencies - which are genuinely important and which have the power to act in a way which can change people's lives for the better; but who other than those on it, who draw tax-free salaries and other delightful perks, really benefits from the Commission on Sustainable Development? Leave aside the fact that we already know what poorer countries need: access to clean water, cheap energy, an absence of corruption and barriers to trade. What can members of such a commission agree upon in principle, let alone in practice? Can they even agree on what is actually meant by "sustainable development"?

On the day that Mugabe's Minister for Tourism (whose slogan is "Zimbabwe: an African Paradise") was nominated, the UN Commission on Sustainable Development had a meeting described as "the culmination of two years' work". After many days of negotiation, however, it was unable to agree on a text, let alone what to do next. The EU and Canada rejected the proposed form of words on the grounds that it was "so weak as to be meaningless". When the German environment minister declared that he would vote against it - "on behalf of the world's poor" - apparently half of those present applauded. When the minister from Pakistan, who presumably knows something about poverty, spoke in favour, the other half of the delegates clapped. Then the whole thing broke up. Over to you, Mr Nhema, and good luck.

One of the almost charming things about the left - in this country, at least - is its undiminished faith in the institution of the United Nations. In the 1930s, the British left manifested a similar idealism about the League of Nations, an idealism which the Nazis demonstrated to be mere naivety. Sixty years later, the massacres in Rwanda and Srebrenica - both under the noses of UN "peacekeepers" - did little to dent faith in the UN among the bulk of the British Labour Party and Liberal Democrats. Indeed, an impression is sometimes given that the greatest sin of the US and Britain over the invasion of Iraq was not that it was incompetently carried out, but the fact that it was not approved by the UN. That, after all, was the principled objection of those, such as Clare Short and Robin Cook, who opposed the invasion long before its practical shortcomings became apparent.

Interestingly, however, both Short and Cook approved the Anglo American bombardment of Serbia, despite the fact that it was not authorised by the United Nations Security Council and was, therefore, in clear breach of Article 53 of the UN Charter. Nonetheless, Ms Short became known as "Bomber" Short, so enthusiastically did she back Mr Blair and that nice Mr Clinton in this military campaign.

For the record, I shared her enthusiasm: like her, I regarded it as intolerable that no force had been brought to bear against Slobodan Milosevic earlier in his campaign to cleanse tracts of Greater Serbia of "ethnic undesirables". Russia, however, would have used its Security Council vote to veto any such international military action--as it had the legal right to do. In this context, faith in the UN would have meant nothing more than acquiescence in Vladimir Putin's veto.

The UN is not, as so many want to believe, the repository of all that is virtuous and high-minded on the international stage. It is no better and no worse than the sum of its parts, which is to say that it faithfully represents all that is good among the nations of the world - and also all that is corrupt and self-serving. So its election of Robert Mugabe's henchman to a leading position is exactly what you should expect.

d.lawson@ independent.co.uk

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