Humanitarian Day and Hypocrisy

Thursday is the UN World Humanitarian Day, in which the United Nations remembers the heroic efforts of those who risk their lives, and sometimes pay the ultimate price, in the most devastated and dangerous corners of the globe to bring assistance, hope and a life to the victims. A noble precept...but are opposing forces not at play here?

Photo: Humanitarian Day and Hypocrisy

How many of those States which sign Humanitarian Conventions and Protocols and pledge aid and assistance, dropping bags of grain with their country’s flag or initials stamped visibly and boldly on the side, are not also making billions out of producing or selling weapons systems?

How many of those countries that provide humanitarian aid workers are not at the same time providing rebels with ammunition? How many of those countries which sit in the United Nations Headquarters in New York formulating policy are not at the very same time working against the Organization and against world peace by sowing the seeds of discontent and rebellion so as to provide an umbrella for illegal wars and the subsequent control of resources?

Therefore while on August 19, the world remembers heroes such as the Brazilian UN Envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, who died in a massive bomb blast on the Canal Hotel in Baghdad in 2003 along with 21 other UN staff members (while over 150 other people were injured), isn’t it also hypocritical that the same States which are supposed to be signatories of peace agreements are simultaneously fueling the fires which rage against the UNO and its aid workers?

And for this reason it is not surprising that the world is becoming an ever-more dangerous place for humanitarian aid workers? In 2009, 102 humanitarian aid workers were killed in the line of duty (up from 30 in 1999) and 280 aid workers were involved in security incidents (4 times higher than a decade before).

The sheer hypocrisy of the world we live in is underlined by the fact that the nation hosting the United Nations – the USA – derided this Organization (along with its sickening troupe of sycophantic lackeys) in 2003, refusing to use the UN Security Council for a Second Resolution on the decision to go to war against Iraq, while this is a fundamental precept of International Law as stipulated in the UN Charter itself.

So when we are remembering heroes such as Sergio Vieira de Mello, and countless others who have paid the ultimate price in their quest to help others, we should also remember those who cause the catastrophes which claim the lives of many of these aid workers, namely signatory states of the UN Charter itself.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY

PRAVDA.Ru