The UN seeks its place in a changed world

Kofi Annan set forth a program to reform the United Nations

It is no secret that the UN currently acts as an organization not capable of doing anything. For instance, the UN has not conceived well the situation after the September 11 attacks. The problem isn't only about the terrorist attacks

The UN was set up in 1945. It became the successor to the League of Nations, which was established in 1919. The appearance of the new international organization gave hope for the development of cooperation between all countries on social and economic issues. It is worth mentioning that the perception of the volume of competence of the new intergovernmental organization was different among the allied countries.

The Soviet government perceived the UN as an organization for the support of international peace and security. Soviet officials thought that the UN was meant to protect humanity from a new war. The allied countries believed that such a goal was one of the most important. This allowed the UN Security Council to be established without conflict.

Time went by, and one may say that history has been successful for the organization. Until the year 1999, when NATO invaded Yugoslavia without paying any attention to international rights. Then, there was September 11th and the war in Afghanistan. As far as the latter is concerned, the UN’s role there was not large; basically, it only dealt with humanitarian issues.

Despite all efforts Secretary General Kofi Annan, there is no way to settle the situation in the Middle East. Iraq is also a headache due to America's coming war.

The USA has not taken the UN’s opinion into account for a long time. Sometimes, America threatens to suspend financing of the organization, and sometimes America says that they might force the UN to leave its headquarters in New York.

American President George Bush has recently submitted another strategy of American national security. Bush’s national security strategy is nothing but a claim against the sole concept of global development, at least since the beginning of the 21st century. If such a document had been written on behalf of the UN, it wouldn’t have raised any significant objections. Yet, the UN wrote no such document, and that’s the problem. It was written by the US administration.

The document states that international alliances and institutes (including the UN) have not proved their efficiency in the struggle with new threats, and, if this is the case, there is no need for such institutes; America and NATO will take over their functions.

The UN is itself guilty. The only opportunity for the UN to regain its previous status is to prevent a war against Iraq. However, the UN is not likely to succeed. Kofi Annan offered a program of reforms, which are supposed to cut the administrative personnel and make the activity of the organization more efficient.

Annan believes that the UN ought to hold fewer sessions and issue fewer reports. There were 15,484 and 5,879, respectively, during 2000-2001. Annan promised that all activities of the UN will be reconsidered in order to avoid wasting time in the future.

Annan is also going to close several UN offices in different countries of the world and to concentrate its work in regional centers. Furthermore, Annan proposed to continue the merger of three departments that control the budgetary spending of the organization. Annan also stated that there was no pressure when he made these decisions. The USA has supported UN reforms before.

Dmitry Litvinovich PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov