People's Democracy

 EDITORIAL

Lessons From The UN General

Assembly Meeting

THE recently concluded annual meeting of the United Nation's General Assembly served as a theatre offering many lessons.

US president George Bush's plea to the United Nations and to the international community to come to the rescue of the US forces that are currently log-jammed  in Iraq received a very poor response. 

Naturally, the whole world finds Bush's pleas for a UN approval for the US troops occupation of Iraq now as the height of hypocrisy.  The New York Times reported: "So it was hardly surprising that there was a distinct chill in the General Assembly on Tuesday  (September 23) as Bush came full circle, making a plea for the United Nations to take a bigger role in Iraq despite the bitter dispute this year over his decision to topple Saddam Hussein without the United Nations' explicit approval". 

Currently, there are 1,29,000 American troops in Iraq. More US soldiers have died since the official declaration of the  end of war than during the war itself!  Beleaguered,  as it is, the Bush administration is seeking both funds and troops from the United Nations and its member countries. Even steadfast US allies have refused to respond to these moves. The brazen audacity with which he declared in March, this year, that the UN had not lived up to its  responsibilities and the US is rising to meet its responsibility and embarked on  a unilateral war of occupation, the US was now seeking a political role for the UN for "developing constitution and training civil servants and conducting free and fair elections".

In fact, the most strident criticism of US imperialist policy came, very belatedly though, from the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan.  Cynics, of course, say that such outspokenness is due to the fact that Annan is in his second and last term as the UN Secretary General.  Criticising the US doctrine (without, of course, naming the USA) of the "preemptive use of force", Annan said that this "represents a fundamental challenge to the principles, on which, however imperfectly, world peace and stability have rested for the last 58 years". 

The French president drew a much larger and enthusiastic applause from the General  Assembly when he spoke for an early transfer of political authority to the United Nations and the Iraqi people.   President Bush's effort to shore up the United Nations support seeking legitimacy for the US occupation of Iraq comes at a time when CNN/USA/Gallup poll released on September 22 showed that his job approval ratings had fallen to 50 per cent, the lowest since he became the president.

The United State's isolation on its role in West Asia received another setback when the entire General Assembly -- barring the USA, Israel, Micronesia, and Marshall islands -- voted against Israeli designs to eliminate or exterminate Yasser Arafat.  Bush's "road map" has run into serious trouble due to Israeli intransigence and its naked use of terror against the Palestinians. Earlier, the USA vetoed a Security Council resolution which called for Israeli restraint and withdrawal from Palestinian lands. The USA has, thus, once again, confirmed that it is the power and strength behind Israel that continues to deny a homeland  for the Palestinians.

These developments have completely negated the vision India had had  prior to the convening of this General Assembly. The much tom-tomed US-Israel-India axis that this Vajpayee government was so assiduously cultivating appeared completely far removed from the world's dominant sentiment expressed at the United Nations.  The US illegal occupation of Iraq, its brazen support to Israel and its inhuman atrocities created an atmosphere where this Vajpayee government had to backtrack on its vision of servile conformism to US imperialism and toe the mainstream of world opinion. 

Yet another lesson that this government in India must draw is that no amount of cosying up to US imperialism will help in acquiring its support in the Indo-Pak conflict.   Pakistan was and is the strongest US ally in this region.  Despite all the hard-sell propaganda – diplomatic or otherwise – and in the midst of incontrovertible facts, USA refuses to treat Pakistan as a country harbouring terrorists.

Advani has, in fact, bemoaned that the USA has not included Pakistan in the list of countries sponsoring terrorism.  The RSS/BJP can bemoan as much as they want.  But the fact remains that US imperialism's interests are primarily concerning its strategic objectives in the region and not those of combating terrorism.

By now, it has become commonplace, under this government, that India's foreign policy and diplomatic efforts have been reduced to a single point agenda centering around Pakistan.  The slanging verbal duels between the Pakistan president and the Indian prime minister display a mutual obsession. India's relations with the international community cannot be based on a Pak-centric foreign policy.  We had repeatedly warned in the past that by stating that India will not resume talks with Pakistan to settle the disputes until the latter stops supporting cross-border terrorism is flawed with a serious danger:  since Pakistan continuously keeps denying such support, it is possible that it may seek international observation to check on this score.  Pakistan president has, in fact, in his speech to the UN General Assembly, suggested that a UN observer's group be appointed to monitor the border to check if there is cross-border infiltration.  This constitutes a serious danger of permitting a third party intervention in the Indo-Pak dispute which India has all along been opposed to.

In the process of cuddling up to the USA with the hope that it receives its support against Pakistan, all possibilities for taking forward the peace process are being rendered useless. It is this that explains the prime minister's daily flip-flop on the issue of starting talks with Pakistan.  This myopic Pak-centric obsession must end, if India were to pay the role that it was destined to:  as the leader of the developing world.  Unfortunately, the ideological blinkers of this Vajpayee government, which give primacy to their communal agenda requires a Pak-centric foreign policy even if this were detrimental to the larger interests of India, i.e., Bharat.