Trust the United Nations?

It is understandable that some reasonable folk do not understand why there should be any reluctance among others, including me, a former Chairman of the U.S. United Nations Association, about "going to the U.N." when we face critical international concerns affecting our national interest and values. An explanation is in order.

The challenges before us require more than rhetoric. The United Nations was created following a costly extended war. Its charter was based on Franklin Roosevelt's clarion call for freedom for all peoples. The preamble champions "fundamental human rights… the dignity and worth of the human person… equal rights of men and women." That theme, pursuant to a bi-partisan commitment by the United States, is gradually being realized, but the United Nations is, regrettably, unable and apparently unwilling to lead or even participate in the pursuit of that goal. It has practically absented itself from any realistic contributions to the struggle to achieve democracy and human dignity for those who do not enjoy those benefits.

Since the U.N.'s creation. millions of human beings have been killed, maimed, starved, tortured or raped by brutal rulers. To mention Cambodia, Congo, Somalia, China, North Korea, Kosovo, and Chechnya is to list only a portion of the human tragedies in our midst. That list regrettably defines the inadequacies and often failures of the U.N.

In 1995 we persuaded the United Nations, after great effort, to concern itself with the Balkans and the tragedy associated with that upheaval. European stability was being challenged. What we remember from that effort was that the U.N. assured the Bosnian Muslims that they could assemble in Srebrenica, a “safe area”. Eight thousand Bosnian Muslims were then massacred while U.N. forces only a few miles away ignored the tragedy.

North Korea's dictator, Kim Jong II, has inflicted a holocaust on his people. Defectors and observers have estimated that more than a million people have starved to death in brutal Gulag-type camps. This catastrophe has created a flood of refugees into nearby China where an estimated 360,000 refugees may now be hiding in an effort to escape the brutalities at home. A United Nations Refugee Commission exists which is fully aware of this human catastrophe. China, however, says that these tragic human beings are “economic migrants” and “not refugees." China is clearly in violation of United Nations conventions and protocols. Where is the U.N.? It is certainly not challenging China, a power in the U.N. A cynical China then embraces the refugee convention as the “Magna Carta of international refugee law” while U.N. officials applaud.

The United Nations established a human rights commission (UNHRC) which has turned out to be empty and impotent. Last year, for example, the United States -- which has been persistent in its efforts to make UNHRC an effective instrument -- was defeated for membership and replaced by Syria, an evil and corrupt totalitarian regime which supports terrorism. In recent days, in spite of our American efforts, the newly-elected chair of UNHRC is Libya, an insult and a tragedy considering its rule by a militant tyrant responsible for the 1988 bombing of a U.S. civilian jet in Lockerbie, Scotland, in which 270 people were murdered. Our opposition to Libya was supported only by Canada and Guatemala; 33 countries voted for Libya. Our European "friends" conspicuously, though not surprisingly, chose to abstain entirely from voting in this vital and symbolic struggle for human dignity. The U.N, in electing Syria, Libya, Vietnam, China, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Zimbabwe to serve on the UNHRC and thereby serve as the guardians of human rights, human dignity and equal rights of men and women, has, I believe, undermined and forfeited its commitment to those values.

In 1948, the United Nations recognized Israel as a new state and as a member. Shortly thereafter, Israel's Arab neighbors -- refusing to accept the U.N. decision -- militarily invaded Israel. Since that time, the neighboring Arab states have continued to try but have been unable to defeat Israel. Until quite recently, they considered themselves to be in a perpetual state of war with Israel. Serious boundary and territory disputes remain.

How has the U.N. responded? Since 1964, after the Arabs were defeated in the Six Day War, the U.N. Security Council has passed 88 resolutions against Israel -- the only democracy in the area -- and the General Assembly has passed more than 400 such resolutions, including one in 1975 declaring "Zionism as a form of racism." When the terrorist leader of the Palestinians, Arafat, spoke in 1974 to the General Assembly, he did so wearing a pistol on his hip and received a standing ovation. While totalitarian and repressive regimes are eligible and do serve on the U.N. Security Council, democratic Israel is barred by U.N. rules from serving in that senior body.

Do these and other similar patterns of behavior justify a call to place America's security concerns in the hands of the United Nations? It would be foolhardy to do so.

Now for Iraq.

The United Nations' inspection team is led by Hans Blix, a Swedish diplomat who was selected for this assignment in 1999. His predecessors were barred by Saddam Hussein from Iraq, and all of them declared their belief that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. The United States resisted the selection of Mr. Blix. We received questionable reports about him not only from sources in Sweden, but also from staff members within the U.N. itself. In essence, it was that his training as a Swedish diplomat instinctively led him to be non-confrontational and, therefore, inadequate in the face of controversy, even controversy based on principle and values. It was clear to us at the time that his selection was being actively advanced by Russia and France, both of whom had important economic relationships with Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

From 1981 to 1997, Blix was Chief Weapons Inspector as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. In that role, he publicly declared that nothing dangerous was taking place in Iraq -- this in spite of the fact that there had been a nuclear reactor at Osirail just outside Baghdad, which Israel fortunately destroyed in 1981, because it could not depend on the United Nations or others to deal with the threat. Mr. Blix also seemed to be unaffected by the fact that Saddam had used weapons of mass destruction against his own people as well as against his neighbors. It is not surprising that he did not, in his most recent oral report to the Security Council, inform it and the world that his inspectors found a previously undisclosed rocket, cluster warhead, and drone aircraft -- all capable of spraying chemical and biological agents, and all in flagrant violation of the many U.N. resolutions. How does Mr. Blix define a "smoking gun"? He apparently continues to have faith there is truth in what he is being told by Saddam Hussein.

Given the ineffectiveness of the United Nations in disarming Iraq over the last 12 years, it is astounding that Germany, France and some other traditional European allies are exploiting procedural technicalities in an attempt not only to embarrass the United States but to prevent us from dealing with a serious threat to our national security, as well as to human dignity for the people of Iraq. To place our national security interests and international policy concerns in the hands of the United Nations is dangerous.

History can regrettably repeat itself if we choose to ignore its lessons. In 1935, with Mussolini ready to attack Abyssinia, Great Britain urged the League of Nations to take steps to stop the attack. Pierre Laval, the French Foreign Minister, who was apparently unwilling to antagonize Mussolini, urged that sanctions would be adequate and war could be avoided. We later learned that the Banque de France was one of Mussolini's financial backers. The League of Nations failed. World War II began.

A strong case may be made for the existence of an international body to which all of the world's states, democratic and authoritarian, belong. Discussion and constructive exchange may flow from it. But let us not bestow on it the virtue of being a forum of principle or wisdom qualified to judge the dimension of our national welfare and value. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, as he was leaving his role as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. in 1976, called it a “theatre of the absurd." These and other similar patterns of behavior do not justify the placing of American security issues in the hands of the United Nations. It would be foolhardy to do so.

The United Nations remains far short of realizing its potential. It does not serve that which its creators hoped for it to represent. Its purpose was to help the peoples of the world strive to realize their aspirations for dignity, but the direction and control of the United Nations has been hijacked by authoritarian regimes, the relics of yesterday. The United Nations can and should be reformed, and we should work diligently toward realizing its original goal: freedom, democracy and human dignity for all the peoples of the world. Until then, since our national values and our national interest are at stake, we must not permit our interests to be diverted and undermined by the unprincipled.

Max M. Kampelman was Counselor of the State Department; U.S. Ambassador to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe; and Ambassador and U.S. negotiator with the Soviet Union on Nuclear and Space Arms. He is now Chairman Emeritus of Freedom House; the American Academy of Diplomacy; and the Georgetown University Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.