THE UNITED NATIONS

THE UNITED NATIONS

U.N. History

Foundation

The signing of the "Charta of the United Nations" was finished at the 26^th of June in 1945 in San Francisco/ USA After the ratification from China, France, Great Britain, USSR, and USA as well as the majority of  the other signing - nations, the Charta came into force.

Primary Objectives

Preservation and consolidation of peace and international safety. Establishment of peaceful relations between the nations on the basis of equality and self-determination of the nations. Co-operation by resolving humanitarian-, cultural-, social-, and economy problems.

Secondary Objectives

The signing - nations should find peaceful solutions for international quarrels, so that there is no threat to world peace, international security and justice.   

PROBLEMS OF THE U.N.

The Gulf War

After Iraqi troops kept Kuwait City occupied, U.S. president George Bush gave Saddam Hussein a deadline after a frustrating week of Soviet efforts to broker a deal that would be acceptable to both Iraq and allies. The day before, Feb. 15, a Baghdad announcement indicated Iraq's 'readiness to deal with' the basic U.N. resolution demanding withdrawal from Kuwait. But Iraq's farfetched conditions, one demanded reparations for allied bombing, let have Bush denounce the proposal as a 'cruel hoax'.

The U.N. didn't continue to find a peaceful solution, but Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev proclaimed himself encouraged enough to invite Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz to Moscow for new talks. In Moscow, Gorbachev handed Aziz a Soviet proposal that was quickly communicated to the allies fighting Iraq. Basically, Iraq would withdraw, supposedly unconditionally, from Kuwait. In return, Moscow would have undertaken to preserve Saddam from any punitive actions (a war-crimes trial, for instance), guarantee Iraq's territorial integrity, try to get economic sanctions against Iraq lifted and work for an overall Middle East peace conference. This proposal didn't set a timetable for withdrawal from Kuwait, so the allies had the fear that Saddam may leave Kuwait in weeks or months. But in private, allied officials were blunt in contending that Saddam must lose his face if not his skin. His armies must not only be beaten but beaten so thoroughly and unmistakably that there will be no way to disguise the loss. One more time this showed that the allies didn't care much about a peaceful solution. Wanted they to demonstrate their strength regardless?

Partly the allies didn't want to lose their face, but if they would have lifted the economical embargo and performed Saddams conditions, their doing would have been called a poor show. Annulment of all U.N. resolutions after withdrawal would have relieved Iraq of any pressure to pay reparations for having ravished Kuwait. Whether such reparations could ever be collected from an Iraq economy knocked practically flat by bombing is uncertain. On the other side there had to be more at stake than let Saddam bleed for his doing. I think that this war wasn't just a demonstration of might, but also a financial challenge all around Persian Gulf oil. I won't think about the possibility, that a poor country was occupied by an other poor country. The motivation of quick help would be very low, because allies would think 'no money, no help'.

Bosnia

In June 1995, after two years of a virtual standoff, the protagonists have started a major shooting war against the international community to let them withdraw its troops. As the large Muslim army launched its most aggressive offensive ever, U.N. soldiers stood by while Muslim government and Serb forces emptied the heavy-weapons collection points around Sarajevo. The 'peacekeepers' then waited nervously for the Bosnian Croats to join the fight. Meeting in Halifax the G-7 leaders of the major industrial democracies seemed less interested in Bosnia then in developing an early-warning system for economic calamities like Mexico. Sure, it's important to help non-, or low industrialized countries, but what is more important than saving lives in this terrible war? I think the answer is money. In comparison to Kuwait Bosnia has now large oil-fields. Another reason could be, that the U.N. is at low budget.

That hard facts showed, that U.N. forces were not able or not allowed to take vigorous action there. As lightly armed troops, U.N..soldiers operated under highly restricted rules of engagement and paid a terrible price. The U.N. peacekeeping force in Bosnia suffered more than 100 fatalities, including 56 French and 18 British soldiers. This was a further reason more to send more resistently troops to Bosnia. As peace enforcers serving under NATO command, the French, British, American and other members of the 60,000-men strong international implementation force have carried heavy weapons and they were authorized to shoot not only if they came under fire, but even if they were just threatened.

The U.N. have to be praised for their highly restricted rules of engagement, because nobody would be hurt intentionally. But this doesn't alter the fact that these rules claim so many human life's. The U.N. leader(s) should not send troops to a theatre of war, if their soldiers are not allowed to defend themselves. The mission in Bosnia , which began in 1992 and is just winding up, can only be described as a horrendous failure.

Budget and Security Council

No one loves the United Nations. Not its stern but neglectful parents, the United States, which gave birth to the U.N. 50 years ago, but has fallen about 10 years behind in child-support payments. The U.S. seems only moderately embarrassed at being 'the biggest piker in the U.N.' (Bill Clinton words), because it hopes that withholding $1.2 billion in dues will force the U.N. to overhaul itself at last. Madlene Albright, U.S. ambassador, said that the U.S. would eliminate funding for several U.N. agencies while trimming the whole U.N. budget by a healthy margin. The U.S. also wants to reduce its own share of that budget to less than 25 percent.

This time the U.N. is nearly $3billion in the hole and appears truly on the verge of bankruptcy. Not only the non-payments of the U.S. are blame to this situation but also the U.N. peacekeeping actions. The budget for peacekeeping has ballooned from $230 million in 1988 to $3.1 billion today, draining U.N. coffers. That is caused by the number of United Nations peacekeeping operations. From 1945 to 1985, 40 years, 13 operations have been deployed, but since 1985 25 operations were started. The annual budget of the U.N. in 1995 was $1.35 billion, plus $3.1 billion for peacekeeping. In comparison: The annual budget of the New York Police Department in 1995 was $2.26 billion.

How to update the Security Council is a case in point. Most people agree that the five permanent members, the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain, reflect the geopolitics of 1945, not 1995. The idea of enlarging the council to include Germany and Japan as permanent members once seemed straightforward, even obvious. Big Third World nations such as India and Nigeria think they deserve a sea at the 'rich men's table', too. Smaller countries clamor for the number of nonpermanent members to be increased. 'The Big Five' are horrified at the prospect of turning the relatively businesslike Security Council into another version of the hopelessly inefficient General Assembly.

Liberia

April 1996, Monrovia, capital of the West African state Liberia, was engulfed in the worst round of terror in six years. After three days of heavy shooting, the first U.S. MH-53 helicopter finally appeared over the horizon. Aid workers, foreign businessmen and U.N. staff breathed a collective sigh of relief. By weeks end U.S. helicopters had evacuated more than 1,600 foreigners.

Monrovia, where civil order has log been a relative term, has fallen into total chaos. In the district of Mamba Point, gunmen battered down the gates of the U.N. headquarters, then attempted to invade the American embassy, only to be repelled by U.S. special forces. Far from quelling the chaos, members of the Nigerian-led West African peacekeeping force, which has been in the country since 1990, have themselves begun looting, according to several U.N. officials.

The year before a peace accord was signed in August. Under the terms of that agreement, leaders of the country, from seven warring factions, left their bases in the countryside and took up office as members of a ruling council in Monrovia. U.N. officials and members of Economic Community of West African States, which brokered last year's peace accord, fear that the country is once again slipping into a civil war.

In this case the U.N. was able to let the leaders of civil war sign a peace treaty, but not of keeping up peace. Maybe the U.N. had not enough armed troops in Liberia. At least the troops should have been disbanded to give them no chance of rebuilding.

Other peacekeeping missions and the UNICEF

The U.N. are represented everywhere on the globe. Cyprus and Rwanda are the best known long-term peacekeeping missions with different success.

The U.N. subordinated organization, the UNICEF (UN Children's Fund), which is purposed to help children and young persons with health care, feeding and education primary in developing (third-world) countries, is one of the most important U.N. organization in third-world countries. It's no military part of the U.N. but is helping people who are victims of war. So many human lives are saved and that's, so I think, one of the most important responsibilities of the U.N. The peaceful solutions for international quarrels was not the strength of the U.N. in the past 10 years. Maybe this belongs to the financial problems. My opinion is, that without the U.N. world peace has no chance today.