Where UN gave relief and where it failed to

LAHORE: The nearly 90-minute meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) did discuss the fast-deteriorating situation in Held Kashmir and surely acknowledged the gravity of the issue behind closed doors in New York Friday, but no resolution was adapted to stop India from giving birth to a very serious humanitarian crisis forthwith.

Over a billion-and-a quarter eyes in Pakistan and India alone were glued to TV screens, waiting for the UNSC to come up with some sort of an urgent yet binding resolution, but despite being equipped with powers to establish peace-keeping missions, authorise military actions with a stroke of pen and impose international sanctions on any non-complying state, this 73-year-old body did not give any reprieve to the sullen-faced Kashmiris facing the wrath of the Indian troops every minute. The UNSC has been given all three powers of the legislative, executive and judiciary branches by the United Nations, whose resolutions on Kashmir issue have always fallen on deaf Indian ears since 1948. Yes, the Kashmir issue has yet again gained international importance, as Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had later summed up the outcome of the UNSC meeting.

However, it was very painful to watch the Pakistani and Indian TV channels beating their own drums, claiming victory after the much-trumpeted USNC moot.

Research conducted by the Jang Group and Geo Television Network shows that the UNSC has been criticised in the past by various world leaders for its failure to resolve many global conflicts and human catastrophes. This organisation, as study shows, had neither succeeded in preventing ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Rwanda, nor was its role exemplary in war-torn countries like Cyprus, Sri Lanka, Syria and Kosovo etc.

It goes without saying that this New York-based organisation, which is one of the six principal organs of the 193-member United Nations, is entrusted with the task to ensure international peace and security, but it has met no success till date in improving the always-worsening Israel-Palestine situation; and now it has another huge task at hand - and that is to find an earliest solution to the brewing humanitarian crisis in Held Kashmir where India is treating humans worse than animals by depriving them of food and medicines.

Research further shows that the United Nations Security Council was slated by late Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi in 2009 for the veto powers being held by its five permanent members: Russia, the United States, France, the United Kingdom and China, all of whom had emerged victors after the World War II.

Besides being dominated by five permanent members, who can veto any resolution tabled, the UNSC has 10 non-permanent members, who are elected on a regional basis to serve a term of two years. The body’s presidency rotates monthly among its members. This body had also attracted an expression of disapproval from the Iranian leader Ayotallah Khamenei, in 2012. The supreme Iranian statesman had hit out at the UNSC for having an “illogical, unjust and completely undemocratic structure and mechanism”, calling for a complete reformation of the body.

Last but not the least, the UNSC was censured by the then New Zealand premier John Key, who had gone on to view that it was a huge failure on part of this body to play a due role in the Syrian civil war.

The other side of the picture reveals that the UNSC was widely praised for its authorised interventions in the 1950-1953 Korean War between North Korea and South Korea (over 2.5 million people/troops killed or wounded), the 1960 to 1965 Congo crisis (claiming over 100,000 lives), the 1956 Suez crisis or the Second Arab–Israeli war (claiming thousands of lives), the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus (estimated 10,000 lives lost) and the 1962 the Papua conflict in Western New Guinea (estimated 150,000–400,000 killed in total).

The UNSC was created after World War II, following the glaring failures of the 1920 Geneva-based “League of Nations” in maintaining world peace after World War I.

The “League of Nations” as research tells us had failed to act against the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria in China (over 142,000 deaths), the 1935-1936 Second war between Italy and Ethiopia (382,800 civilians killed), the 1937 Japanese invasion of China (estimates of Chinese civilian deaths stand at 3,237,000, while 455,700 to 0.7 million Japanese military personnel had lost lives) and the Nazi expansion under Adolf Hitler, leading to murder of six million Jews alone.

This body, the “League of Nations” had thus ceased to function on April 20, 1946, paving way for the formation of the UNSC, which claims its peacekeeping missions help countries navigate the difficult path from conflict to peace. The UNSC peace-keeping efforts around the globe and budget:

In recent times, the Security Council has authorised major military and peacekeeping missions in Kuwait, Rwanda, Sudan, Congo, Namibia, Somalia and Bosnia etc.

The approved budget for United Nations’ peacekeeping operations for the fiscal year July 2018 - June 2019 rests at US$6.7 billion, an amount that finances 12 of the 14 United Nations peacekeeping missions.

This amount of $6.7 billion also supports logistics for the African Union Mission in Somalia and provides support, technology and logistics to all peace operations through its global offices in Italy, Spain and Uganda.

The remaining two peacekeeping missions, the UN Truce Supervision Organisation and the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan, are financed through the regular United Nations budget.

As of June 30, 2019, there are 100,411 people serving in UN peacekeeping operations (86,145 uniformed, 12,932 civilians, and 1,334 volunteers). European nations contribute nearly 6,000 units to this total. For information’s sake, a complex formula requires the United States to pay 22 percent of the United Nations general budget and 28 percent of the peacekeeping budget.