Reinventing the United Nations

Reinventing the United NationsUnited Nations, Oct 25. -Since leaving my post as president of the UN General Assembly, on September 14, 2009, I have been working on a proposal to reinvent the United Nations. We will soon be presenting that proposal.

I am among those who are convinced that today more than ever, the world needs a real United Nations, one that unites all of the peoples and governments of the world in defense of the right to life and all the other inalienable rights of human beings as individuals and of humanity as a whole, of all living things, of nature in general and of Mother Earth. What we have now for the United Nations is a fraud, a farce, a big lie, because there are those who have sought to mar it beyond any possible reform.

And I say this because it is evident that within the organization, we have a member state, the most influential because it is rich and militarily powerful, which has been able to persuade other members, principally from the so-called First World, to work for an agenda that is radically different from the agenda of peace, respect and harmony between all member states, always respecting their sovereign equality, which the Charter holds up as its top principle. That member state behaves like the lord and master of the organization and its "negotiations" are nothing but threats, reprisals and vast campaigns of slander which we can only describe as media terrorism.

For the United Nations to become a truly authentic organization, all of the member states, and particularly the most powerful and influential, would have to be truly committed to world peace, the eradication of war, hunger and poverty in this world. After all, those were the objectives for which the United Nations was created, and in signing its Charter, member states promised to dedicate their best efforts to achieving those goals.

I believe that there is no question that most peoples in the world long for peace, and consider it the supreme good for which we should work. However, as we have said, there is a state for which the supreme good, that which gives meaning to its existence, is not peace but power. A power of domination and devastation that we can only describe as diabolic, give that there is no method, no matter how violent or criminal, that this state, which we normally simply refer to as imperialism, is not ready to use to reach its goal of full-spectrum dominance, the name given by the Pentagon itself to its military strategy to take control of the entire planet and beyond.

The essential perversity of the Empire is not something that came about by itself, as if by accident. It was something premeditated, determined by the principal architects of the policy of Cold War containment, with George F. Kennan, director of the policy planning stff of the State Department, in the lead. In an internal document about 1948 foreign policy, classified as top secret, he sums up what the principal objectives of U.S. foreign policy should be during the creation of the post-war empire known as the American century. Kennanâ�Ös theory, eventually declassified, was spine-chillingly clear. Selfishness and greed were officially enthroned, while international solidarity was characterized as an extravagance in face of the "more serious and important" priorities at that time. "We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction." With these values and ideas, it was to be expected that the United States would always conduct itself as the enemy of the values and principles contained in the UN Charter.

We cannot continue to fool ourselves. The United States may have signed the UN Charter but it never shared in its principles and values. It has never sought peace because it needs war as a means to achieving its full-spectrum dominance, which now includes outer space and cyberspace. The United States has never believed in the rule of law in international relations; it has always believed in the law of the jungle, the law of the strongest. It has never believed in the United Nations, and has only wanted to manipulate it, and as the most influential member state in the organization, has always blackmailed and threatened it if it did not go along with its genocides, such as the one it committed against Nicaragua, and which it continues to commit against Iraq and Afghanistan.

It was all of these reflections that led me to say, at the end of my term as president of the General Assembly, that the UN has reached a point where reforms and remedies are not enough. It must be REINVENTED, and it is as a contribution to this urgent task of reinvention that I have dedicated myself in the last two years. This is my personal proposal, as former president of the UN General Assembly, under by complete and exclusive responsibility, and as a person interested in peace and the eradication of war, hunger, poverty and the abuse of our Mother Earth, without which we cannot live. The values that I defend, and that I have defended all my life, are the values of my Lord Jesus, which in essence, I find absolutely compatible with the values of my sisters and brothers who are Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Confucianist, Hindu, Aymara, like those of all religions in the world and the richest ethical/philosophical traditions, such as Marxism, for example, which are conducive to correct relations between all that lives and suffers.

It seems to me extremely urgent for us to get down to business in reinventing the UN so that is really what it is, and not an organization subjugated to any master, no matter how rich and military powerful. Personally, I have wanted to respond to the trust that the member states placed in me, their humble servant, in electing me president of the 63rd session of the UN General Assembly, by reflecting for the last two years and exchanging ideas with those who seem to me to be among the best-qualified to help me prepare a good and viable proposal for reinventing the United Nations and making it into an effective instrument in the fight for peace, the eradication of war, hunger and extreme poverty on Earth. A truly democratized and de-militarized United Nations. With humility and much love, we will soon be presenting the latest version on our website: www.reinventingtheun.org

Once the proposal is received, action would have to be taken quickly, taking into account that its acceptance or rejection would have to be made among the heads of state and government.

Remitting it to be analyzed by the permanent representatives to the UN would be expose it to a sudden death, entrapped in the immense web of procedural norms such as those stipulated for "reforms" whose only purpose is for nothing to change. Negotiating it regionally by groups of heads of state and government of the members of the Group of 77 + China could be relatively easy and achieved with the speed necessary by subjecting it to the approval of the General Assembly once the votes were guaranteed from the Group of 77 + China, which would be joined, I am certain, by many others. (Prensa Latina)

* Excerpts from his essay in Spanish, "Reinventando la ONU."