[Fis] 65 years later

. 19 March 1938. Mexico officially protested against the invasion of
Austria by the German (Nazi) army. The President of México Lázaro
Cárdenas gave to Mexican Ambassador Isidro Fabela the instructions
for presenting the protest to the League of Nations (Geneva,
Switzerland).

This League of Nations (LoN) had been created at the Peace Conference
in 1920 in an attempt to outlaw war. It was intended that aggressor
states would be punished by economic sanctions.

The LoN had been weakened from the outset when the US Senate
refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, and the USA did not join
the League. However , the notion of 'collective security' survived.
By the Locarno Treaties of 1925 Germany's western frontiers were
guaranteed by Italy and Britain. At this time Germany joined the
League. The Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) renounced war as a means of
settling disputes, and was signed by 65 nations.

But such a notion of collective security proved of little lasting
value due first to the growing rivalry in the Pacific between Japan
and the USA and later to the aggressiveness of governments of
Germany, Italy and Japan which decided to invade and conquer other
lands in order to expand each one its dominions.

During the II WW the allies agreed to create a new international
organization to replace the ill-fated League of Nations which proved
unable to stand up to international aggression in the 1930s,

At the Umbarton Oaks (August-October 1944) and San Francisco
(April-June 1945) conferences the participants worked out the
circumstances that allowed the United Nations Organization to come
into existence on 24 October 1945. The founding fathers of UNO
determined that its three basic purposes should be:

° To maintain international peace and security

° To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for
the principle of equal rights and self determination of peoples.

° To achieve international co-operation in solving international
problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character
and promote and encourage respect for human rights and for
fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex,
language or religion.

Theoretically the UNO's General Assembly and Security Council have
had the authority to discuss disputes. to make recommendations for the
settlements of such disputes. In addition if necessary, to order
collective measures to enforce the peace under the assumption that it
should not intervene in matters which are essentially within the
domestic jurisdiction of any state, in order to safeguard the
principle of state sovereignty.

Along the last 57 years the Security Council has been hampered by a
lack of unanimity among the great powers and has only been able to
mount some 'peacekeeping' operations, in which forces drawn from
member-states have acted as buffers between warring states or
factions, at the request of the government(s) concerned so as to make
a resumption of hostilities less likely. The General Assembly has at
least provided a forum where the states of the world can let off
'steam'.

The UNO is a free association of states presumably based upon the
principle of state sovereignty, which means that it can only do as
much - or as little - as its members states allow it to do

The UNO 's overall record has been uneven. it has not lived up to the
original ideals, but it had not failed entirely and had proved its
usefulness in many conflicts until February 2003.

19 March 2003 may be the date UNO's functionality is tragically
broken by the decision taken by the authoritarian and antidemocratic
alliance that USA's administration made with the rulers of England
and Spain in order to overthrown the regime of Irak by means of a
super modern warfare against the people of Irak who will suffer the
impact of weapons for massive annihilation in order to assure a quick
and definitive victory.

This warring action is against the recommendation of the Security
Council of UNO which could not accept the proposal of the Alliance
thought it has obtained the acceptation of some member of this
Council (representatives of few other countries) who expect to
receive some reward, payment or recompense.

This war has been organized against the three basic purposes of UNO
ignoring that it is unreasonable to continue reinforcing the war
industry instead of attending the enormous needs of billions of
people. In addition it will be illegal because the legal rules
approved by the members of UNO, which are in fact international law.
are simply disregarded.

What will be definitely catastrophic in case it happen (let me assume
that there is still some hope it won't occur) is the fact that for
the first time it has been used the presence of UNO officials for
organizing the disarmament of a country before the war takes place.
In other words it means that the powerful USA successfully required -
through UNO - the enemy to lay down their weapons before the battle.

After this fatal experience of UNO the only decorous option for its
members is to resign before this entity which is only 57 years old is
closed after recognizing that it is dead because it became useless.

Gordon Childe commented about the perspective of humankind that man
makes himself. This disastrous war will be only the culmination of
the sanguinary course that characterizes the history of humankind
during the last six millennia but in the year 2003 it could be the
beginning of the apocalypse. It has become a feasible event due to
the presence of weapons for massive annihilation that are
continuously produced in order to make profitable the war industry,
no matter billions of people are against warfare. After all they can
be only human resources increasingly useless for the high society due
to the successful automation.
Received on Thu Mar 20 09:56:53 2003