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Twelve Times The UN Has Failed The World:: Israeli Occupation (1948-Now)

The document summarizes 12 times that the UN has failed to fulfill its objectives of preventing war and maintaining peace. It provides examples of ongoing or past conflicts where the UN failed to intervene or its interventions were ineffective, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Kashmir dispute, Cambodian genocide, Somali civil war, Rwandan genocide, Srebrenica massacre, Darfur conflict, Iraq war, Syrian civil war, South Sudan civil war, and Yemen civil war. In many of these cases, the UN's Security Council was unable to pass effective resolutions due to veto powers, or UN peacekeeping forces proved unable to protect civilians or end violence and humanitarian crises.

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Asad Mehmood
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193 views5 pages

Twelve Times The UN Has Failed The World:: Israeli Occupation (1948-Now)

The document summarizes 12 times that the UN has failed to fulfill its objectives of preventing war and maintaining peace. It provides examples of ongoing or past conflicts where the UN failed to intervene or its interventions were ineffective, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Kashmir dispute, Cambodian genocide, Somali civil war, Rwandan genocide, Srebrenica massacre, Darfur conflict, Iraq war, Syrian civil war, South Sudan civil war, and Yemen civil war. In many of these cases, the UN's Security Council was unable to pass effective resolutions due to veto powers, or UN peacekeeping forces proved unable to protect civilians or end violence and humanitarian crises.

Uploaded by

Asad Mehmood
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Twelve times the UN has failed the world:

accident in Persian Gulf is tip of iceberg amid soaring tensions


The United Nations has failed to prevent war and fulfill peacekeeping duties many times
throughout its history. Millions of people around the world have been killed and
displaced since the UN was founded in 1945.

A mother, with her two remaining offspring, mourns the death of her son on Sunday, September 8,
1992, in Baidoa, before carting him off in a wheelbarrow for burial. (AP)

Since the second half of the 20th century, there have been countless wars, some
of them still ongoing, all under the watch of the United Nations.
The United Nations (UN) was set up in 1945 as an international umbrella organisation
with several objectives primarily including the prevention of war and maintaining peace
in disputed areas.
However, the UN has failed several times across the world mostly because of the right
to veto at the disposal of five countries.
Here are some of the most damning indictments of the UN’s ineffectiveness:

Israeli occupation (1948-Now)


Ever since the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, Palestinians have been fighting
against what a UN investigator once described as Israel’s ethnic cleansing.
At least 15,000 Palestinians were killed and some 750,000 out of a total population of
1.9 million were forced to take refuge far from their homelands between 1947 and 1949.
More than 7,000 Palestinians and 1,100 Israelis have died in the conflict between 2000
and 2014.

A Palestinian boy inspects the rubble of the Al Aqsa TV building after it was targeted by Israeli air
strikes against Gaza, in Gaza City on November 13, 2018. (AA)

Today Israel controls 85 percent of historic Palestine. It also imposes a


crippling blockade on Gaza and continues its construction of illegal settlements on
occupied lands in defiance of several UN resolutions calling for an end to those
activities.
The United States has also used its veto power several times to counter UN Security
Council resolutions that have condemned Israel’s use of force against Palestinian
civilians.

Kashmir dispute (1948-Now)


The ongoing confrontation in the disputed Kashmir region has become one of the
greatest human rights crises in history, marked by wanton killings, rape, incarceration of
leaders and activists, torture and disappearances of Kashmiris, despite several
unimplemented UN resolutions over the issue.
The mountainous region is divided between India and Pakistan, who have both claimed
it in full since gaining independence from British colonists in 1947.

The Indian government is using different methods to put down protests in Kashmir where
dissatisfaction among the youth runs high. (AP)
The rebellion by several Muslims groups in India-administered Kashmir, who seek either
a merger with Pakistan or independence, has gained momentum after 1989. At
least 68,000 people have been killed by Indian security forces since then.

Cambodia violence (1975-1979)


After the end of the US-Vietnam War and the Cambodian civil war in 1975, the
Khmer Rouge regime took control of Cambodia turning it into a socialist country, by
using the policy of ultra-Maoism.
The regime carried out genocide between 1975-1979, killing some two million people,
nearly 25 percent of the country.

Cambodian Muslim girls and other children view human skulls at Choeung Ek memorial, a former
Khmer Rouge, "killing field" outside the capital Phnom Penh, on Thursday, April 17, 2006. (AP)

The Vietnamese intervention ended genocide by the Khmer Rouge regime. The United
Nations recognised the Khmer Rouge regime, while ignoring concerns of human rights
violations.

Somali civil war (1991-Now)


Since the ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre by the Somali Rebellion in
1991, the decades-long civil war has raged between rival clans in the country.
The UN peacekeeping mission, UNOSOM, which was set up in December 1992 to
facilitate humanitarian aid to people trapped by civil war and famine, has since failed
because of the lack of government to communicate with and repeated attacks against
UN officers.

Somali refugees wave happily behind a sign calling for help as their ship Samaa-1 enters Yemen's
Aden harbor on Wednesday, November 18, 1992 after more than a week at sea. (AP)
The failure of the UN peacekeeping mission caused about 500,000 civilian deaths in the
country.

Rwandan civil war (1994):


One of the worst ethnic genocides since World War II, the civil war between the
Rwandan Armed Forces and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) began in 1990
and lasted until 1994.
In 1994, the then Hutu-dominated regime killed 10 UN peacekeeping officers to prevent
international intervention.

Shelves of skulls are pictured at one of the many genocide memorials in Rwanda. (Reuters Archive)

In only three months, Hutus brutally murdered about 800,000 Tutsis and raped nearly
250,000 women in Rwanda while UN troops abandoned the victims or just stayed there
as spectators while the horrific and brutal violence raged on.
Srebrenica Massacre (1995)
In 1992, Bosnia and Herzegovina declared its independence after a referendum.
Following the declaration of independence, Bosnian Serbs mobilised their forces into
the country with the help of the Serbian government, which led to the start of the war.
Around 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed by Bosnian Serb troops under the
command of former General Ratko Mladic at Srebrenica in July 1995, the worst mass
killing on European soil since World War II.

A Bosnian Muslim woman prays at the memorial wall with the names of the victims at the Potocari
Memorial Center near Srebrenica on July 22, 2008.. (Getty Images)

Many of the Muslim victims had fled to the UN-declared safe zone in Srebrenica only to
find the outnumbered and lightly armed Dutch troops there unable to defend them.

Darfur conflict in Sudan (2003-Now)

Rebels in Sudan’s western region of Darfur rose up against the government in


February 2003, saying Khartoum discriminated against non-Arab farmers there.
Some 200,000 people have been killed in the conflict since then, while 4.4 million
people need aid and over 2.5 million have been displaced.

Displaced Sudanese men seeking medical treatment line up outside the Egyptian military field
hospital at Abu Shouk refugee camp, outside the Darfur town of Al Fasher, Sudan, Thursday, March 26,
2009. (AP)

However, four years later, the UN decided to send 26,000 troops for a resolution in
Darfur.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Sudanese President Omar
Hassan al Bashir in 2009 and 2010 on charges of war crimes and genocide in his drive
to crush the Darfur revolt.

Iraq invasion (2003-2011)

More than one million Iraqis have died as a result of the conflict in their country
since the US-led invasion in 2003, according to research conducted by one of Britain’s
leading polling groups.

This image shows naked detainees with bags placed over their heads placed into a human pyramid
as Spc. Sabrina Harman, middle and Cpl. Charles Graner Jr., above, pose behind them in late 2003 at
the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq. (AP)

The intervention and regime change sought by the US left Iraq with civil and economic
instability, and vulnerable to terrorism by Daesh in the coming years.
UN Resolution 1483 attempted to legitimise the invasion that was carried out under the
false assertion by the US and the UK that the Saddam regime was in possession of
Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Syrian civil war (2011-Now):

The Syrian regime launched a brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters who took
to the streets in March 2011, with its leader Bashar al Assad saying he would
“relentlessly fight terrorist groups”— referring to the pro-democracy protesters.
The regime released imprisoned Al Qaeda members, right after the protests turned into
an uprising, who later formed the backbone of leadership in Daesh, which spread to
Syria in 2014 from Iraq.
Several foreign countries are involved in several conflict areas across Syria.

In this photo taken on Thursday, August 16, 2018, people drive their cars past destroyed buildings in
the city of Aleppo, Syria. (AP)

In the year that followed, the UN Security Council tried to pass several resolutions to
address the conflict, but Russia utilised its veto power at least a dozen times to protect its
ally, Assad.
Syria's conflict alone had, by the end of last year, pushed more than 6.3 million people
out of the country, accounting for nearly one-third of the global refugee population.
Another 6.2 million Syrians are internally displaced.

South Sudan (2013-Now)


South Sudan became an independent country in July 2011, separating from
Sudan.
The country has been experiencing a civil war between President Salva Kiir, from the
Dinka ethnic group, and former vice president Riek Machar, frin the Nuer ethnic group.
In the civil war, at least 382,000 people have been killed, according to a State Department-
funded study.

Imagine, your town is attacked.

You see friends killed.


Your home is destroyed.
You’re forced to run and hide.
You lose your family in the chaos.
You cannot return.

1 in 3 people in #SouthSudan have been forced from their homes.

They don’t have to imagine.


More than 14,500 UN peacekeeping officers deployed in the country have failed to
prevent the humanitarian crisis in South Sudan. The conflict has forced 2.5 million
people to flee the country and left another 1.8 million people displaced within South
Sudan. Nearly five million people are also facing severe food insecurity.
Yemen civil war (2014-Now)

The war in Yemen, which began in 2014, between forces loyal to the
internationally-accepted government of President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi backed by
Saudi Arabia and Iranian-backed Houthis has turned more violent after a Saudi-led
international coalition started operations against Houthis in March 2015.
A doctor inspects Yemeni boy Ghazi Ali bin Ali, 10, suffering from severe malnutrition as he lies on a bed
at a hospital in Jabal Habashi on the outskirts of the city of Taiz, on October 30, 2018. (AFP)
The Saudi-led coalition began its intervention in Yemen in 2015, escalating the war,
which left the poorest country in the Arab world in a state of disaster.
The UN has failed to send humanitarian aid, food and drugs to civilians amid a blockade
imposed on the war-torn country.

Rohingya Crisis, Myanmar (2017-Now)

On August 25, 2017, Myanmar launched a major military crackdown on the


Muslim ethnic minority, killing almost 24,000 civilians and forcing 750,000 others,
including women and children, to flee to Bangladesh, according to the Ontario
International Development Agency (OIDA).
China stood behind Myanmar on the Rohingya crisis by blocking efforts for the
Rohingya in the UN Security Council.
Rohingya refugees arrive to the Bangladeshi side of the Naf River after crossing the border from
Myanmar. (REUTERS/Jorge Silva / Reuters)
The UN documented mass gang rapes, killings — including of infants and young
children — brutal beatings and disappearances committed by Myanmar state forces.
The UN has described the Rohingya as the “world's most persecuted people.”

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