Reforming the UN

Addressing the UN General Assembly's 59th session, President Pervez Musharraf has underlined the need for enlarging the Security Council to ensure representation of the small and medium-sized states.

At the same time, he warned that the majority of members were opposed to the creation of new pockets of privilege in the world body. There is obviously a need to create a consensus on the basic reforms of the UN.

The fact is that it is now universally agreed that the United Nations is out of sync with the geopolitical and economic realities of the times. It was created 59 years ago "on the ashes of war", to use the secretary-general's words, and the victors so shaped the organization as to reflect the realities of power at the time.

Over the years the international system was transformed as the process of decolonization saw the induction of a large number of Third World states into the world body.

Many anomalies were rectified as the vanquished of yesteryear - Japan and Germany - which had been sidelined, entered the mainstream. Taiwan had to step down to allow China to take its rightful seat in the Security Council. The Council was expanded from the initial 11 to 15. But the concept of some states being permanent members and wielding the veto remained unchanged. It is for the last 10 years that voices are being raised in support of far-reaching reforms.

But this is not going to be easy as is evident from the controversy surrounding the claims made by Germany, Japan, India and Brazil to permanent membership. It is a pity if inter-state rivalries were to scuttle the thrust towards reform of the UN.

Mr Kofi Annan has set up a high-level 16-member panel to prepare a report which is expected to be submitted by December. It is reported to be working on the expansion of the Security Council by another nine members and creating two sets of non-permanent members - one group with a four-year renewable term and the other elected for two years as at present.

This would be a via media but it is not clear whether the new group will enjoy the veto, which has proved to be the most contentious issue. The panel is also working on a set criteria for military action in any interstate conflict.

The importance of this cannot be over emphasized given the general opinion among UN members, as articulated by Mr Kofi Annan, that the US-led war against Iraq was illegal.

When the UN was set up, the composition of the Security Council and the veto were designed to reflect the realities of power in those days. After the Korean war, the Soviet Union and the US learnt to keep a balance in the global system so that neither of them could use the world body as its handmaiden.

With the US dominating international politics, it has demonstrated how easy it is to manipulate the United Nations for its own narrow purposes. The need of the hour is to create an inbuilt process in the UN to preclude the abuse of power by the United States.

Rather than waste time on quibbling over who is to be inducted into the Council and who to be kept out, it would be more sensible for Third World countries to concentrate on mechanisms to prevent states with a preponderance of power from riding roughshod over the rights of the weaker countries.

Words alone won't do

President George Bush's advice to Israel in his speech at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday will remain mere pontification unless he takes practical steps to implement the ideas he spelled out.

In his speech, the American president said things that no one would disagree with. He asked Israel to freeze all settlement activity, disband unauthorized outposts and end the daily humiliation of the Palestinian people.

Previously, too, he had doled out similar advice to Israel. However, during his four years in the White House, Mr Bush has done nothing to ensure compliance with his do's and don'ts to Israel. On the contrary, his policies have encouraged Israel in its defiance of the relevant UN resolutions and the continued occupation of Palestinian territories.

Israel had stalled the implementation of the Oslo peace process even before Mr Bush became president. The situation worsened when Mr Ariel Sharon became prime minister. The hard-line Likud leader reoccupied the areas Israel had vacated and started a new reign of massacres, destruction of Palestinian houses and targeted killings.

The Republican administration's response to all this has been to focus on reforms in the Palestinian Authority. Last year, President Bush unveiled a new roadmap, worked out with the other three of the Quartet - the European Union, Russia and the UN.

It provided for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state by 2005. However, Tel Aviv began sabotaging the roadmap from day one.

Worse still, President Bush himself helped scuttle the roadmap by saying that Israel could keep "some" West Bank land even after withdrawing from Gaza and that 2005 was an unrealistic date for a Palestinian state to emerge.

Against these harsh realities, Mr Bush's UN speech would seem another high minded, though meaningless exercise. One knows that once back in Washington, Mr Bush would continue to follow a brazenly pro-Israel policy - especially when the presidential election is only two months away. Speeches like the one at the UN Assembly serve little purpose unless this sermonizing finds practical shape in US policies.

New passport hiccups

Instead of making things easier for applicants, the transition from the current passports to machine-readable ones has been quite painful. Applicants say that the deadline given by the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) of September 15 has come and gone but the new passports are not available yet while the issuing of the old ones has been discontinued.

This state of affairs is most disconcerting as it puts thousands of people in need of obtaining a passport running from pillar to post. Both the passport offices and Nadra blame each other for the confused state of affairs. The ultimate sufferer in this are the ordinary citizens.

A switch over of this kind can be expected to have some teething problems. But the manner in which this change over is being carried out has made things unduly difficult and confusing.

It is said that the required supply of new passports has not been obtained from Islamabad and that the training required for officials who will issue new passports is still not complete.

There is also the question of handing over the possession of passport offices to Nadra in which the new computerized system would be installed. Over one million passports are issued annually and Nadra should be able to cope with the enormous task involved.

One wonders why the switch over was effected prematurely before the required arrangements were in place. The challenge before Nadra is not just the production of new machine-readable passports. It should also ensure that the whole process is efficient, expeditious and fault-free. Only then would Nadra be fulfilling the task assigned to it.