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UNITED NATIONS, Sept 27: Most world leaders attending the special UN General Assembly session lambasted the United States for its war on and occupation of Iraq, and its inordinate support for Israel in the Palestinian conflict.
They also observed that the credibility and resourcefulness of the United Nations had been undermined by the US-led war on Iraq without explicit authorization from the UN Security Council.
The Foreign Minister of Cuba, Felipe Perez Roque, criticized on Friday the US-led war on Iraq, and said the daily attacks on American forces there are carried out by an occupied people fighting for their “right to self-determination.”
Mr Roque also said that the United Nations was becoming “irrelevant.”
Speaking to the 191-member General Assembly, he called for “the end of the occupation in Iraq, the immediate handover of the real control to the United Nations and the commencement of the recovery process for Iraq’s sovereignty.”
Mr Roque called the near-daily attacks against US soldiers in Iraq “the reaction of a people that ... begins to fight over the respect for its right to self-determination.”
The United States launched “a war supported by just a few — either by shortsightedness or by meanness of interests,” he said.
He denounced Washington’s foreign policy, saying the “only superpower” should recognize that “far from disturbing, it should contribute to the creation of a peaceful world entitled to both justice and development for all.”
Mr Roque said: “Those with the most ability to prevent and remove the threats to peace are the ones causing the war today.”
With his trademark bluntness, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad used his final appearance at the United Nations to deride the world body as a “puppet” of rich and powerful nations.
“Its organs have been cut out, dissected and reshaped so that they may perform the way the puppet masters want,” he said, naming the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization as “instruments of hegemony.”
MUGABE: Similarly, Zimbabwe’s president, battling international isolation imposed over his authoritarian rule, blasted on Friday the United States, Britain and international agencies.
President Robert Mugabe accused the World Bank, the IMF and the World Trade Organization of serving only wealthy nations, and said the UN needed a new structure because it had been designed to address the woes of another era.
The Security Council must democratize because the veto gives too much power to its five permanent members, the United States, China, Russia, Britain and France, Mr Mugabe added.
But he used his address to criticise the United States and Britain, which invaded Iraq without UN authorization.
“It was and remains an unjust and illegitimate war (that) has transformed itself into an effective occupation of a sovereign people,” he said, accusing Washington and London of “naked unilateralism.”
The Zimbabwe president said: “We hope the coalition that willingly went to war without Security Council sanction is now willing to admit that defeating others is not always the same as winning peace, that wars are not ended by proclamations but by just settlements.
“Let it not be said that Zimbabwe enjoys criticizing the United States and Britain for the sake of criticism. Criticisms are based on sound fundamental principles.”
Most Islamic world leaders stressed the need for the US to be evenhanded in resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
The perception in the Muslim world is the policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iraq, specially its support for the Israelis when they are carrying out attacks in the occupied territories while condemning attacks in Israel by Palestinian extremists.
President Pervez Musharraf called on industrialized world to resolve the crisis in the Islamic world by helping to resolve the political disputes and situations where Muslim peoples are being suppressed, such as in Palestine and Kashmir and by rejecting attempts to equate terrorism with Islam.
