Annan Calls for Radical [UN] Reforms to Cope with Terror

Reuters ^ | Mon September 8, 2003 01:12 PM ET | Evelyn Leopold

[yonif]

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Reeling from the attack on U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Monday the world security system had been shaken to its core with divisions on the most fundamental issues.

In a major report, Annan called for radical reforms in the United Nations and other institutions to cope with war, terrorism, poverty and human rights.

"In peace and security I felt that this year a simple progress report would not be enough," Annan told a news conference at which he released the report."

"I have an uneasy feeling that the system is not working as it should," he said, referring to pledges on security, development, poverty and human rights world leaders had pledged in a September 2000 U.N. Millennium Declaration.

Annan said the divisions over Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March would not be easily overcome. He said that war and other conflicts highlighted the problems of international legitimacy, new and more virulent forms of terrorism, the proliferation of nonconventional weapons and the spread of criminal networks.

Annan submitted the report for this month's General Assembly ministerial session, three days before the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States and three weeks after the Aug. 19 bombing of the U.N. compound in Iraq that killed 22 people and injured 100.

"I see that attack as a direct challenge to the vision of global solidarity and collective security rooted in the United Nations Charter," he wrote of the Aug. 19 bombing.

"Its significance thus reaches beyond the tragedy that affects us personally, as individuals, or even institutionally, as an organization."

Annan said he had written to 191 nations two weeks before the annual General Assembly ministerial session, asking them to come up with new ideas on fighting terrorism, weapons proliferation, poverty and promoting development.

WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

On weapons of mass destruction, Annan noted there was no global comprehensive monitoring and enforcement system, even for nuclear inspections and too little effort by nuclear powers to "diminish the symbolic importance of these weapons."

He also criticized the 191-member General Assembly for lacking priorities, the Security Council for being undemocratic, the U.N. Trusteeship Council for existing without real work and international financial institutions for making decisions without including the developing nations they were meant to serve.

On the General Assembly, Annan said its sheer size had produced an agenda crowded with overlapping items of interest to only a few, decisions taken that most nations ignore and "repetitive and sterile debates."

The opposite is the often the case in the 15-member Security Council, whose decisions can affect war and peace, and international financial institutions, which also have a "decisive impact on the real world," he said.

In both institutions, the developing world "feels its views and interest are insufficiently represented," Annan wrote.

Many of the world's crises are not new and pledges on security as well as development in the millennium declaration look less solid now than three years ago, Annan said.

"For many around the globe, poverty, deprivation and civil war remain the highest priority," Annan said.

Africa's development, in particular, continued to be hampered by war. "Many of the continent's recent conflicts have been characterized by extreme acts of violence perpetrated against civilians, including brutal acts of torture, rape, mutilation, harassment and executions," Annan said.

He said that decisions to take action have been "hesitant and tardy" such as intervening in massacres "verging on genocidal proportions" in the Congo and Liberia. And peacekeeping ventures are now staffed largely by developing nations, who cannot continue to shoulder the burden, he said.

[yonif]

Here's a new idea on fighting terrorists the UN should adopt - CALL THEM WHAT THEY ARE.

[finnman69]

People who set off bombs at UN buildings are bad. But somehow the UN will never be able to bring it itself to say this.

[Humvee]

It is intersting to note that Mr. Annan is finally waking up to the realities most of us have known for years. An' he duh secaty gen'l.

[usurper]

The UN created global terrorism my legitimizing it as a form of resistance. Now they want to put it back in bottle after they got bit. Too bad they have no idea what to do now.

Funny how it was never a problem before when only the Jews were being killed.

[alex]

I suppose that he relized that US may actually get out of UN and then instead of confortable life and retirement in USA he will be facing life in much less hospitable place. He still cannot make himself do anything about it, but at least he got slightly scared.