The United Nations peacekeeping chief lamented on Wednesday that the world’s most powerful countries have severely undermined the UN’s ability to help resolve conflicts.
Unelected French career officials blamed global political divisions and countries’ insistence on marginalizing the UN in general, and the Security Council in particular, for their lack of influence.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Jean-Pierre Lacroix pointed out that the United States and Western countries on the one hand, and Russia and often China on the other, influence not only peacekeeping operations but all UN work to promote peace and security.
Political conflict could lead to the presence of U.N. peacekeepers being questioned by the warring parties and even to calls for their withdrawal, as has happened in Mali and Congo, he said.
UN peacekeepers accused of raping minors in Central African Republic http://t.co/ku7Ktg0y9o pic.twitter.com/1qh20BFwsC
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Lacroix, who was personally appointed to the role by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said that 20 years ago countries were much more likely to listen to the UN, but now the UN has been pushed aside. He cited Timor-Leste, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cambodia as examples of what is possible.
“But we don’t have that anymore,” he said ahead of the International Day of UN Peacekeepers on Wednesday.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sits in a helicopter during a visit to flood-hit areas in Pakistan’s Sindh province on September 10, 2022. (MUHAMMAD DAUD/AFP via Getty Images)
“Certainly, the UN remains present in various crisis situations, but it does not have the power to forcefully bring member states together to advance inter-party political agreements,” he said.
“And sometimes those agreements break down or stagnate, creating discontent.”
He added that today many foreign countries intervene in world affairs for their own interests, citing the Central African Republic, Somalia, Sudan, Libya and Mali as examples: “The list is long and continues to grow.”
UN migration chief: Europe’s forced migration program needs to be bigger and faster https://t.co/ZDOZcWUW1i pic.twitter.com/Lls7qn8nZP
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The importance of multilateralism cannot be overstated, Lacroix declared.
The United Nations’ despair over its declining relevance is nothing new in the 21st century.
As reported by Breitbart News, the world needs an inclusive level of multilateral governance that can set aside problematic “national interests,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in 2020, lamenting that existing UN instruments such as the Security Council have power but “little or no willingness to bite.”
Arguing that governments are no longer the only political and power reality, Guterres declared that “we need an effective multilateralism that can act as an instrument of global governance wherever needed.”
Read the AP interview and the full article here
