The UN: An End to Illusions:
NIEBUHR, REINHOLD
The UN: An End to Illusions By Reinhold Niebuhr Congo crisis clearly demonstrates that world organization is not a super-government Recent events in the Congo have pointed up the comparative...
...Considered together with the massive Soviet attack on the Secretary General, Dag Hammarskjold, and by implication on the UN itself, they give cause for a renewed appraisal of the world organization's capabilities and limitations...
...Russia's refusal to give financial support to the operation presented another hazard and was an additional indication of the inability of the UN to act as a cohesive executive force...
...The General Assembly resolution which ordered evacuation from Suez enabled Nasser to transmute military defeat into political victory, greatly enhancing his prestige in the Middle East...
...it can only mean the prevention of overt violence...
...Little can be done by the UN to hasten the gradual non-violent competition of political and tribal forces until a viable core of authority is achieved...
...The Assembly majority which gave Kasavubu his place of eminence could not have been achieved without the votes of the recently admitted new African nations of the French community...
...The situation in the Congo is serious, but it does not compare in scope with the resulting crisis in the UN itself...
...As for "order...
...Nevertheless, we are probably right in insisting that Kasavubu is the most promising center of authority in the Congo, and that his program of federalism holds out the best hope of bringing the warring tribes, parties and regions under some kind of central power...
...When the two hegemonous nations agreed, the smaller powers had no alternative other than obedience...
...The United Nations must be saved...
...The new Assembly principle, "One nation, one vote...
...no more accurately mirrors the realities of the international community than does the Security Council with its right of veto for the great nations...
...Since that time, American enthusiasm for the ascendancy of the General Assembly over the vetobound Security Council has somewhat dampened...
...No majority decision in either the Security Council or the General Assembly can create this kind of authority...
...Some small progress toward this end seemed to have been taken when the General Assembly recognized Joseph Kasavubu, the constitutional President of the Congo, as the head of the Congolese delegation...
...If the powers agree, as was the case with the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the UN can take strong action...
...President Eisenhower contributed to the confusion about the true nature of the organization with the pious consolation that "two wrongs do not make a right," and by congratulating the nations involved in the Suez crisis for obeying the Assembly's decree to withdraw "forthwith" from their occupied territory...
...Clearly, the UN's limitations and ineffectiveness in the Congo crisis reflect the inherent character of the organization...
...It is an indication of the tortuous process of Assembly politics that the man who helped to marshall these French African votes was a tribal brother of Kasavubu from the French Congo, across the river from the Belgian Congo...
...The present Congo crisis suggests some other limitations of the world organization...
...Although Lester Pearson, the Canadian Foreign Minister, tried vainly to soften the resolution, the majority of the General Assembly— under the leadership) of the Indian delegate, V. K. Krishna Menon, and with the vigorous assistance of American delegate Henry Cabot Lodge—insisted that the victorious nations leave the conquered territory immediately...
...But this does not mean, as many believe, that the United Nations is a world government in embryo, and that all that is needed to make it more effective is to "put teeth" into the organization—a phrase which usually means that the veto power of the great nations in the Security Council should be abolished...
...All these weaknesses and dangers are not due to any failure in UN leadership...
...He implied that such obedience was a moral act which would save world peace...
...Agreement among the great powers is an absolute prerequisite to effective UN action...
...But what is law in a new nation with only a provisional constitution...
...This action, of course, did not endow Kasavubu with either constitutional authority or political prestige in the Congo itself...
...President Kennedy was quite right in affirming, after the recent Soviet attack upon the UN, that the organization was a shield for the small nations...
...During the 1956 Suez crisis, the world body was also able to exercise great influence, but largely because our Government labored under the mistaken notion that the UN was an embryonic world government...
...But the President's moral interpretation obscured the power realities of the situation...
...Until Prime Minister Nehru of India promised increased support for the international gendarmerie, it seemed as if these withdrawals might make further action in the Congo impossible...
...Among the many hazards of effective United Nations action in the Congo has been the interference with central policy on the part of the national contingents of the UN force —notably, those of Ghana and Guinea...
...Since the assassination of former Premier Patrice Lumumba, every effort has been made to use the enhanced prestige of the dead leader to undermine Kasavubu's position...
...When the U.S...
...It cannot be saved if its character and functions are misunderstood, as in the past...
...The UN: An End to Illusions By Reinhold Niebuhr Congo crisis clearly demonstrates that world organization is not a super-government Recent events in the Congo have pointed up the comparative ineffectiveness of the United Nations in bringing order to that strife-ridden African country...
...Without the superb statesmanship of Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold, very little could have been accomplished at all...
...The UN is an absolutely necessary instrument of minimal order in a world riven by cold war, and a forum in which world opinion may influence, but cannot force any nation, particularly a great power, to do its bidding...
...The recent difficulties also may serve to dispel some dangerous illusions about the UN's character, widely held by the public and, until recently, in official circles as well...
...and Russia agreed on a common policy, the smaller powers-—France, Britain and Israel—could not but submit to it...
...The veto constitutes formal recognition that the United Nations is not a super-government with executive power to coerce its members into any particular action...
...Several African countries eventually withdrew their troops from the UN force...
...Fortunately, we now have realistic national leadership—and a strong UN delegation headed by Adlai Stevenson—which knows that the United Nations is an arena in which national and international policy must be made with vigor, not a super-government to whose decrees one simply submits...
...At the same time, the Hungarian crisis showed the real limitations of the United Nations: The world organization lacked the power to force the Soviet Union to submit to its directives...
...Obviously, the Charter prohibition of interference in the internal affairs of member nations has prevented the UN from doing any more than stationing an international force, made up of voluntary national contingents from other African nations, in the Congo in order to preserve "law and order...
...The emergence of an Afro-Asian bloc in the Assembly, with an influence on the destiny of the world quite disproportionate to the power and responsibility of the nations which compose it, has given rise to some second thoughts...
Vol. 44 • February 1961 • No. 9
