The United Nations:
Apologist for imperialism

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The United Nations (UN) Millennium Summit was held in September 2000 amid intensifying rage and protests against imperialist "globalization" by the world's peoples. In different parts of the world, from Seattle to Prague, workers, peasants, women, the youth and other oppressed people continue to pour into the streets to roundly condemn neoliberal policies and the role played by the World Bank (WB), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). The UN � the supposed representative of the international community � is ordinarily used to give a humanitarian and charitable face to imperialist dictates and intervention while the more hard-line agenda are coursed through fully controlled agencies like the WB-IMF-WTO, if not enforced through direct unilateral military aggression.

In the recently held Millennium Summit, the UN made the "eradication of world poverty and war" its main agenda allegedly because these were "insults" to humanity. As an apologist for imperialism, the UN conceals the reality that the widespread inequality of countries and peoples is caused by the plunder perpetrated by imperialists in collaboration with the ruling classes of neocolonies and their oppression of the world's peoples. Similarly, the UN absolved imperialism of its crimes against humanity by declaring that it is poverty that causes war and not the unrelenting aggression and belligerency of imperialists and their local henchmen against peoples in resistance.

Imperialists in control of the UN admit that a "new world disorder" prevails instead of the much-ballyhooed "new order" after the "Cold War". Neither could their paid economists and "experts" deny that instead of the growth and prosperity promised by "globalization", there is intensifying crisis and poverty. According to studies by the UN and WB, 2.8 billion people (almost half of the world's population) are living on the poverty line with another billion living in absolute poverty.

But turning back on past proclamations of triumph is not a simple recognition of the glaring reality that imperialism has aggravated the already miserable state of vast numbers of the world's peoples. This supposedly critical view of "globalization" is also impelled by their objective to consolidate their ranks, restrengthen themselves, regain the initiative and give momentum once more to neoliberalism and liberalization, deregulation and privatization policies.

After long-winded rhetoric, the UN, through its secretary general Kofi Annan, defended major imperialist policies to the hilt by arguing that they had more

In chorus with the World Bank and IMF, the UN blames poverty on the absence or lack of economic growth among countries and inequalities brought about by technological and work changes, discrimination against women and excessive trade regulation. While saying that "globalization" may aggravate these problems, the UN strongly denies that these are the direct effects of neoliberalism. This lends a decidedly hollow ring to its ambitious targets of reducing poverty incidence and its agencies' other "humanitarian" programs.

Amid widespread world disorder, imperialists, particularly the US, are pushing for the further buildup of the UN's "peacekeeping" forces in order to use their "humanitarian" intervention as a mask to conceal their blatant aggression against regions where their interests are at stake.The agency has institutionalized the practice of "suspending" the sovereignty of a country experiencing internal armed conflict and justifies intensifying and expanding military aggression against countries opposed to its policies.

The UN has also assigned its own agencies and the IMF, WB, WTO and other imperialist institutions as the implementors of this "new" program against poverty and war. It obscures the reality that its agencies are important instruments of imperialist plunder. It covers up the devastation and enslavement wrought by their programs, especially of the IMF and WB. In admitting that changes are necessary in their structure and practice, the UN would have it appear that it heeds the grievances of the people, thereby making imperialist polices and programs acceptable once more.

But despite having been forced to admit the prevalence of world disorder, the UN and imperialists continue to belittle the growing protests against "globalization" that are now rapidly turning into widespread people's resistance to the world capitalist system and its crises. Nonetheless, they could no longer conceal the devastation wrought on the people by their neoliberal "economic model" of development. Their very institutions have been wracked by internal conflicts and their experts have their heads spinning, trying to seek a "new model".

The "new world disorder" shows the depths of the crisis of the world capitalist system. The proletariat of the world should rightfully take advantage of this crisis to advance their class interest and the interests of all oppressed people towards the total overthrow of imperialism.

October 2000
English Edition

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