tuluum's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Having A Voice Of Our Own (Editorial: March 21, Express) EDITORIAL: Having a voice of their own IT IS difficult to read the United States note to Caribbean Community (Caricom) governments calling on them to either oppose or abstain from voting to convene a special session of the United Nations General Assembly as being anything else but the dictate of a bully. The note came in the wake of the disclosure that the recently concluded Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Malaysia had mandated its member states to convene a special session of the 191-member UN General Assembly to discuss the planned war against Iraq and its implications for peace and security. That session may only be of academic interest now since the war against Iraq has already started but what must still remain is the sour taste that must have been left in the mouths of sovereign states by the Bush administration?s apparent belief that it has both the right and the authority to instruct them about how they should conduct their international affairs even if that conduct poses no direct threat to the United States.� And yet this is the very George Bush who argued as one of his campaign platforms on the need for the world?s one superpower ?to wear its power with humility, to reach out to its allies and not be perceived as a bully.? Once in power, however, the practice of Mr Bush and his Republican cohorts have been otherwise. This was the same administration which: ? Turned its back on the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and withdrew America?s signature from the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court. ? Requested (to put it mildly) Russia to accept America?s withdrawal from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty and the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation into the territory of the former Soviet Union. ?Looked blithely on as violence worsened between Israel and the Palestinians even as the Arabs, Muslims and Europeans pleaded to the Lord of the North to ?put a hand?. Moreover, going its increasingly unilateral and bull-headed way, the United States has succeeded in:� ? Splitting The Atlantic alliance in a way that it has never been. ? Snarling at Russia, its Cold War enemy turned hot new friend. ? Riling up China, whose growing power makes it crucial to any ongoing peace. The truth is that in a remarkably short space of time Bush, the son, has managed to undo much of the multilateral work of Bush, the father with the result that even in those countries whose governments have publicly allied themselves with the current Republican cause large swathes of the population, maybe even the silent majority in some cases, see the United States as precisely the arrogant bully that the president?s earlier instincts warned him it shouldn?t be. No wonder then that Caricom countries who, for more reason than one, have historically taken to seeing the world through the lens of the United States of America are determined not to be blinded by their big brother?s latest sally.� In deciding to ignore the American note our leaders seem to be determined not only to stand up and be counted but to serve notice that they will continue to have a voice of their own. On all the international evidence, theirs are not voices in isolation. The question, then, is how much longer will this great power block its ears in its mistaken, perhaps even tragic determination not to hear. **************************************************************************** Current Clix Ranking: ? | Previous Clix Ranking: 34 5:15 p.m. - Saturday, Mar. 22, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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