Executive Director, Campaign for Peace & Democracy
The current US government position in the UN can quite succinctly be described as: "If we can't control it, we won't play." I believe it is very important for American citizens to differentiate themselves, to say "when they do that, they do not represent us," and to say that there is another America, that is going to work with people from all parts of the world to say that we want a democratic United Nations and not one with special privileges for a self-appointed elite group of countries.
What country would internally permit itself to be ruled in the way which the United Nations, by its own constitution, is set up--a self-appointed group of the most powerful people who get the control, and who can never be replaced? That is the meaning of the word "permanent." The basic way we want to look at the United Nations, the vision that animates us, is that we think it should be controlled from the bottom up and not from the top down. Though top-down is the way it is now set up, with the Security Council in the dominant role.
We have to see this struggle as a part of a process of democratization-- within nations as well as among nations. That is the great challenge that the post-Cold World faces us with today- -democratization, to win control by the citizens of this world of the basic decisions that are made by world bodies, as well as by their own national governments.
We need to be fully aware of the price that we pay for a United Nations that has been run in the current elitist way--for the fact that economic decisions have been given over to another, smaller unaccountable group of elites in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and for the way in which the Third World has been disenfranchised. Of course, we in the First World are being disenfranchised as well.
I want to point out some of the political problems of Security Council reform. Many want to add Japan and Germany to the Council in order to "face the realities," to recognize who is really a powerful player in today's world. As a sop to the Third World, India, Nigeria and Brazil may be added as well, by the powers that be. But would this really get to the root of the problem? We saw the Indian Prime Minister on television as he was visiting President Clinton: he is engaged in a massive privatization drive and has joined the trend of free market solutions. Nigeria is run by a military that has crushed the democratic movement and just swept aside the democratically-elected president. And in Brazil, Lula might win the upcoming presidential election and put the Workers Party in power.
These three countries represent three different views from within the Third World. If a self-selected group of powerful elites try to decide for the countries and peoples of the world who should be on the august Security Council, there is no way it can be done fairly. The obvious answer--just as we demand elections in our own country--is for the General Assembly to elect the Security Council.
If there are people in the GA that like what the United States does, let them vote for it to be a member of the Council. If they like what Nigeria does, let them vote for it. If they like what Brazil does, let them vote for it. This process is the only road.
Of course some people, like Jeanne Kirkpatrick, will say demagogically: how can you empower and enfranchise the Third World if so many of these countries are internally undemocratic. She raises a real issue. But the only way you can have any moral standing to support democratization in Third World countries is if you build an international body that itself adheres to democratic principles. If you don't, who are you to talk about democracy--if you maintain a global institution, with power of life and death over millions and meanwhile with no accountability to them?
There is no way to have accountability without elections. It does represent something positive that a large number of Third World countries are saying, "enough is enough" and are demanding greater representation. Elections are the only way to begin to get the kind of world body that will have the legitimacy and the mandate to intervene in conflicts. I am reluctant to give the Security Council any more autonomy or a standing army, as long as its decisions are made by a handful of unaccountable people. Democratization is part and parcel of a common movement for a really democratic world order.
