The U.S. Secretary of State called the Russian-Chinese double veto against the draft resolution condemning the Syrian regime ‘Shameful'. In truth, this American description is inaccurate, because what is shameful instead is not the Russian or Chinese veto. It is the concept of the veto itself! If we consider the issue through this wider perspective, we will find that the comment made by the U.S. ambassador to the UN is atrocious, when she spoke with the tone of a tame wolf as she expressed her disgust with the Sino-Russian veto, and said, “The United States is disgusted that a couple members of this council continue to prevent us from fulfilling our sole purpose here, addressing an ever deepening crisis in Syria and a growing threat to regional peace and security. For months this Council has been held hostage by a couple of members. These members stand behind empty arguments and individual interests while delaying and seeking to strip bare any text that would pressure Assad to change his actions.” The veto regime was created after the end of World War II, and the veto right was granted to the five nations that emerged victorious from that war, namely the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France and China, as a reward for their victory and to set them apart from defeated nations. This was in 1945, so are we still living under an international state of emergency imposed by the victors?! In the past 67 years, many balances of power changed, powers withered and waned and countries were split into smaller states, while many conventions and treaties on equality, human rights and democracy for all nations, peoples, and individuals without distinction were signed and ratified…Or so we understand! Even with all these shifts in power and values, five states continue to control the conscience and fate of the world, under a dictatorial unilateral formula that has nothing to do with democracy or equality. Indeed, the Russian-Chinese veto against the resolution condemning the brutality of the Syrian regime is disgraceful and disgusting; we say it ourselves…But America has no right to say it, because we can never forget the disgraceful and disgusting resolutions that the United States has adopted against the rights of the Palestinian people, who also suffer from the brutality of an occupying and aggressive Zionist regime, protected by the United States throughout its brutal history by up to 40 American vetoes! The veto system is a tyrannical and unilateral system inspired by medieval values and is not consistent at all with the values of our time and age, if we are truly required to believe their claims of equality, human rights, the freedom of opinion and pluralism. By examining the vetoes wielded by the five permanent members of the Security Council from 1945 until 2012, we find that they were all used against humanity and the legitimate rights of oppressed people. This conclusion is logical because the 14 members of the Security Council cannot be in unanimous agreement over inhumane resolutions, only for the five permanent members after that to overrule them by means of a veto that saves humanity! But the opposite can and does happen frequently, i.e. for the member states to agree over a humanitarian resolution, and then one of the five overturns it because it conflicts with its interests that supersede any rights or peoples. It is high time for countries and human rights and humanitarian groups to rally to topple this reactionary veto right from the shelves of the Security Council, and let the 70th anniversary of the United Nations, in 2015, be the year to put an end to this racist and unfair system. Let the slogan of the campaign to end this veto be: Countries and peoples are equal, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights…and enough is enough. * Saudi writer. E-mail: [email protected] Twitter: @ziadaldrees
