The United Nations

The speeches at the UN General Assembly may be divided roughly into two kinds: nice speeches full of platitudes and nasty ones charged with hostility. The speech by Pakistani President Perves Musharraf fell into this category, as did the retort next day by Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, of which here is an extract : "Yesterday we heard the extraordinary claim in this Assembly that the brutal murder of innocent civilians in Jammu & Kashmir is actually a "freedom struggle". And that the forthcoming elections in that state are a "farce", since they cannot be a substitute for a plebiscite demanded over 50 years ago. It requires an effort of logical acrobatics to believe that carnage of innocents is an instrument for freedom and elections are a symbol of deception and repression! If the elections are a mere fraud, why are terrorists being trained and infiltrated into India at the command of the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency of Pakistan to kill election candidates and to intimidate voters? If Pakistan claims to be a crucial partner in the international coalition against terrorism, how can it continue to use terrorism as an instrument of state policy against India? How can the international coalition condone Pakistan-directed killings of thousands of innocent civilians -- women and children included - to promote a bizarre version of "self-determination"?"

It is hard to see how these exchanges advance the cause of peace. There is a question of timing here. The texts of speeches are circulated beforehand, with the caution that they should be compared with the texts actually delivered. Apparently Vajpayee get the Pakistani text before he drafted his speech. It would be time-consuming and not too profitable to compare the texts circulated and those actually delivered. The task is to go through these speeches nd find the few items of real significance.

One important development is that Switzerland, which had joined the UN, was represented and welcomed. One likely consequences is that more meetings will be held in the old Geneva buildings of the League of Nations. It would be more convenient for many countries, especially the European onces, and the Muslim countries might feel more at home there than in the US.

Ronald Hilton - 9/13/02