BY RASA PETRAUSKAITE

In print | October 4, 2007

Last week the Burmese army attacked peaceful demonstrators in several cities. Thousands of them were monks. As a result, at least ten people died, but the precise death toll remains unknown. It is unfortunate that the demonstrators in countries like Burma have no protection from their countries’ military. The U.S., as our representative in the global forum, should take steps towards empowering the U.N. so that it can protect the rights of peaceful civilians worldwide.

Many Americans feel that peaceful demonstrators such as those in Burma should be protected from attacks by the military. Most would probably agree that the demands of the protesters are justified. The protesters’ main demand was greater economic and political freedom, such as they would have with a democratically elected government. This is not surprising, since the Burmese government routinely uses its army to crush protests and places opposition leaders under house arrest. It controls the economy in a semi-communist system. In June 2006, Burmese authorities attempted to block the use of Google’s search engine and email service so that the state could maintain monopoly power over telecommunications.

Even if most Americans did not support the reasons for the Burmese protests, they would still probably agree that all people should have the right to demonstrate peacefully no matter what country they live in. This belief is in line with the American vision of a free world.

The U.S. alone cannot credibly threaten the perpetrators of human rights abuses. Our country’s military is already overstretched with the wars in the Middle East, and it cannot afford to invade Burma, Sudan and other countries with rampant human rights abuses all at the same time. This fact allows the perpetrators to continue doing what they do without paying much attention to the U.S. The U.S. should shift some of the burden of freeing the rest of the world to other democracies through international institutions.

The United Nations should protect peaceful protesters worldwide, especially if they protest causes deemed just by democratic societies. The American Institute for Peace explains the gist of the argument well: " Collective international efforts are necessary to deal with terrorism, nuclear proliferation, human rights abuses, international conflict and genocide, natural disasters and the spread of infectious diseases and economic deprivation and poverty. The United Nations, as well as regional organizations, can be important vehicles for dealing with these challenges."

Unfortunately the United Nations, in its current state, can hardly accomplish tasks such as promotion of human rights. Last January, China and Russia vetoed a draft U.S. resolution at the UN Security Council urging Burma to stop persecuting minority and opposition groups. Thus, the U.N. cannot pose a credible threat to certain human rights abusers because less-than-democratically minded countries have a large stake in the organization.

There are other structural roadblocks in place as well that prevent the U.N. from promoting human rights. For instance, one would think that the U.S. could donate more money to it for peacekeeping operations. Alas, a U.N. rule prohibits this. The U.N. website literally says, “Current law prohibits the United States from fulfilling its financial obligations to U.N. peacekeeping by preventing the U.S. from paying more than 25 percent of the organization’s peacekeeping budget.” Bizarre.

A better organizational system would weigh the votes in each commission based on the amount of money that a country contributes to it. Furthermore, under the ideal system, there would be no limit on donations to any part of the U.N., which would help countries buy voting power. This would be great for America. In 2006, U.S. donations accounted for 22% of the total U.N. budget for human rights missions. Also, well over half of the U.N. budget annually comes from democracies. If the above-described reforms were implemented, democracies would be able to control U.N. commissions to a greater extent.

Achieving changes in the U.N. is “an uphill battle,” says John Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. In the last decade, when the U.S. sought to introduce changes to the U.N., it withheld its dues from the organization until it adopted at least some reforms. The U.S. could continue using this strategy or try more diplomatic means towards enacting change. Either way, with a democratically controlled U.N., civilians worldwide would have more protection from violence.

Rasa is a senior. You can reach her at rpetrau1@swarthmore.edu.

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