RNA - They include four rotating members - Spain, Ukraine, Italy and the Netherlands, as well as the Council's five permanent members - China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. These countries, which are not the best qualified for top jobs in the UN Secretariat and UN agencies, not to mention seats on key bodies like the Human Rights Council and the Security Council, have competing interests and happen to make up the world's top ten exporters of arms.
It is not surprising at all to see so many arms exporters on the Council. It is also not surprising to see that some of these countries are playing a key role in the ongoing carnage in Syria, Yemen, and Libya. Here, the Council has increasingly become irrelevant on the international stage and impotent in the longer term issues.
That's why for the United States and the United Kingdom, what is happening in the most lethal and destabilising conflict in the world today, Syria, it is business as usual. The permanent members of the Council are in many ways actively participating in the Saudi war crimes in Yemen as well. This is while, these two members have special responsibilities in the maintenance of international peace and security, and this extends also to their particular responsibilities as arms exporters.
Quite the contrary and according to Saudi Foreign Minister Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir, “British and American military officials are in the command and control center for Saudi airstrikes on Yemen, and have access to lists of targets.” Meaning, while this bombing campaign is invariably described in Western media outlets as “Saudi-led,” the US and the UK are both central, indispensable participants. Washington is complicit in this carnage, and London bears much responsibility for this suffering.
The same is true for their destructive roles in Syria. From the start of the hideous terror campaign against Syria five years ago, they have played active, vital roles in enabling the carnage. The atrocities committed by the terror proxy forces and coalition air strikes would have been impossible without their steadfast, aggressive support.
On the pretext of fighting ISIL, the regime changers have indiscriminately and at times deliberately bombed civilians, killing thousands of innocent people as well. Their bombing campaign has caused widespread civilian deaths. Their coalition continues to recklessly and intentionally bomb civilians in government-controlled areas, while the American and British weapons keep pouring into the rebel-held areas they call “moderates” but are in fact ISIL and Al-Qaeda allies. They want to ensure that the destruction of Syria and the civilian massacres continue unabated - in breach of humanitarian law and the Arms Trade Treaty.
Overall, however, the current conflicts in Yemen and Syria pose contrasting examples of the relative influence that UN Security Council members have as arms exporters and regime changers. It is because of their criminal actions and double standards that the Council is unable to resolve the major crises in Syria and Yemen. It is also because of their policies in transferring arms to terrorist groups and conflict parties that the world is grappling with the rising level of terrorism and humanitarian suffering.
It is said where there is no vision, the people perish. There is a simple explanation as to why transgression has increased at the Security Council; its wicked members have multiplied. Unless the Council reforms its unrepresentative structure, and most importantly, forces the US, the UK and the mere extras to suspend their arms transfers to proxy forces in Syria and Saudi forces in Yemen, it is doomed to failure as an institution.
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