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| Member States 193 Flags of United Nations |
All are created equal and must be treated as Equal
Editing, brief commentary by
Carolyn Bennett
We must “try and build a better world.” Support leaders inclined
toward and capable of understanding how to achieve this, as only it can be
achieved -- politically, nonviolently
Just after World War II, Malcolm Fraser said, “there were
many people who realized that the world nearly destroyed itself” and leaders
among the “victors and the vanquished determined to do better” in trying “to create
a safer, more secure world.” But today great nations and leaders seem bent on destroying
considered, substantive ideas of that earlier period. Moral, nonviolent, law-abiding,
progressive leadership is today sorely lacking. Fraser says,
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| Nuremberg Trials 1945-1946 |
It is a sobering thought that in recent
times, freedoms hard won through centuries of struggle, in the United Kingdom
and elsewhere, have been whittled away. …
In many cases the onus of proof has
been reversed and the justice that once prevailed has been gravely diminished.
Former Australian Prime Minister John Malcolm Fraser in late
2012 criticized the current state of human rights in his country and in the
Western World. Also in 2012, he opposed basing U.S. military forces in
Australia. In 2011 he opposed the Australian government’s decision to permit
the export of uranium to India, a non-signatory to the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty. When holding office in the 1970s, the Fraser government
expanded immigration from Asian countries and allowed more refugees to enter
Australia; supported multiculturalism and established a government-funded
multilingual radio and television network. Fraser also opposed white minority
rule in Rhodesia (South Africa).
Last week Malcolm Fraser discussed East-West affairs with Oksana
Boyko on RT’s “Worlds Apart” program. These are some of his observations and
recommendations.
Compromise
and Trust are imperative
You've got to try and build a
better world and building trust is essential, Fraser said. The West and NATO in the post-Cold War period
missed an opportunity for essential world collaboration, he said. And to end
the deepening hostility between the Russian Federation -- and the consequential
harm to many other nations of the world -- the West, NATO and Russia must reestablish
trust. In order for there to be peace and not a return to a cold war, Russia
and the West “need to try and make a new start,” he said.
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| UN General Assembly hall |
You don't build trust “by
behaving as though a Cold War is still in place.” Putting ABM (anti-ballistic
missile) sites in Poland and Czechoslovakia -- shifting NATO east, even though former
Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev believed he had an agreement that it should
not – “was behaving as though the Cold War was still alive and well.” The act “was a provocation” -- a hostile move
compounding NATO’s move to the boundaries of Russia – “and not conducive to
establishing the kind of trust and
cooperation which is so necessary if there is to be a real peace and real
cooperation.”
To China, the United States
speaks in contradictory rhetoric. “On the one hand, they say they want
strategic cooperation, they want economic cooperation, social cooperation. On
the other hand, they tighten, they strengthen their defenses -- from Japan
south through Australia, around Singapore and now talks of making India a
strategic partner. Fraser says his Chinese friends ask which America are they
to believe…
‘The one
that talks cooperation or the one that’s seeking to strengthen it’s already
very powerful military forces?'
Fraser reminds that China’s current “military expenditure is about eight percent of
the world’s total” while the U.S. military expenditure “is about 42 percent of
the world's total.” And after the USA’s Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, all evidenced
failures, the United States still fails to grasp reality: “that a good
political outcome is very difficult to obtain through military means.”
Obedience
to International Law is imperative
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| International Criminal Court |
The United States of America “feels
it can break international law.” The character of leadership takes the view “that
what America does is right. Rules are made for other people -- for countries
like Russia or Australia.” But “whatever America does is right because America
does it.…The United States has regarded itself as an exceptional nation -- as a nation that’s better than all others;
that has only ever gone to war to fight for the freedom of other people.” But,
as U.S. history bears out, this oft-repeated narrative is simply untrue.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq, Fraser correctly notes “was [and is again] a total violation of international
law.”
The great powers, Fraser says, “tend to push the rules aside when it suits their national interests.” When
U.S. officials say that what Russia has done in Ukraine “is in defiance of
international law,” the statement lacks credibility because the change of power
in Ukraine “was itself in defiance of democratic principles.”
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| Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 Diplomat Eleanor Roosevelt |
Fraser says the great powers
“too often interpret international law as what is in their particular interest at the time.” However, if the United
Nations comprised of 193 countries “is ever to work, the great powers and the lesser
powers are all going to have to abide by the rules” of the United Nations.
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o one and no nation should be
above the law. No one should be allowed
All people are created equal
and no nation should be allowed to deny others their rights as equal.
Sources and notes
“Cold war & peace”
… Kosovo’s secession demonstrated that
international law is only as applicable as the force used to back it. But with
Crimea now free on the wings of that precedent, the West cries foul.
Why does the Western world fail to
recognize parallels between Kosovo and Crimea?
Is it a case of double standards or the
result of decades of adversarial EU and NATO policies towards Russia?
Former Australian Prime Minister John Malcolm Fraser joined Oksana
Boyko on these issues, August 7, 2014, http://rt.com/shows/worlds-apart-oksana-boyko/
http://www.youtube.com/user/WorldsApartRT/videos
Malcolm Fraser bio brief Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Fraser
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