Helms's visit marked the first time a U.S. legislator has addressed the imperialist-created institution. His right-wing, chauvinist demagogy reflected the fissures in the U.S. rulers' bipartisan foreign policy. He asserted that Washington would not tolerate the "UN aspiring to establish itself as the central authority of a new international order of global laws and global governance."

Claiming to speak for the "American people," Helms derided the "lack of gratitude" among UN delegates who are "routinely voting against America in the General Assembly." His visit before the Security Council was arranged by Richard Holbrooke, Washington's ambassador to the United Nations.

Four days after Helms's remarks, U.S. secretary of State Madeleine Albright told the Security Council, "Only the president and the executive branch can speak for the United States." Members of the Clinton administration "see our role in the world and our relationship to this organization quite differently than does Senator Helms," she added.

Helms declared to the Security Council delegates, "The American people will never accept the claims of the United Nations to be the 'sole source of legitimacy on the use of force' in the world." He bragged about Washington's unilateral use of military force, such as in its assault last year on Yugoslavia. Helms threatened "eventual U.S. withdrawal" if the United Nations "seeks to impose its presumed authority on the American people."  
 

Part of American diplomatic arsenal

The right-wing senator called the United Nations "just one part of the American diplomatic arsenal," to be used as an instrument to "coordinate collective action" that the U.S. rulers approve. He hailed the "Reagan Doctrine," boasting that military interventions carried out in many countries under former president Ronald Reagan in the 1980s were executed without UN approval.

Martin Andjaba, Namibia's ambassador to the United Nations, retorted that the so-called Reagan Doctrine "contributed to a lot of suffering in Africa. We have it fresh in our memories." Andjaba cited how Washington supported the old apartheid regime in South Africa, helping the racist government maintain colonial rule over Namibia and sustaining the apartheid-backed UNITA guerrilla force in Angola, which prolonged a civil war there for some 25 years.

"Some of us in SWAPO [Southwest African Peoples Organisation] who were a legitimate and genuine liberation movement were called other names: terrorists. And those that caused death and destruction in Africa were called liberators—and they were supported."

Helms responded to UN delegates who criticized Washington's refusal to pay its $1.5 billion debt owed to the organization. He said UN officials declared "absurdly that countries like Fiji and Bangladesh are carrying America's burden."

The Republican senator said a check for $926 million would be in the mail when UN officials begin to implement what he described as "previously agreed-upon common-sense reforms." Helms claimed Washington had spent $10.2 billion last year on the United Nations and its programs.

Steven Dimoff, vice-president of the United Nations Association of the United States, said Helms's claim "really does stretch reality," noting that the amount includes military operations organized by Washington without any input from the United Nations.

Helms also denounced the Security Council for allowing Baghdad to expel UN "inspection teams" from Iraq. Two days before his speech to the Security Council, Paris and Beijing joined Moscow in voicing opposition to UN secretary general Kofi Annan's nomination of Rolf Ekeus as chief "weapons inspector" for Iraq. U.S. officials had supported Ekeus, who had headed the inspections in Iraq from 1991 to 1997. The debate over his nomination highlighted tensions between Washington and the workers states in Russia and China, as well as its imperialist rival in France.

Last year the Clinton administration was forced to admit that some of the weapons inspectors snooping around Iraq were spies. When they were booted from the country at the end of 1998, the White House conducted a four-day bombing onslaught in December. In the 13 months since that attack, Washington has continued to bomb Iraq, launching some 2,000 missiles and bombs against sites throughout the country.

The U.S. rulers have sought to use their military assault and the sanctions strangling the Iraqi people as a club against their imperialist competitors, particularly those in France, who had lucrative oil contracts with Baghdad.

Meanwhile, rising oil prices are exacerbating divisions on the Security Council. In December the Iraqi government temporarily stopped its oil exports to protest Security Council decisions.

"With oil prices now edging toward $30 a barrel ... many observers contend Baghdad has more leverage over U.N. policy now than at any time since the 1991 Gulf War," the Wall Street Journal reported January 24.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home