Fri, Sep 17, 2004 page8

• Annan parrots Beijing's line

  • By Lee Long-hwa
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  The vassals of Beijing -- UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his timid administration -- are once again hiding behind Resolution 2758 instead of protecting the UN Charter for freedom and universal human rights. One might expect Beijing to use Resolution 2758, because communist dictators can never truly understand the rule of law. But one should have much higher expectations of the world's supposed watchdog of liberty and justice.

  Instead, the UN has become the watchdog of political correctness, complacence, appeasement and timidity. One good word of chastisement from Annan might shut Beijing up. But Annan's continual pandering to Beijing has emboldened the communist tyrants to use every means to crush Taiwan's very existence. The complicity of the UN in this racism, oppression and imperialism is an indictment of its anachronistic existence. Either it acts the part of an organization designed to protect humanity against naked aggression -- such as that of Beijing against Taiwan, Tibet and the many hundreds of millions oppressed throughout China -- or it should fold its tent and go home.

  A recent example of Beijing's heavy-handed and highly public oppression of Taiwan is its attempt to prevent public discussion on Taiwan's application for UN membership through an international group of reporters at the UN. What kind of truly independent and freedom-loving association would bar 23 million people from having a voice in order to argue why they should be allowed to have a voice? But Beijing has relentlessly used the UN as a mouthpiece for its repressive communist dictatorship policies, and Kofi Annan has become Beijing's favorite parrot.

  International reporters sought to hold a video conference with President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to discuss Taiwan's application for UN membership. "Not on our premises," cried the UN Secretariat, citing Resolution 2758, as though it is a legal bar to anything and everything Taiwan will ever do. Annan and the rest of the world's pandering minions have used the charade of the "one China" policy to the same extent. They are doing the dirty work of Beijing, preventing any discussion of its repression, oppression, tyranny and imperialism. Beijing used the same means to suppress all discussion of its policy of eugenics in Tibet, using the old "internal matter" argument -- code at the UN for "leave us alone this time, and we'll leave you alone next time."

  As for Resolution 2758, it says nothing about Taiwan or the 23 million people of Taiwan. It merely states that the People's Republic of China represents China, and the "representatives of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石)" do not. The resolution does not state that Taiwan is China, nor part of China. Taiwan has not claimed to represent "China" at the UN or to replace it or dispossess it. In the hopelessly convoluted world of global politics, China, by its threats to bomb Taiwan, has prevented Taiwan from even declaring it is not China, and does not represent China. Were Taiwan to change its Constitution to state this emphatically, China would attack Taiwan for "seeking independence." And the UN would look on, chastising Taiwan for being provocative. The international community appears paralyzed by the catch-22 Beijing has created to squelch any dissent.

  For Beijing to assert that Resolution 2758 prevents Chen from speaking to the UN is reprehensible enough. But for the UN Secretariat to state it demonstrates that it is merely the mouthpiece of communist China. How tragic.

  One cannot be surprised by this turn of events. Instead of leading the world organization with strength and conviction for what is right, Annan has steadfastly done nothing, steering a neutral course to avoid conflict in every case.

  How can the UN be proud of anything when black Africans are raped and murdered in Darfur every single day while the UN sits around and debates the definition of "genocide," millions of Tibetans are targeted by Beijing's policy of eugenics and 23 million people in Taiwan are excluded from the world under a legal interpretation of a UN resolution provided by dictators who hold absolute power in a country where there is no rule of law?

  Edmund Burke said "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Kofi Annan is the paradigmatic example of this inherent truth. Under his leadership, the UN will never "be all that it can be." His tenure at the UN cannot end too soon.

  Lee Long-hwa

  United States
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