Stephen Zunes: Veto means open season on UN staff

By Stephen Zunes
Global Beat Syndicate
(KRT)
SAN FRANCISCO — Despite Secretary of State Colin Powell’s widely acclaimed recent performance presenting the case against Iraq to the U.N. Security Council, the Bush administration is in a weak position playing the role of champion of international law.
Last December it demonstrated its contempt for international law when the United States vetoed the otherwise-unanimous U.N. Security Council resolution criticizing the Israeli government for a series of attacks by its armed forces against U.N. workers and facilities in occupied Palestinian territories.
With this veto, we are in effect allowing open season on U.N. workers and facilities in conflict areas where a strategic ally is involved. By contrast, Bush administration officials have declared that any attacks against U.N. personnel or facilities by Iraq would automatically lead to a U.S.-led war to overthrow the Baghdad government.
The first incident cited in the resolution was the November 21 slaying of Iain Hook, a British U.N. Relief Works Agency employee working inside a well-marked U.N. compound in a Palestinian refugee camp in the northern West Bank. A U.N. investigation revealed that, despite Israeli claims to the contrary, there was no gunfire from the compound where Hook was shot three times. In addition, Israeli forces initially blocked an ambulance and emergency medical team from coming to his aid. Hook was director of a project to rebuild homes for Palestinians that were destroyed by Israeli forces during previous military operations.
The second incident cited occurred on December 1, when Israeli occupation forces destroyed a building in the Gaza Strip used by the World Food Program, another UN agency. The warehouse contained hundreds of tons of badly needed food destined for Palestinian families. Malnutrition has skyrocketed in the occupied territories — multiple sieges by Israeli forces have brought agricultural activity virtually to a halt, causing most of the population to rely on the WFP and private voluntary organizations for basic necessities. According to WFP officials, Israeli forces searched the three-story structure and — despite the absence of any apparent military usage — blew up the building, destroying most of its contents.
In a third incident, two more UNRWA workers were killed by Israeli forces December 6 in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip; six other civilians were also killed in the overnight raid.
U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte, in justifying his veto, claimed that the resolution was geared more toward "condemning the Israeli occupation than ensuring the safety of U.N. personnel."
But this claim is untrue — the wording of the resolution referred only to these recent attacks against UN personnel and facilities. Negroponte’s veto underscores how the United States, virtually alone in the international community, sees the military occupation of one country by another as something that should not be criticized.
Over the past three decades, the United States has used its veto power 40 times to protect Israel from criticism by the U.N. Security Council. That is more than all vetoes cast by the other four veto-empowered members of the Security Council over this same period combined. Nearly half of the U.S. vetoes have related to Israeli violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the related human rights covenants pertaining to the humanitarian obligations of occupying powers. As a signatory of the Geneva Conventions, the United States is legally obliged to support their enforcement.
The Bush administration has also blocked enforcement of dozens of other U.N. Security Council resolutions calling upon Israel to come into compliance with such international law — resolutions previous U.S. administrations allowed to pass.
In effect, while the United States argues that it has the right to unilaterally invade Iraq to protect the credibility of the United Nations, we routinely blocked the world body from criticizing the actions of our strategic allies. The lesson appears to be this: When you are the sole remaining superpower, you can decide who has to abide by international law and who does not, even at the cost of the lives of humanitarian workers and the integrity of international institutions designed to maintain world peace and security.