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WAND
and the UN |
UN
Report: October 2006
by Sayre Sheldon, WAND representative
on the NGO Working Group for Women, Peace and Security
This has been a big month for the
U.N. Along with its usual business, it is dealing
with the choice of a new secretary-general to replace
retiring Kofi Annan and the crisis resulting from
North Korea’s test of a nuclear weapon. The
two are linked because the new secretary general Ban
Ki-moon is from South Korea and will now have to lead
U.N. efforts to prevent North Korea from continuing
its nuclear program. Of all the world’s countries,
South Korea is perhaps most threatened by the actions
of its neighbor.
Mr. Ban has a good reputation for
hard work and diplomacy but many of those inside the
U.N. were hoping for a more dynamic candidate in the
style of Kofi Annan. He has the strong support of
the U.S., however, without which he would not have
been chosen.
The U.S. seems to be working hard
to get Security Council approval for sanctions against
North Korea. It is striking that after so much criticism
of the U.N., Bush and Bolton are showing that they
need the U.N. now that we are too tied down in Iraq
to take any unilateral actions against North Korea.
Of
course WAND members know that the U.S. has another
massive problem: we have not reined in our own nuclear
weapons program or abided by the U.N. non-proliferation
treaty and we continue to hold the threat of our weapons
over countries that we don’t think should have
them. There was absolutely no surprise over what North
Korea has done but they have made the world a much
more dangerous place and challenged the international
community to make crucial choices.
Sayre
Sheldon, WAND president emerita
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A founding member of WAND and President Emerita
of the National WAND Board, Sayre has been a
long time political and social activist. She
is a college professor of literature and an
author of several plays and articles about women's
issues and peace issues.
She
edited the anthology Her War Story: 20th
Century Women Write About War, published
in 1999 by Southern Illinois University Press.
She represents WAND as an NGO at the United
Nations. |
