{"id":115058,"date":"2021-06-09T16:42:30","date_gmt":"2021-06-09T23:42:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=115058"},"modified":"2021-06-09T16:42:30","modified_gmt":"2021-06-09T23:42:30","slug":"erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-18d-pt-4c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/06\/09\/erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-18d-pt-4c\/","title":{"rendered":"ERASING THE EELAM VICTORY Part 18D Pt 4C"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The United\nNations  is not as pure as we think. The\nUnited Nations, along with the 193 diplomatic missions located in New York,\nhave long been veritable battlegrounds for spying, wire-tapping and electronic\nsurveillance, said Thalif Dean. (2021). At the UN, virtually all the big powers\nplay the spying game. US National Security Agency (NSA) and Britain\u2019s spy\nagency, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), had once targeted\nover 1,000 political leaders, diplomats, and international institutions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the\nheight of the Cold War in the 1960s and 1970s CIA had planted one of its\nRussian lip-reading experts in a press booth overlooking the Security Council\nchamber so that he could monitor the lip movements of Russian delegates, as\nthey consulted each other in low whispers.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

US had\ncracked into the UN\u2019s encrypted video system and there is very aggressive\nmonitoring of UN officials and high-ranking diplomats, continued Thalif. <\/em>in 2013,\nBrazilian President Dilma Rousseff, launched a blistering attack on the United\nStates for illegally infiltrating its communications network, surreptitiously\nintercepting phone calls, and breaking into the Brazilian Mission to the United\nNations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The illegal\nelectronic surveillance of Brazil was conducted by the US National Security\nAgency (NSA). NSA technicians had managed to decrypt the UN\u2019s internal video\nteleconferencing (VTC) system. <\/em>This finding not\nonly embarrassed the United Nations but also put its integrity, impartiality\nand credibility in doubt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When UN\nmember states compete for the Presidency of the General Assembly or membership\nin the Security Council or various other UN bodies, the voting was largely\ntainted by bribery, cheque-book diplomacy and offers of luxury cruises in\nEurope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just ahead of\nan election for membership in the Security Council, one Western European\ncountry offered free Mediterranean luxury cruises in return for votes while\nanother country dished out \u2014 openly in the General Assembly hall\u2014 boxes of\ngift-wrapped expensive Swiss chocolates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fathulla\nJameel, a former UN Ambassador and later Foreign Minister of the Maldives, said\nthat when Maldives asked for foreign aid, to help fund some of country\u2019s\ninfrastructure projects. One rich Asian country, a traditional donor, had responded.\nThe project would be fully funded and for free, but there was a catch: If\nthere is a vote at the UN, and it is not of any national interest to your\ncountry\u201d, said the donor country\u2019s foreign ministry, we would like to get your\nvote.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is\nhorse trading of votes at the UN, observed Guardian. One country will pledge to\nvote for a motion here in exchange for a vote to be on a committee there. There\nis arm twisting too. The weaker nations are made to vote against their\nconscience. In the case\nof Sri Lanka, US got reluctant countries to at least abstain. The countries that\nrefrained from voting made speeches in Sri Lanka\u2019s favor and then refrained\nfrom voting, which was their way of indicating that they were refraining from\nvoting only under duress, reported the media. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018All\nmember states in the UN rank equally at the formal level, but the money\ncontribution to the UN varies and some countries such as USA pay large amounts,\nsaid critics.  Over the years,  instead of keeping the UN as skeleton\norganization to maintain a line of communication between sovereign states and a\nmeeting place for them, the west have taken the lead in piling more and more\ntasks on the UN system  creating a great\ndependency on the voluntary contribution to keep the system going. This has\nmade the UN depend on about        ten to\n15 western countries, and these countries have turned this dependency to a\nhandle to make the UN further their foreign policies.  There is at least one document that admits\nthat this distorts the priorities of the UN system. And to retain their jobs\nthe UN officials have to pander to these countries, including Ban Ki Moon, said\nChandraprema in 2013. (continued)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 KAMALIKA PIERIS The United Nations  is not as pure as we think. The United Nations, along with the 193 diplomatic missions located in New York, have long been veritable battlegrounds for spying, wire-tapping and electronic surveillance, said Thalif Dean. (2021). At the UN, virtually all the big powers play the spying game. US National […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115058\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}