NEW DELHI: India called for updating the United Nations charter as there was the “omnipresent danger” of the system sub-serving the foreign policy objectives of the five permanent members.
It was obsolete to vest crucial decision making powers in the hands of the descendants of the five allies in a war that ended about 50 years ago external affairs minister M.S.Solanki said in his valedictory address at a seminar here.
Emphatic about the role of the nonaligned movement in shaping a new world order Solanki said those who thought that Nam had become obsolete were in effect arguing that “we leave it to the west to chart the destiny of humanity as a whole”.
Unless the developing countries proposed to throw themselves at the “mercy of the newly united north” the need remained to preserve the distinctive identity of Nam he said.
Solanki said he was sure that no self-respecting country of the south would ever for a moment contemplate doing so.
“Our task is to make ourselves as a movement relevant to the hammering out of the new order” he added.
India he said welcomed the emergence of an era of cooperation between the west and what used to be called the cast He however regretted that one heard virtually no talk of revamping the United Nations either to give it the central role for peacekeeping or to make its decision-making processes responsive to post-colonial realities.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 13, 1991
