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NST Leader: UNSC fails, again

MYANMAR has been mired in mayhem for the last 15 months and all the United Nations Security Council, a talkfest at best, can do is quarrel about whether "limited" or "slow" is the right word to describe the military regime's implementation of Asean's five-point plan in ending the crisis. Britain, which initiated the draft, is hung up on "limited".

Perhaps to the Brits, "limited" reflects the little that has been done by the military regime led by Min Aung Hlaing to bring peace to the country.

To China, "limited" is being condescending to the regime. Beijing prefers "slow", one meaning of which is "moderate". Let's be blunt. Both are wrong.

There is just no progress, neither on the five-point plan nor on the visit of the UN envoy to Myanmar, Noeleen Heyzer, who has been waiting for the green light from Naypyidaw since her appointment in October. Min Aung Hlaing just wants to perpetuate his illegitimate reign. Barracks are the last thing he and his soldiers want to go back to.

Both Britain and China are being too generous to Min Aung Hlaing, a general who has been accused of war crimes against ethnic minorities like the Rohingya in the recent past and now against the Bamar.

He should be in one of the cells of the International Criminal Court in The Hague awaiting trial for all the war crimes he has been accused of. Instead of being pedantic about the words that should be in the text, the UNSC should focus on action.

The first of this that the five permanent members of the UNSC must do is to help the ICC investigate the war crimes of the Tatmadaw, as the military is known there. Next, Min Aung Hlaing must be made to go. Here, China has a major role to play.

China may not like this, but the perception is that if not for China's help, Min Aung Hlaing would have been removed long ago. China must free itself from Myanmar to avoid this negative perception.

Agence France-Presse reported on Friday that 1,800 people have been killed since the coup was launched in February last year. This is another reason why China must keep a respectable distance from the Tatmadaw regime that stands accused of these deaths and those of the past.

Petty quarrels over words are a reflection of a more dreadful problem: the UNSC is a failing organisation. Proof is not hard to find. Start with the most recent disastrous failures of the UNSC. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is 95 days old and yet it has done nothing to end it.

Instead, some of the UNSC members have surrendered their power to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation to determine the fate of the Ukrainians. The plight of the Palestinians is as old as Israel and yet some P5 members rather the problem fester for as long as it can.

Let the occupation continue, they secretly wish. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia, South Sudan and so the list goes on. If one word — "limited" or "slow" — can stall the highest law-making body of the UN into inaction, imagine what something more will do. Like genocide in Rwanda and Bosnia.

And Myanmar, too. Perhaps we have been flogging a dead horse all this time. Little wonder, no major problems in the world get solved.

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