Sister Jabou,

Honestly all the issues you raised about Africa and the international
community are tremendous challenges in the future, and serious concerns
especially to us Africans.  Yet I still believe that it is benign exuberance
to expect alot from the "activism" of a secretary general operating within
an institution run somehow with machtpolitik.  I think we can all agree that
the power arrangements within the UN framework ought to  be redesigned for
that body to generate any credible results of substance.
In fact this reminds me of Yusupha's earlier comments.  I had to read it in
a haste this morning today, hoping to reply later on.  Shamefully, my
hotmail account is all meshed up and I am currently using my Georgetown
University account hoping that this shall perhaps get to the list.  Coming
back to Yusupha's comments ( from what I understood-my apologies if I make
the wrong reference), he qouted the various articles relevant to the
establishment of the UN, and particularly the office of the Secretary
General.  There is a gross dissonance that exist within the rarified
language and the explicit ideals of the UN Charter.  For example, the
Articles 10-14 of the Charter gives the General Assembly power to ONLY make
recommendations to the Security Council.  The UN Security Council has the
ultimate jurisdiction to make any decision, regardless of any debates or
recommendations of the General Assembly.  Once a political matter is before
the agenda of the Security Council, there is nothing the General Assembly
can do about again.
Therefore one can justifiably argue that the UN is de facto a government of
the five permanent members.  I will even forgive one's stretch of reality
callng it "dictatorship" of the US by other means.  Also the inherent
contradictions of the UN, especially that between national sovereignty and
the executive performance of the UN organization is a perennial albatross
that paralyzes the office of the Secretary General. This is why I argue that
Mr Koffi Annan is strictly limited to the use of rational persuasion and
prudent formulation of agreements that are already mandated by the Security
Council, and blessed by the US of course.

Greetings.

Ebou
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