72nd UNGA: Threats, counter-threats and caution
This year’s United Nations General Assembly (72nd session) saw in a debut appearance of three new world leaders - President Emmanuel Macron of France, US President Donald Trump and U.N SecretaryGeneral Antonio Guterres. Both on paper and in action, Macron is an antonym to Trump. The two amateur leaders, who never held elected office, have deeply rooted ideological and political differences.
The most anticipated speech was that of the ‘America First’ Donald Trump - which as many expected contained major themes of doom and gloom. President Trump address to the UN general assembly was unlike any ever delivered in the chamber by a US president. Lashing out and - issuing threats to four Nations (North Korea, Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela), Trump’s harshest language was reserved for North Korea.
The bellicose, snarky, childish (but sort of funny) playground denunciation of North Korea leader Kim Jong Un: “Rocket Man” leading a “depraved regime” is on a “suicide mission for himself and his regime”, Trump said, adding: “The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or it allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea”. These are clearly words never, ever to be engraved in marble. The President of the United States chose, in a forum dedicated to diplomacy, to threaten to wipe another nation a much smaller one - off the face of the earth.
The North Korea’s UN delegation headed by Foreign Minister Ri Yongho dismissed the US President’s threat as a “dog’s bark” and suggesting Pyongyang would not be deterred by the rhetoric. China North Korea’s staunchest ally said Mr. Trump’s speech was really unhelpful.
Trump also renewed his attacks on the Iran nuclear deal, calling it as an “embarrassment” and “one of the worst and most one-sided” deals the US has ever made, raising suspicious that the President might walk-out of the deal - as he has done with other international agreements in the past. He called Iran a “dictatorship under the guise of a democracy”, he also denounced Iran as a terror sponsor with horrid human rights records. Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, hailed the belligerent comments on Iran - a longtime adversary.
Also, Donald Trump’s criticism on the Socialists states of Cuba and Venezuela of Latin America on their human rights records prompted the Venezuelan President, Nicholas Maduro, to hit back by calling the US president “the new Hitler” of international politics.
The French President, Emmanuel Macron first speech at the UN, was conciliatory in approach, and - unlike that of his American counterpart. Mr Macron defended the nuclear accord, he told the UN General Assembly: “Renouncing it would be a grave error, not respecting it would be irresponsible, because it is a good accord that is essential to peace at a time where risk of a conflagration cannot be excluded”. He also added that Myanmar’s government crackdown on the Rohingya is “genocide”.
Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari, also condemned the targeted killings of the Muslimmajority Rohingya population in Myanmar. He said the crisis is very reminiscent to what happened in Bosnia in 1995 and in Rwanda in 1994, which he called a statebacked campaign based on ethnicity and religion. He also echoed the suffering of the Palestinian people and the humanitarian situation in Yemen. The president also thanked the governments helping refugees escaping conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. And at the end, Buhari called for a peaceful solution to the North Korea nuclear crisis.
Finally, the 72nd UNGA will be remembered as one of the most tense, which world leaders scrambled to reassure the world on the function of the UN, after the supposedly leader of the free-world used the green marble UN podium to pour scorn on international agreements and also threaten another UN member state with total destruction.
Labaran Yusuf, Jos, Plateau State