Taiwan and the UN, the Hypocrisy Continues
Saturday December 08, by Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.
In a recent statement, former United Nations (UN) secretary-general Kofi Annan managed to both put his foot in his mouth and at the same time expose the continuing hypocrisy and ineffectiveness of the UN.
Annan is now head of the Global Humanitarian Forum; it is a non-governmental group based in Geneva. Its job is to address the humanitarian impact of climate change on the poor and other vulnerable groups. Global warming is a key problem in this arena.
Reporters present asked Annan if he felt Taiwan should participate in helping to solve this problem. In answer, Annan said of course Taiwan should help. He admitted that Taiwan had made repeated efforts to join the UN under his watch as well as that of his successor and that it had been refused. Annan had done nothing to help Taiwan; so in effect he was saying the following.
'We snubbed you and refused to meet your humanitarian needs of recognition and participation in the world community. We did not give you a seat at the table, but that does not mean we don't want you to help us to solve our problems in humanitarian needs.'
That's hardly a fine answer from the head of a humanitarian organization, but that was not all, Annan went on, "On the substance of whether a country like Taiwan should become engaged in both mitigation and adaptation, I would say yes."
Wait, what is that, did Kofi Annan say "a country like Taiwan" Is he admitting what everyone knows but refuses to acknowledge, that Taiwan is a country; it is not a part of China. It has nothing to do with the alleged "sacred soil" and pseudo claims that China keeps dredging up.
Yes, Kofi Annan laid the world's hypocrisy out in plain view. To Taiwan the message remained, 'we disrespect you and we won't give you a seat at the table, but we want you to help us in our need. Yes we know you are a country, but we cannot admit it. Why? Well China, one of the biggest polluters of the world would get angry and stop selling us cheap poisoned products if we did. You do understand this don't you? It's your duty to help us despite our disrespect.' Does that make any sense?