Twenty years later, the self-declared Republic of Biafra, which was engaged in a bloody civil war with Nigeria, managed to send its Commissioner for Foreign Affairs, Matthew Mbu, to New York to appeal to UN Secretary General U Thant. However, the Burmese diplomat, under pressure from the Security Council's Permanent Five, issued a rebuke to the Biafran diplomat. U Thant stated: "when a State applies for membership in the United Nations, and when the United Nations accepts the membership of that applicant, all the members tacitly accept the principle that that particular State has an entity or unity. In other words, when a Member State is admitted to the United Nations, there is the implied acceptance by the entire membership of the principle of territorial integrity, independence, and sovereignty of that particular State." In other words, secessionist movements and aspirant nations, no matter how justified their actions and causes, were not welcome at the UN.
However, secession was not the case with Sikkim, Hyderabad, Western Sahara, or East Timor. They were invaded by other nations with their pre-existing autonomy snuffed out. The UN did not raise any objections to their forced incorporations into other states. The UN also fails to recognize retro-independence. States like Somaliland, Zanzibar, South Yemen, Sarawak, and Sabah have been briefly independent prior to unification with other nations. If the UN were to reject retro-independence, Singapore would not be independent today, but would exist as a state of Malaysia.
The UN General Assembly should be a universal place where nations and aspirant nations can interact without pressure from the five permanent members of the Security Council or the US, as host nation. There is no reason why the General Assembly should not have accredited state or non-state observer missions from Somaliland, Taiwan, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Tibet, Kosovo, Catalonia, Flanders, South Arabia, Mahra, Northern Cyprus, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Transnistria, Quebec, Kashmir, the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, Itenge, Northern Syria-Rojava, Greenland, the Faroes, Scotland, Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, Cabinda, Toubouland, West Papua, Corsica, Puerto Rico, Rapa Nui, Kanaky, Polynesia, Chiapas, Biafra, Ambazonia, Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan, Azawad, Casamance, Sarawak, Sabah, Barotseland, Zanzibar, and dozens of other national liberation movements around the world. Such aspirant nations and peoples should be able to interact with the UN and their metropolitan overlords in a neutral setting.
The UN has turned away pleas from leader after leader, much in the same way that the League of Nations ignored a personal plea by Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, made before its assembly in Geneva, to help him and his nation turn away military aggression launched by Fascist Italy.
The UN was formed to avoid wars by having nations and peoples discuss their grievances in a global forum. If the status quo enthusiasts and advocates of unilateralist policies of the Trump administration want to interfere in this pursuit, the UN should relocate to Switzerland, where it can be assured of non-interference in its affairs by the host nation. And if the United States, like many Trump supporters advocate, decides to leave the UN, the world body would be better off without a brigand, pariah, and thuggish state deciding policies for 192 other member states.
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