Farewell Helmut Kohl

Sun, 02 Jul 2017 10:38:31 +0000

Yet another great, but unsung hero has gone to meet his creator. Helmut Kohl the father and architect of reunification stood tall in the landscape of modern and contemporary political history.

For the 16 years Kohl served as Chancellor he championed and realized the unification of East and West Germany following the fall of the Berlin Wall. His vision propelled him further afield to champion the cause of greater European unity.

Working together with President Francois Mitterrand, they crafted the introduction of the Euro, a currency that has gained a place in global trade and commerce.

President Clinton, was apt when he described Kohl as one of the greatest if not the greatest post war Europe heroes who has left a legacy of unity and progress with a global aspiration.

This s a far cry from the new US President Donald Trump who is championing the cause of narrow and aggressive nationalism, that has abandoned the  call to global leadership  that previous American  Presidents both Republican and Democratic had espoused.

The new Trump administration is different. It has made no pretensions to internationalism or indeed global concern.

There are now real fears that the very ethos of United Nations may be facing its greatest existential crisis because of the policies that President Trump plans to implement. Drafts executive orders reducing US funding to the United Nations and other international organizations by at least 40% overall are being contemplated. Such cuts would have very serious repercussions to this global organization whose aim is world peace and international cooperation.

In previous tweets Trump has referred to the UN as “just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time”.

Following President Trump’s announcement to cut more than $1billion funding to global peacekeeping efforts, the United Nations has now announced plans to cut $600million from its peacekeeping budget.

The cuts are expected to leave thousands of struggling people with even worse access to food, clean water, shelter, and medication. This has immediate repercussions for the African continent which has a number of hot spots in which the blue helmets are helping keep the peace.

 Peacekeeping missions are extended across the globe in such countries as Syria, Haiti and the border between India and Pakistan.

The UN is scheduled to vote later this week on whether to cut the number of peacekeepers in the Darfur region by nearly half.

According to international media the cuts come amid pressure from both the US and the EU, which also wanted to see the UN peacekeeping budget reduced to no more than $7.3 billion rather than the $7.87 billion that was spent last year.

These cuts will have very drastic results as the UN maintains a presence in countries facing wars, famines and genocide. They will undoubtedly push many to the brink.

Until now the US contributed 28.5% of the UN’s peacekeeping budget, with China, Japan, Germany and France following. 

“The figures presented would simply make it impossible for the UN to continue all of its essential work advancing peace, development, human rights and humanitarian assistance,” UN Secretary General spokesperson Antonio Gutierrez told BBC.

Jeremy Konyndyk, a former head of disaster response for the Obama administration, has written that the budget cuts will harm tens of millions of lives to save fractions of pennies “It is gratuitously cruel and unbecoming of the deep American traditions of helping those in need around the world.”

As President Clinton emphasized Chancellor Kohl represented values bigger than the politicians and much bigger than the obviously narrow aggressive nationalism that President Trump has extolled and indeed beyond the narrow chauvinism of Brexit and its related inward looking policies.