The UN summit meeting of some 175 world leaders opened on Wednesday with predictable political hoopla. The political fireworks did not come from heads of government or heads of state present at the gathering, but were set off mostly by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and international relief agencies clobbering the world body.

Virtually every single NGO tore apart the 35-page outcome document to be adopted by world leaders on Friday. The summit, they warned, will turn out to be a “damp squib” because it will fall far short of expectations. “The summit cannot be salvaged,” Jim Paul, executive director of the New York-based Global Policy Forum said. He said the document, which was meant to spell out a political and economic agenda for the 21st century is “weak and full of platitudes and generalities.”

“Generally, it seems a step backward from the Millennium Summit of 2000” which adopted the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including halving extreme poverty and hunger and reversing the spread of AIDS and malaria.

While praising member states for approving his two proposals to create a new Human Rights Council, Annan was forced to admit that one of the major drawbacks of the document was in disarmament and non-proliferation. Annan was also disappointed that his proposal for a radical restructuring of the world body was shot down by member states who feared that he was trying to usurp the powers of the 191-member General Assembly.

Bill Pace, executive director of the World Federalist Movement, said that it was a “gamble” to link development, security, peace and human rights reform. He criticised the closed-door consensus-based negotiations where a few governments were allowed to exercise a veto over the will of the overwhelming majority of member states. He said the five permanent members of the Security Council, namely the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia, behave in the General Assembly as if they have veto rights and fiercely refuse to allow any consideration of peace and security issues. And a few others, mostly military governments or permanent member wannabes, wreck the negotiations from the other side.

Just after the General Assembly adopted the document on Tuesday, the delegate from Venezuela said that he was “surprised” that the document had been provided only in English and at the last minute. The final decision on the document, he pointed out, was taken by a core group of 15 countries, not the 191 members of the world body.

The New York Times on Wednesday blamed the US for the impending failure of the summit. The Times accused ambassador John Bolton of insisting on a very long list of unilateral demands. “The predictable effect was to transform what had been a painful and difficult search for workable diplomatic compromises into a competitive exercise in political posturing.” The Times editorial said that the most tragic loss is a genuine opportunity to help one billion people who live on less than a dollar a day. — IPS