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TEMASEK JUNIOR COLLEGE PRELIMINARY EXAMINATIONS 2012. HISTORY 9731/01 8841/01

International History, 1945 2000. 13 SEPT 2012. 3 Hours. Additional Materials:1. Answer Paper

READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST. 1. Write your Civics group, index number and name on all the work you hand in. 2. Write in dark blue or black pen. 3. You may use a soft pencil for any diagrams, graphs, music or rough working. 4. Do not use staples, paper clips highlighters, glue or correction fluid and tape. Answer FOUR Questions. You must answer Question1 and any three questions from Section B.

At the end of the examinations, fasten all your work securely together. All questions in this paper carry equal marks.

This document consists of 4 printed pages. Temasek Junior College 2012 [Turn over

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Section A You must answer Question 1. The United Nations and the Secretary-General. Source A In April 1998, the Secretary-General traveled to Rwanda. Before that countrys parliament, he sought to repair an abiding ill will by acknowledging the delinquency of the United nations in responding to the horrific massacre of Tutsis during the disturbances in 1994, in a time when he was under-secretary general. This and other problems related to the challenge of disintegrating states led the Secretary- General to support and build on certain ideas about peacekeeping In September 1998, at the opening of the General Assembly, he recommended intervention in the escalating conflict between the Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo. In June 1999, the Security Council approved the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo, and the UN Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK) When, in the fall of 1999, East Timor voted to seceded from Indonesia, Annan negotiated with the Indonesian government to allow UN forces to enter the province. Eventually, a UN-sanctioned force, led by the Australians, did begin to restore order, and UN-monitored elections brought independence and peace to East Timor. Adapted from Moore and Pubantz from The New United Nations: International Organisation in the Twenty First Century, ,2006. Source B This time U Thant played it cool. The Secretary General refused to become involved in the conflict between Russia and Czechoslovakia. Why did he turn his head the other way when the Russians threatened another member of the United Nations fighting for its freedom? He was never so cautious or neutral in his comments on US policies, and instead urged concession by the United States that would lead to an end of all bombing of North Vietnam. Such double standard on political and moral issues is alas, the rule rather than the exception in the United Nations. The Czechoslovak crisis merely emphasized again by the United Nations, which could be useful as an instrument of world peace, is morally bankrupt. It also raised anew the question the question of U Thants anti-US bias and his role as a peacemaker. An extract from a British newspaper, Daily News, dated 12 August 1968

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Source C The 1990s saw an upsurge in the United Nations peacekeeping and peacemaking activities and dramatic changes in the nature of conflict itself- primarily a decline in conflicts between states and a rise in the frequencies and brutality of conflicts within states. Difficult experiences in responding to these complex humanitarian emergencies have led to the Secretary-General to place great emphasis on ensuring that the United Nations, when asked to undertake a peace operation is equipped to do so military financially and politically. Extracted from, Basic Facts About the United Nations.

Source D At present, the UN lacks independent sources of information; its means of obtaining up-to-date information are primitive by comparison with those of member statesTo judge whether a matter may threaten international peace and security, the Secretary-General needs more than news reports and analyses made by outside expertsand he needs to be able to monitor developments world-wide. To enable the Secretariat to do this would in no way alter the distribution of functions and powers between the principal organs of the UN. Strengthening the institutional basis of preventive diplomacy would not diminish the role of the Security Council: on the contrary, it would enhance its effectiveness. The Secretary-General is after all, a collaborator of the Security Council and not its competitor. Adapted from a speech by Javier Perez de Cuellar, then UN Secretary-General, in Oxford, 1986.

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Source E A Secretary-General needs at least minimal support from all the Permanent Members and all the major geographical groups in order to carry out the duties of his office adequately. The chances are that, if Hammerskjold had not died at Ndola, the Soviet boycott would have accomplished his political death as it did with Trygve Lie. His three successors in the Cold War years U Thant, Waldheim and Perez De Cuellar went out of their way, too far in my judgement, to avoid giving offence to major UN players, in particular the two superpowers. Sir Anthony Parson, UK Permanent representative at the UN from 1979 to 1982, In his book, From The Cold War to Hot Peace, 1995.

Now Answer the Question 1) The office of the United Nations Secretary General has been a failure in the years 1945 2000? How far do Sources A E support the above hypothesis? [25]

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Section B You must answer THREE Questions.

2) An era of risk taking. Assess the validity of the statement in view of the outbreak of the Cuban Missile Crisis. [25]

3) The last days of the USSR reflected the impact of the failure of Communism. Critically evaluate the accuracy of the above hypothesis. [25]

4) How far do you agree with the view that the Breton Woods system had succeeded because it was a perfectly designed system? [25]

5) To what extent did Japanese overconfidence resulted in her decade long recession in the 1990s? [25]

6) Discuss on the view that the Indians and the Pakistanis were their own undoing in the outbreak of the Indian Pakistani conflict. [25]

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