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December 20, 2004
The Unpopular UN
The battle over Kofi Annan's future at the UN is in full force. US Senator Norm Coleman, among others, has called for his resignation. The EU has come out in support of Annan.
Defenders of Annan have now taken to saying that Annan is in fact a great reformer. Shashi Tharoor, Under-Secretary-General at the UN, tells us so in a letter to the Washington Times
Your editorial "Kofi's dysfunctional institution" (Dec. 6) glosses over the fact that Kofi Annan has on many occasions been labeled the "reform" secretary-general. In 1997, his first blueprint for action on reform, "Renewing the United Nations," emphasized improved coherence and coordination and marked the momentum for change, evaluation and improved performance that has characterized his tenure.
First there is the "has...been labeled" line. That somebody has been called something good by unnamed sources proves nothing. Second, plans are worth a dime a dozen. It's the implementation that it important. Given the revelations of the Oil-for-Food Scandal now unfolding, any "reforms" were not serious.
In the rest of the letter the Under-Secretary lays out what has become the standard defense; we helped you (the US) set up elections in Afghanistan and are helping you in Iraq. This may be true, but it is beside the point. Given the amount of money the UN spends, they had better be able to help with a few elections. The real question is whether the benefits to the world outweigh the harm. And it seems pretty clear to me that the UN has done more harm than good.
Consider the experiences of Kenneth Cain, who has served in UN peacekeeping operations in Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti, and Liberia
Before my recent return, the last time I was in Rwanda was 10 years ago; I was counting skulls. A young U.N. human-rights officer, I was tasked with collecting evidence for the U.N.'s forthcoming war-crimes tribunal after the successful genocide of Rwanda's Tutsi minority by Hutu militias in 1994. We were looking for the mass graves of mass murder. We found them in churches, schools, gardens, latrines--anywhere Tutsis had gathered seeking protection or their killers had dumped their bodies, dismembered and entangled, like life-size rag dolls. Some 800,000 bodies rotted in the African sun.Cain relates how General Romeo Dalliare, the UN force commander, pleaded with Anan for authority to protect the minority Tutsis. Instead, Annan ordered Dalliare to "stand down" so that the UN would be seen as impartial.But it isn't just the stench of death I remember so vividly; the odor of betrayal also hung heavily in the Rwandan air. This was not a genocide in which the U.N. failed to intervene; most of the U.N.'s armed troops evacuated after the first two weeks of massacres, abandoning vulnerable civilians to their fate, which included, literally, the worst things in the world a human being can do to another human being.
"Impartial"? With regard to mass murder? But this goes to the heart of the problem with the UN; it is at best an amoral organization, at worst one that advances the interests of the dictatorships of the world.
The British Economist said that the failure of these forces to do anything in Africa made them "the world's least effective UN peacekeeping force" (Hat tip Belmont Club). Elites who tout the UN's "indespensability should note how the organization is perceived by the people it is supposed to be protecting
Indeed, it would be hard to exaggerate the UN's unpopularity. Some Congolese shake their fists or throw clumps of mud at passing UN patrols. Three months ago, militiamen burned 17 people to death while a detachment of MONUC troops 200 metres away, whose mandate authorised them to use force to prevent such massacres, did nothing. “Is MONUC here to do anything apart from count the bodies?” asked a Congolese witness.
The UN may be popular among liberal elites, but it is unpopular where it counts; among the people it is supposed to be protecting.
Why is the UN so ineffective? Wretchard gets to the bottom of it
The key problem facing the United Nations is lack of accountability not to its constituent institutions, though it lacks that, but to the individual inhabitants of the world. Its inefficiency, corruption and fantasy policies are the result and not the cause of its problems.
"Individuals" do not matter to dictatorships. And indeed many western Europeans do not seem interested at all in the spread of democracy, or see it as a benefit. The Oil-for-Food Scandal, as bad as it is, is but a symptom of a more fundamental problem. And it is one that "reform" will not solve.
Posted by Tom at December 20, 2004 11:20 AM
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