Say Anything Blog

A UN success story, huh?  In Sierra Leone?

For those on the left, from the Washington Post:

…I arrived in Sierra Leone as a legal aid worker in the summer of 2003, one year after the release of a damaging report on sexual abuse in U.N. refugee camps in West Africa. Although the report’s description of widespread sexual abuse had prompted Secretary General Kofi Annan to issue a strongly worded “zero tolerance” policy, I found abuse of a sexual nature almost every day—zero compliance with zero tolerance, as one investigator was to write. U.N. leaders had simply not expended any effort beyond lip service to carry out this zero tolerance policy.

In fact, abuse at these camps went beyond sexual violations: Injustices of one sort or another were perpetrated by U.N. missions or their affiliated nongovernmental organizations every day in the camps I visited. Corruption was the norm, in particular the embezzlement of food and funds by NGO officials, which often left camp resources dangerously inadequate. Utterly arbitrary judicial systems in the camps subjected refugees to violent physical punishment or months in prison for trivial offenses—all at the whim of officials and in the absence of any sort of hearing…

Although charged with the care of desperate refugees, many of the UNHCR staff remained ambivalent or hostile to the basic rights and needs of these vulnerable people. And they acted without fear of consequence….

While for those on the Right, UPI via Newsmax:

As world leaders converge on New York for the controversial conference on children this week, U.N. investigators and relief agencies say they are finally trying to stop recurrence of sexual abuse against West African refugee children by U.N. “peacekeepers” and aid workers.

The scale of allegations, partly revealed Feb. 26, sent shock waves through the “international aid community” and led to calls from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and governments for an urgent investigation in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea…

“We can barely cope with the cases that are being referred to us,” Dileep Nair, U.N. undersecretary general and chief of OIOS, told UPI.

In 2001, the burdened OIOS had more than 400 cases referred to it ranging from petty to serious alleged
breaches linked to U.N. matters.

A full copy of the joint study sponsored by the UNHCR and SC-UK, obtained by UPI, notes that during debriefing sessions in all three countries:

“UNHCR staff, government representatives and the agency staff, including senior managers, acknowledged that they knew such practices happened. Regrettably, even in situations where such information had been brought to their attention in the past, no action had been taken to monitor or redress the situation.”

The number of allegations documented “is a critical indicator of the scale of this problem,” it said.

“Agency workers from the international and local NGOs as well as U.N. agencies were ranked as among the worst sex exploiters of children, often using the very humanitarian aid and services intended to benefit the refugee population as a tool of exploitation.”

From these, and other articles, it would appear that the only real “success” here is that UN aid personnel, Peacekeepers, and other NGO officials are marginally less brutal in their sexual exploitation of women and children than the rebels they replaced.

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”

Usually, the only people naive enough to believe they can deliver world peace are future Miss Americas. But the UN puts forth the effort…

You’re naive enough to believe that the UN puts forth the effort at world peace? What a pity for being so dumb.

What a joke Davinski. Hold onto that dictator kissing UN. You go together well.

Nothing says “Human Rights” like China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.

It’s no better than the crap it replaced.

Since this is what you are a “huge proponent of” Davinski, why should we take anything you say seriously? Go ahead,..start your ignorant braying about “"nutty neo-cons”. At least you’re good for a cheap laugh.

In a developing nation like Sierra Leone with a bitter war behind them, things can still go wrong, but the UN has helped in sustaining peace and been engaged in assisting the new Democracy. Hopefully this huge undertaking will continue to succeed. Yes the critics will still be calling for an end to the UN, and they will continue to mock their shortcomings. But don’t tell that to the 5 million residents in Sierra Leone who now have a chance at living a peaceful life.

Take that paragraph, substitute “Iraq” for Sierra Leone and “US forces” for the UN and read it again. Tell me what you think?

Barack Obama: All hat and no cattle since 1997!