The UN's record on human rights

[I miss Reagan]

Not only does the UN run in the face of tyranny (Iraq, Sudan, Rwanda, Kosovo). It rewards nations with records of gross human rights abuses by appointing them to the Human Rights Commission.

How can anyone take this organization seriously when they appoint nations like Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia and now Cuba and Zimbabwe, to make decisions regarding human rights.

WASHINGTON -- The State Department denounced on Tuesday the selection of Cuba and Zimbabwe for a panel that will decide on the agenda for a meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Commission next month.

"The United States believes that countries that routinely and systematically violate the rights of their citizens should not be selected to review the human rights performance of other countries," State Department press office Tom Casey said.

Besides Cuba and Zimbabwe, the other members of the so-called "Working Group on Situations" are Hungary, the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia.

Countries with dreadful rights records should never be in charge of chairing the Commission on Human Rights," said Rory Mungoven, global advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "Libya's long record of human rights abuses clearly does not merit such a reward."

[August1991]

The 219-page report, issued yesterday by the Independent Inquiry Committee, the United Nations-appointed panel headed by Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman, depicts what was the United Nations' largest relief effort as riddled with political favoritism and mismanagement.

New York Times

This is what the UN really is: Favoritism and mismanagement. The democratic world needs a new organization.

[Shakeyhands]

This is really weird... O'Reilly was bashing the UN tonight too!

Everyone close their eyes and don't look at what they have done positively....

I understand the US's problem with the UN guys, I can't say I understand yours.

You two are like Bush's poster boys, why?

[August1991]

You two are like Bush's poster boys, why?

Gimme a break. This has nothing to do with Bush, or my opinions of him.

Rather, wake up and smell the coffee. How can you say the UN is useful anymore?

The IMF, the World Bank, the WTO are useful international organizations. The UN is not. It must be seriously reformed.

[Guest eureka]

Since the US was an overseer of the program Volcker is investigating (at the request of the UN, it should be noted), would it not be a little fairer to apportion the criticism more evenly?

[Shakeyhands]

because there is no way to spin that into a positive light Eureka. The right only brings up and spins what is useful to its own ends.

[I miss Reagan]

I'm glad you bring up the Oil for Food scandal August. I'm baffled that the media in Canada has chosen to ignore it. You'd think people would be outraged that all this money meant for hungry people was divided between UN officials and Saddam. Canadians evidently have an extremely high tolerance for corruption.

To curry favor and end sanctions, Saddam allegedly gave former government officials, activists, journalists and U.N. officials vouchers for Iraqi oil that could then be resold at a profit.

Volcker's report found "convincing and uncontested evidence" that selection of the three U.N. contractors for the Oil-for-Food program — Banque Nationale de Paris, Saybolt Eastern Hemisphere BV, and Lloyd's Register Inspection Limited — did not conform to established financial and competitive bidding rules.

Volcker did not say that Sevan received kickbacks, but expressed concern at $160,000 in cash which he said he received from his aunt in his native Cyprus from 1999-2003. The report questioned this "unexplained wealth," noting that his aunt, who recently died, was a retired Cyprus government photographer living on a modest pension.

BTW, correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think August even likes Bush.

[I miss Reagan]

And today another revelation of UN corruption: NY Times

An accountant working late one night in July 2003 at the United Nations-affiliated weather agency in Geneva spotted a check that he had signed, but noticed that someone had endorsed it to an unknown third party, one L. Khalil. The accountant's curiosity was piqued, and he began nosing around.

"Within half an hour I had found about 25 checks worth about $400,000 that had not gone to where they were supposed to go," said the accountant, Luckson Ngwira.

That led to a formal audit and a continuing criminal investigation by Swiss authorities at the sleepy agency, focusing on allegations of embezzlement of training funds by Muhammad Hassan, a Sudanese employee who controlled that money. Investigators allege in documents and interviews that Mr. Hassan stole as much as $3 million over three or four years.

This might be a simple embezzlement case, except that in addition to the money, Mr. Hassan is missing as well. A woman claiming to be Mr. Hassan's wife filed a death certificate, which Sudanese officials have told investigators is fake.

[Guest eureka]

I would again ask why those who were to versee the program did not do their job.

I would also point out, that "those countries who headed the Human Rights Commission" did not head the Commission. Citizens of "those countries" did in their turn.

Is their any evidence that they have not done the job in accordance with the Charter and their obligation to uphold it?

[August1991]

I would also point out, that "those countries who headed the Human Rights Commission" did not head the Commission. Citizens of "those countries" did in their turn.

And of course, "citizens" from "those countries" will participate independently without any direction from the governments of "those countries".

The UN is well beyond the stage of autocratic evil. The UN's greatest sin now is that it has become the Canadian Post Office (circa 1970) in a world of e-mail. It is irrelevant.

The democratic world needs a new institution.

[caesar]

The IMF, the World Bank, the WTO are useful international organizations. The UN is not. It must be seriously reformed.

True; the UN does need changes. It needs to be done with the Permanent Five and their vetoes. The world and powers change in relevancy. It, also, needs a way to collect dues. Too many nations neglect paying their dues (USA is the worst dead beat) which hog ties them from reacting to world situations.

Countries need to send delegates that will vote on issues in a more world wide and honest frame of mind. Routine vetoes protecting a favoured country right or wrong is not reacting to world situations.

[I miss Reagan]

Interesting 20/20 on Friday. Did anyone catch it? They did a story on UN peacekeepers and higher up UN officials in the Congo. Apparently there is a huge problem with UN peacekeepers raping local teenagers and participating in child porn and local prostitution of teenage boys and girls. Somehow the big media story is how US troops in Cuba are wearing thongs in the presence of their prisoners.

"The U.N. is there for their protection, so when the protectors become violators, this is particularly egregious," said Anneke Van Woudenberg, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch who investigated the allegations on behalf of her organization. "This is particularly bad."

[I miss Reagan]

More:

Investigations have already turned up 150 allegations of sexual misconduct by peacekeepers and UN staff despite the UN’s official policy of “zero-tolerance”. One found 68 allegations of misconduct in the town of Bunia alone.

UN insiders told The Times that two Russian pilots based in Mbandaka paid young girls with jars of mayonnaise and jam to have sex with them.

They filmed the sessions and sent the tapes to Russia. But the men were tipped off and left the area before UN investigators arrived.

The Moroccan peacekeeping contingent based in Kisangani — a town on the Congo River with no road links to the outside world — had one of the worst reputations. A soldier accused of rape was apparently hidden in the barracks for a year.

In July 2002 the rebel commander Major-General Jean Pierre Ondekane, who subsequently became Minister of Defence in a postwar transitional government, told a top UN official that all that Monuc (the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo) would be remembered for in Kisangani was “for running after little girls”.

An international organisation examining the sex trade between Monuc and local women found that in March there were 82 women and girls who had been made pregnant by Moroccan men and 59 more by Uruguayan men.

According to UN insiders, at least two UN officials — a Ukrainian and a Canadian — have had to leave the country after getting local women pregnant.

Times

[I miss Reagan]

I think it's time to rethink the nearly half-billion dollars in aid the US send's to U.N. peacekeeping operations. How much more aid funding must we squander on holier-than-thou theives pretending to be do-gooders? For the sake of the innocents raped and pillaged, not to mention those starved by Oil-for-food, in the name of humanitarianism, they need to get stingy. First step would be to ask the UN to leave the US.

Allegations of sexual abuse or misconduct by U.N. staff stretch back at least a decade, to operations in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea. A 2001 report, released by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Save the Children, found that sexual violence against refugees in West Africa was endemic (though some of its findings were denied by a subsequent U.N. team). A year later a coalition of religious organizations sent a letter to Secretary of 

State Colin Powell urging the United States to send more human rights monitors into Congo. The U.N. then introduced a "code of conduct" to help prevent future abuses, including prohibitions against sexual activity between staff and children and the exchange of money or food for sex.

Weekly Standard

[Black Dog]

Oh yeah: the U.S.A is really qualified to lecture people on humanitarian grounds.

Americans give 15 cents per day per person in official development assistance to poor countries. The average American spends four times that on soft drinks daily.

[Guest eureka]

I have often said that the UN should leave the US. Then they would not be pouring those hundreds of millionss of dollars in Municipal taxes, salaries, supplies, and so on into the New York economy.

The money would be better used in supporting the economy of some nation that really wanted the UN to work.

[I miss Reagan]

Oh yeah: the U.S.A is really qualified to lecture people on humanitarian grounds. 

Actually, if you put down the Chomsky reader you might find that the USA is the most qualified to lecture on humanitarian aid. They give more aid than any other country. And being a capitalist country they do it through individual donations rather than government mismanagment. Why would Americans rely on official aid through corrupt bureaucratic organizations like the UN.

In Johannesburg, the U.S. delegation can answer the criticisms they will face with four additional key points. First, that our government gave more foreign aid, in absolute terms, than any other country in 2001, topping second-ranked Japan. Second, the U.S. has long provided the most foreign direct investment in developing countries, which creates real sustainability in economic development. Third, the U.S. provides the bulk of the world's R&D, which saves millions of lives with improvements in food and medicines. And, finally, we give far and away the most militarily, which helps make the world safe for economic growth and democracy.

read the backup

So in your selective statistical manipulation you Mooreishly omit the truth:

International giving by US foundations: $1.5 billion per year

Charitable giving by US businesses: $2.8 billion annually

American NGOs: $6.6 billion in grants, goods and volunteers.

Religious overseas ministries: $3.4 billion, including health care, literacy training, relief and development.

US colleges scholarships to foreign students: $1.3 billion

Personal remittances from the US to developing countries: $18 billion in 2000

[Black Dog]

Actually, if you put down the Chomsky reader you might find that the USA is the most qualified to lecture on humanitarian aid. They give more aid than any other country. And being a capitalist country they do it through individual donations rather than government mismanagment. Why would Americans rely on official aid through corrupt bureaucratic organizations like the UN.

Actually, that's false.

In 2003, the U.S. gave 15 cents for every $100 of national income to poor countries. Denmark gave 84 cents, the Netherlands gave 80 cents, Belgium gave 60 cents, France gave 41 cents, and Greece gave 21 cents (that was the lowest share, beside our own).

As wel, by OECD calculations, private donations add 6 cents a day to the official U.S. figure - meaning that the U.S. still give only 21 cents a day per person. So, in proportion to actual income, the U.S. is still the lowest of the low.

[August1991]

In 2003, the U.S. gave 15 cents for every $100 of national income to poor countries.

That is false.

Your 15 cents statistic refers to Official Development Assistance which is allocated by the US federal government. It does not include myriad private donors such as religious institutions.

[Black Dog]

Read the rest.

By OECD calculations, private donations add 6 cents a day to the official U.S. figure - meaning that the U.S. still give only 21 cents a day per person. So, in proportion to actual income, the U.S. is still the lowest of the low.

"'Private charity is an act of privilege, it can never be a viable alternative to State obligations,'” said Dr James Obrinski, of the organisation Medicins sans Frontier, in Dhaka recently at the People's Health Assembly (see Himal, February 2001). In a nutshell, industry and private donations are feel-good, short-term interventions and no substitute for the vastly larger, and essentially political, task of bringing health care to more than a billion poor people."

— Rajshri Dasgupta, Patents, Private Charity and Public Health, Himal South Asian, March 2001

[Guest eureka]

Virtually every country gives through private sources: the US is not alone in that.

Black Dog is correct in that the US is low man in aid of every kind from the industrialized world. That has been a source of complaint for many years. Much of the aid it does give is tied to trade returns also.

[caesar]

Why would Americans rely on official aid through corrupt bureaucratic organizations like the UN.

The USA and its misuse of the veto is the corruption in the UN, Get rid of the permanent 5 and things may become more viable.

[August1991]

Fair enough, BD. I won't quibble with OECD stats.

The broader points are that:

Most US ODA is military assistance to Egypt/Israel. Most French ODA is "military assistance" to Africa.

ODA is largely government-to-government. (As in Canada, equalization payments are transfers to provincial governments.)

This policy doesn't work. "Third World Aid" has been given for over 50 years now and most of it has had little effect.

Americans have probably done more for the world's poor by simply trading with them than all Danish government critical-pathed, pilot projects combined.

[I miss Reagan]

As wel, by OECD calculations, private donations add 6 cents a day to the official U.S. figure - meaning that the U.S. still give only 21 cents a day per person. So, in proportion to actual income, the U.S. is still the lowest of the low.

False.

But the figures, counting only public sector contributions, are deceptive. Americans help others abroad - just as they do domestically - primarily through private donations, foundations, corporate and university giving, religious offerings, and direct help to needy family members. Scandinavians and other Europeans give abroad primarily as they do at home - through government.

So, at the guilt-fest in Jo'burg, the U.S. delegation should tell the real story of American generosity abroad. While there are no complete figures for international private giving, conservative estimates from surveys and voluntary reporting are impressive: Americans privately give at least $34 billion overseas -- more than three times U.S. official foreign aid of $10 billion.

This does not count the incredible cost in both human life and money the US bears for protecting the free world. By that factor alone it's amazing Americans would be so generous. The incentive of a free economy, IMV, is what puts the US on top.

[Black Dog]

False.

This does not count the incredible cost in both human life and money the US bears for protecting the free world. By that factor alone it's amazing Americans would be so generous. The incentive of a free economy, IMV, is what puts the US on top.

Oh yeah: about that:U.S. eyes humanitarian aid cuts, military aid increases

I suppose the U.S. doesn't want to spend more money on the military than the next 15 or so nations combined: it's all those ungrateful foreigners who are pushing U.S. military expenditures to Cold War levels.

I think that's the kind of "generosity" a lot of foreign countries can live without.