Does Anyone See a Problem Here?

It’s been a busy fortnight at the UN.

In response to the latest allegations of peacekeeper rape, in Haiti, Sudan and Cote d’Ivoire, a UN spokesman explained that the UN’s “zero tolerance” policy of such stuff is unrealistic — or, to put that in plainer English, if you want UN blue helmets, you’d better be ready to accept child rape as part of the package. In Rome, a UN food summit became a portal for appearances by Iran’s Mahmushroom-cloud Ahmadinejad (whose country is in nose-thumbing violation of three UN resolutions on its nuclear program, and who seized the chance to grandstand yet again about his desire for the destruction of Israel) and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe (Father of Famine in his own country), who was able to flout an EU travel ban thanks to the UN welcome wagon.

In New York, the UN Development Program –flagship agency of the UN — spun as an exoneration of its Cash-for-Kim activities in North Korea a much-delayed report which in fact details a host of ways in which the UNDP lends itself as a vehicle for exploitation by rogue states. Also in New York, the UN General Assembly, by acclamation, chose as its next president a former foreign minister of the brutal Soviet-lovin’ Sandinista era in Nicaragua, winner of the 1985 Lenin Prize, Miguel D’Escoto Brockman, with the monk-murdering regime of Burma to hold one of the 21 vice-presidential slots. In what sounds like a parody of UN-speak, Ban Ki-Moon’s deputy, Asha-Rose Migiro, welcomed d’Escoto’s “election,” saying that his “long and varied career” would — as paraphrased by the UN News Centre — “serve him well at the UN.” And, as the UN launches a $1.9 billion renovation of the New York headquarters from which it runs this ever-expanding empire, the NY City Controller was trying to collect millions in back-rent he says the UN Development Corporation has refused to pay.

This is the UN after what Ban Ki-Moon advertised as the new era of responsibility and transparency, after what Kofi Annan advertised as the sweeping reforms of 2005-2006, which followed the reforms of 2002, which followed the sweeping reforms of 1997. Which followed, well, you get the idea … does anyone see a problem here?