A bit of background:
I have been on a total of four mission trips in my life. Arguably, the least effective and most useless one was to Haiti. I might expand on that thought in a future column, but for the present, I want to talk about my experience with the United Nations while we were in the country.
One was in the town of Fond-Parisien. I was with some of the men from the mission who were with a few local guides picking up supplies for a construction project when a UN motorcade blew down the street with full police and apparently military escorts. No one had any idea where the pop-up parade was going or why it was so urgent for the UN dignitaries to get to their destination, but the display did manage to snarl the already-congested traffic pattern.
A day later, we were all taken by boat across a large lake to bring noodles, flour, cooking oil, and rice to the impoverished people on an island. Ostensibly, we were "ministering" to them by bringing them food. In reality, we were dropping off another regular shipment of empty carbs, which could then be converted into the opportunity to take a truckload of selfies with poor people so we could show everyone what great Christians we were.
As we disembarked, a phalanx of boats pulled up next to us and disgorged a detachment of the UN peacekeeping forces. The soldiers were Brazilian, and none of them were over the age of 25. They were armed to the teeth with automatic rifles and pistols that were secured to their sides by tethers. I was one of those who was questioned about who we were, where we were from, and what we were doing there. One young man with a smile on his face took multiple photos of me. So my mug is floating around a UN database somewhere.
The upshot is this: the locals told us that the UN was doing nothing for the Haitian people. If anything, the UN was considered a hindrance to the remote possibility that the benighted country might ever recover from its death spiral. Most Haitians I met wanted the UN to go back to wherever it came from.
All of the above supports the idea that the UN is, by and large, nothing more than an exercise in power for the sake of power, a haven for people who want impressive titles and the ability to tell others how to order their lives. Take, for example, the case of 49-year-old Lydia Mugambe of Uganda.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, she was appointed as a judge to the U.N. International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in Uganda in May 2023. This appointment came about even though police had been called to her Oxfordshire home in England three months prior as she studied for her legal PhD. at Oxford. The Free Beacon also notes:
Mugambe was a fellow housed within Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights, whose fellows work to "address some aspect of a history of gross human rights violations in their society, country, and/or region" in 2017.
Yes, that Columbia University. You can already see the wheels coming off, can't you?
On Thursday, Mugambe was convicted of human trafficking. Sadly, why am I not surprised? The Independent reported that Mugambe was convicted at the Oxford Crown Court of “conspiring to facilitate the commission of a breach of UK immigration law, facilitating travel with a view to exploitation, forcing someone to work, and conspiracy to intimidate a witness.”
Mugambe had worked with the Ugandan High Commission to sponsor a young woman to come to the UK. Once there, the woman was forced to serve as Mugambe's maid and provide free childcare. Mugambe also prevented the woman from finding regular employment.
A prosecutor told the court, “Lydia Mugambe has exploited and abused [her alleged victim], taking advantage of her lack of understanding of her rights to properly paid employment and deceiving her as to the purpose of her coming to the UK.”
Prosecutors allege that Mugambe had worked with Ugandan deputy high commissioner John Leonard Mugerwa to bring the woman to the UK. In exchange, Mugambe would “speak” to a judge overseeing a legal action in which Mugerwa was involved.
Mugambe maintained that she had treated the woman with care, love, and patience. By contrast, the woman said she felt "lonely and stuck" when Mugambe limited her working hours. The truth is that the young woman was a slave to Mugambe.
The takeaway here is not just that slavery and oppression are not solely within the purview of white European males. If you still believe that, may I suggest you withdraw from your Fill-In-The-Blank Studies class at Narcissist University and join us in the real world?
Rather, once people in power, no matter how pure they proclaim their intentions, have attained a certain level of power, they are no longer servants (if they had ever been such) but now perceive themselves as masters. And that has been an issue with the United Nations for more than a few years. It is something that Elise Stefanik had better keep in mind as she assumes her new post.
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