 US Ambassador John Bolton’s drive to crack down on UN fraud and abuse is triggering a backlash from developing nations who fear Washington is trying to wrest control from UN members. The simmering conflict between Washington and the developing nations that make up a majority of UN members boiled to the surface this week when two US congressmen said nonaligned states had “worked feverishly in New York to block the efforts ... to clean up the institution”.
| Afraid the grease is going away? Don't worry, it won't get to the point where you have to pay for your own lunches... |
“We and our colleagues in the House of Representatives have followed, and will continue to follow, your actions very closely, and we intend to hold you accountable for them,” Republican Henry Hyde of Illinois and Democrat Tom Lantos of California wrote South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo in a letter circulated at the United Nations on Friday. Kumalo, the current chairman of the Group of 77, a bloc of 132 developing nations and China, said the group had been “very, very upset” by the letter but had decided at a hastily called emergency meeting not to respond to it.
| Sigh. I can remember when South Africa was a first world nation. Now it's "developing." We won't dwell on what it's developing. |
“They are just one of 191 parliaments,” Kumalo said. “They were upset. We were upset. You can play that game endlessly. The mistake being made by Washington is to assume management reform matters only to Washington. It matters to all of us.”
| "It just matters to some of us for different reasons." |
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