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| International-UN-NGOs |
| The case against Kofi |
| 2006-10-01 |
| Surprisingly, this is from TimesOnline... heavily EFL Is there blood on his hands? As Kofi Annan prepares to stand down as UN secretary-general, Adam LeBor investigates the accusations made against the world’s chief defender of human rights THE CASE AGAINST KOFI ANNAN The bodies were still warm when Lieutenant Ron Rutten found them: nine corpses in civilian clothes lying crumpled by a stream, each shot in the back at close range. It was July 12, 1995, and the UN-declared “safe area” of Srebrenica had fallen the previous day. The lush pastures of eastern Bosnia were about to become Europe’s bloodiest killing fields since 1945. Refugees poured into the UN compound. But the Dutch peacekeepers (Dutchbat) were overwhelmed and the Serbs confiscated their weapons. “From the moment I found those bodies, it was obvious to me that the Bosnian Serbs planned to kill all the men,” Rutten said. He watched horrified as Dutch troops guided the men and boys onto the Serb buses. Srebrenica is rarely mentioned nowadays in Annan’s offices on the 38th floor of the UN secretariat building in New York. He steps down in December after a decade as secretary-general. His retirement will be marked by plaudits. But behind the honorifics and the accolades lies a darker story: of incompetence, mismanagement and worse. Annan was the head of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) between March 1993 and December 1996. The Srebrenica massacre of up to 8,000 men and boys and the slaughter of 800,000 people in Rwanda happened on his watch. In Bosnia and Rwanda, UN officials directed peacekeepers to stand back from the killing, their concern apparently to guard the UN’s status as a neutral observer. This was a shock to those who believed the UN was there to help them. Annan’s term has also been marked by scandal: from the sexual abuse of women and children in the Congo by UN peacekeepers to the greatest financial scam in history, the UN-administered oil-for-food programme. Arguably, a trial of the UN would be more apt than a leaving party. The charge sheet would include guarding its own interests over those it supposedly protects; endemic opacity and lack of accountability; obstructing investigations, promoting the inept and marginalising the dedicated. Such accusations can be made against many organisations. But the UN is different. It has a moral mission. It was founded by the allies in 1945 to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” and “reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights”. Its key documents – the Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the genocide convention – are the most advanced formulation of human rights in history. And they have been flouted by UN member states for decades. A more specific charge would be that, under the doctrine of command responsibility, the UN is guilty of war crimes. Broadly speaking, it has three principles: that a commander ordered atrocities to be carried out, that he failed to stop them, despite being able to, or failed to punish those responsible. The case rests on the second, that in Rwanda in 1994, in Srebrenica in 1995 and in Darfur since 2003, the UN knew war crimes were occurring or about to occur, but failed to stop them, despite having the means to do so. The individual "charges" are detailed... RTWT. It is more than a series of indictments of Kofi's reign - it clearly makes the case that the UN is a complete and utter failure. |
| Posted by:.com |
| #8 It seems that the UN just plays a big obstructionist role. The US is slow to react to threats like NorK and Iran because it has to take the politically correct path through the UN, which just results in a bunch of posturing based on the lowest common denominator which is usually trying to enable the evil behavior and its consequences. The UN itself is slow to react even to famine, the clearest of problems with the simplest of solutions, and everyone stands around waiting for the UN to get off its a$$ and do something and more people end up dying as a result. The UN was conceived right after a big war when people were more idealistic and responsible and could not imagine the liberalism, complication and political correctness that plagues the world today. It is time to go and replace it with a structure that does more to foster action and responsility, and to discourage enabling evil behavior. |
| Posted by: gorb 2006-10-01 16:05 |
| #7 But it isn't Kofi personally---any UN chief would be guilty of same. The problem is with UN's basic premises. |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2006-10-01 15:02 |
| #6 'scuse me while I flush the toilet. |
| Posted by: newc 2006-10-01 10:55 |
| #5 Slightly OT: Has anyone else out there had a chance to see a political ad being run on tv calling for more leadership from Prez Bush to go to the UN to "Stop the Genocide" in Darfur? Just saw it the first time this morning. I don't know who bought and paid for the ad, but I'm fairly certain it's not the RNC. The ad intends to leave the impression that the continued genocide in Darfur can be laid specifically at the feet of Prez Bush (and Repubs in general). Disgusting. Alot of uninformed voters will buy this BS. Payback from the Dems for Repub criticism of Clinton on Rwanda? Yeah, I suspect so. What pisses me off is that the real blame in Darfur is with the icon of the Dem party: the UN which recieves no criticism from the Dems. |
| Posted by: Mark Z 2006-10-01 10:52 |
| #4 Notice how all the trolls who call for an International Tribunal for Bushie never seem to tag Kofi for his contributions to the charnel piles created under his |
| Posted by: Sneresing Uleaper6513 2006-10-01 09:37 |
| #3 Correction: ...the worldÂ’s chief BS defender of human rights.. |
| Posted by: Duh! 2006-10-01 09:36 |
| #2 So has the genocide toll on Kofi's watch broken 2 million yet? |
| Posted by: ed 2006-10-01 08:29 |
| #1 Is their blood on his hands? Why the question mark? Maybe it's because the real question is not if the blood is on his hands, but in his stomach. The blood was poured into a nice clean glass by a staffer. Kofi never needed to get it on his hands. I can think of no more vile person on earth than Kofi Annan. He was given the charge to protect the most dire on the face of the earth and he used his position to steal from them. |
| Posted by: anon 2006-10-01 08:26 |