The United Nations is a Mess - Zimbabwe

The UN is a mess. It provides a place for dictators to strut and send their children so they can play in a world-class city while having diplomatic immunity. But it does not do what it is intended to do - to provide a place for countries to come together to solve problems that affect everyone. So should we send Barbara Boxer to New York City to be nice to everyone? Or should we send someone who will ask questions and push to clean it up? Like John Bolton. Look at what is happening right now -

• Zimbabwe was elected to the UN Human Rights Commission. Elected. This is happening now - April, 2005. More about Zimbabwe below.
• The UN supervised the Iraq Oil-for-Food program and turned it into a massive illegal kick-back scheme for Russia and France. And huge illegal kick backs to the UN's favored people - Kofi Annan's son. And, incredibly, the UN allowed Saddam Hussein to subvert the program and take food out of the mouths of his people and use the money for his 30 "palaces."
• UN peacekeepers instead of protecting the people they were sent to protect, are raping and killing them. In the Congo the Belgians have been caught doing terrible things. (I need to look up a source for this.)
• Even when the UN admits that its "peacekeepers" are harrassing, raping and killing people, it won't do anything. The people sitting in their palace in New York City sit and enjoy themselves, but do nothing. See "Henry Dowa in Kosovo" below.

Zimbabwe on the Human Rights Commission - Elected

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) was dismayed:

"The Government of Zimbabwe has consistently disregarded the rights of its people, repressed political dissent and quashed any and all opposition. Far from earning a role as a protector of human rights, their membership renders the Commission illegitimate and irrelevant. A real and credible UN Human Rights Commission would be condemning the current regime and its activities. I deplore their selection as a Commission member, and hope that this outrageous appointment will help inspire UN members to enact extensive and meaningful reform of the Commission."

Roger Bates covers the story at Tech Central Station For the UN to have voted Zimbabwe onto the UN Commission for Human Rights it had to ignore the following:

 
• the 20,000 members of the opposition that Mugabe ordered killed in the 1980s
• the destruction of half of the economy in the past five years to maintain power; the regular physical abuse encountered by any opposition to his regime (and that includes just saying nasty things about the leader)
• • the lack of free media
• food allocation used as a political weapon
• helping wage a war in the Congo so that Mugabe and his cronies make millions from conflict diamonds
• the neglect of the entire health system so that life expectancy has dropped from 55 to 33 years in the past decade.

This shows how arrogant the collective UN is. That the countries vote to place another human right abuser to the Human Rights Commission. Other recent members - Libya and Sudan.

Henry Dowa in Kosovo

Even when the UN admits that its "peacekeepers" are harrassing, raping and killing people, it won't do anything. Roger Bate goes into one example:

In 2001 a Zimbabwean policeman with a reputation as a serial torturer was seconded to the UN police force in Kosovo. Not minding whose human rights he abused, Henry Dowa carried right on torturing and was eventually asked to leave in 2003. He is now back in Harare committing more offences against the powerless populace of Zimbabwe's capital. The human rights group, REDRESS, recently published a report on Dowa -- it makes grisly reading. According to the report, the UN acknowledged the gravity of the allegations made against Dowa. But here's the kicker: "However, after very careful consideration and in consultation with UN Headquarters, we have with regret concluded that UN…cannot pursue criminal prosecution of the officer in Kosovo…[as the UN] has a very limited number of international judges and prosecutors to whom the case would have to be referred."

The UN sent a known criminal to "protect the people of Kosovo." And now it won't prosecute Dowa for what he did while wearing a UN uniform. It's broken. Send John Bolton to so something.