In this week's UN Plaza, Matthew Lee and I discuss the "gold for guns" allegations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ban's diplomacy in Myanmar, the chaos in Sudan, and hopeful trends in Nepal. In the segment below, we chat about recent elections to the Human Rights Council.
In such a lawless society, perhaps this is not surprising:
U.N. experts investigating violations of an arms embargo against Somalia report that countries and private traders are supplying weapons to warlords and militants, South Africa's U.N. ambassador said Thursday.Even more disturbing, though, is who seems to be providing the weapons. The UN monitoring group contends that the presence of Ethiopian troops backing Somalia's unstable government itself violates the arms embargo and that, in addition, some Ugandan members of the African Union peacekeeping force in the country have been selling weapons back to the insurgents that they are disarming. Both Ethiopia and Uganda have denied the allegations, but they nonetheless reflect the dangerously complicated situation in a country with all too many weapons and armed groups, and not nearly enough food or humanitarian involvement. Many Somalis already resent what they term the Ethiopian "occupation" of their country, and the UN group's findings certainly will not improve Ethiopia's image in their eyes. The news about the peacekeepers from Uganda, which was one of only a few countries willing to contribute troops to the severely undermanned AU contingent in the country, helps explain why South Africa's UN ambassador -- who was also the head of the committee monitoring Somalia's arms embargo -- was so excited about the Security Council's recent agreement that they should begin planning to step up the UN presence there. Oh yes, and pirates may be involved in the arms smuggling as well.
Top Stories
>>South Africa - South African troops have been deployed to stop the recent backlash against foreigners that has left 42 dead and forced 15,000 to flee. This morning raids at three hostels in Johannesburg ended in the arrest of 28 people and the seizure of drugs, arms, and ammunition. The last time troops were used to ease unrest was in 1994 at the end of apartheid era. Some members of the South African government, including the director general of the intelligence agency and the minister of intelligence, have claimed that the attacks were orchestrated by movements that supported the apartheid government.
>>Georgia - Georgia's ruling United National Movement party has crushed its opponents in the parliamentary election, securing 59.5 percent of the vote according to official results released today, and cemented the power of President Mikheil Saakashvili. The second place United Opposition Bloc, which received 17.7 percent of the vote, has complained of irregularities in both the campaign and the vote. International monitors believe that the elections were an improvement on the past, but far from perfect.
>>Italy - Nearly 20 years after it was shut down by referendum in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster, Italy's nuclear power program is to be revived. Italy, the world's biggest net importer of energy, will begin construction on new nuclear power plants by 2013.
Yesterday in UN Dispatch
"Who will watch the peacekeepers?" asks a former UN internal investigator in a New York Times op-ed today. The issue at hand are allegations that a contingent of Pakistani peacekeepers in eastern DRC trafficked in arms for gold with a local militia. The allegations are serious, and at least one prominent human rights organization has taken issue with the way the United Nations has handled the situation.
But the op-ed today drives at a deeper question: what to do about miscreant peacekeepers in general? Right now, there are over 100,000 peacekeepers in 19 missions around the world. The vast majority are putting their lives on the line every day to help bring peace to the most troubled places on earth. But by the laws of averages, a certain percentage is going to be bad apples. The challenge, therefore, is to reduce the percentage of bad apples through strengthening procedures that ensure individual criminal accountability.
This is much easier said than done. One of the main hurdles is jurisdiction; where should Pakistani soldiers who commit crimes in DRC be held accountable? Principals of justice would demand that the crimes be tried locally, but most places where peacekeepers are deployed don't have functioning judiciaries.
It looks like Australia will soon be making an admirable move regarding women's rights:
The Federal Government says steps are being taken to sign a United Nations protocol that aims to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women. Signing the optional protocol would enable women to complain to the United Nations if Australia violates its obligations and domestic remedies have been exhausted.Attorney-General Robert McClelland said, "We're committed to the promotion and protection of women's rights and making gender equality a reality in Australia." He adds, "Obviously if we're to promote the rights of women within our region we need to at least set the example domestically." Indeed.
After a two-hour meeting with Myanmar's reclusive leader, General Than Shwe, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reports that the country will drop its opposition to foreign aid workers operating in the country. From Bloomberg:
"He has agreed to allow all aid workers regardless of nationalities," Ban told reporters in the capital, Naypyidaw, according to the UN delegation. "He has taken quite a flexible position on this matter."This is a very promising development. Given the Myanmar government's history of shutting out foreign involvement, though, action will be much more credible than words here. Even with this commitment, it is not yet clear whether aid workers will be permitted into all areas of the country, including more remote sections of the hard-hit Irrawaddy delta region, or even what kinds of boats will be allowed to transport the aid. Had Ban's mission failed -- or if Myanmar reneges on its pledge -- then France, whose foreign minister has been outspoken in invoking the "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine, is willing to go to the Security Council to push for delivering aid "by all means necessary." Fortunately, though, Ban's focus on diplomacy seems to be paying dividends. Granting the UN -- which is ready to fully deploy, having stockpiled food and supplies for 2.4 million people -- full access is clearly the preferable option here, but it is crucial to ensure this Myanmar's openness is not more of a public relations ploy than a genuine acknowledgment of the country's desperate situation.
In his Washington Post op-ed this week, Jackson Diehl contends that John McCain's proposal to create a "League of Nations" does not actually originate with McCain himself:
In fact, a league of democracies is not a new but a very old idea. In the past decade it has been promoted mostly by Democrats, including several of Barack Obama's top foreign policy advisers.Diehl then cites a number of various liberal thinkers who have proposed a "concert," a "community," an "alliance," or any other sort of coalition of democratic nations. The problem, however, is that Diehl does not fully consider the nuances of each of these particular ideas, specifically failing to distinguish between initiatives meant to be an association of democracies under the umbrella of the UN and those that merely mouth adherence to the UN system, but are more likely than not intended to supplant the global body. Senator McCain's proposal, it seems, falls under the latter category, and this, for reasons we've articulated before, is a very unproductive idea. More broadly, though, the origins of the idea are ultimately moot. Whether Republicans or Democrats have endorsed a version of the concept will not matter much in the eyes of the rest of the world--and it is the 6.3 billion non-Americans who will likely be most affected by the creation of a new global body. Simply because an idea enjoys supposed bipartisan support (which McCain's "League of Democracies" is far from able to claim) does not mean that it should be taken up by both parties. Any idea should be assessed based not on those who support it, but on the merits of the idea itself. And in the case of an idea with so much potential to harm the global order, both parties would be wiser to abandon it entirely.
From the UN News Center:
Flying by helicopter over rice fields submerged under brown sludge, Mr. Ban visited the Kyondah relief camp, 75 kilometres south of Yangon in the hard-hit Irrawaddy delta, where many women and small children who have lost their homes and family members have taken shelter. "I am so sorry, but don't lose your hope," Mr. Ban told a camp resident. "The United Nations is here to help you. The whole world is trying to help Myanmar."Read more.
On the eve of the president's trip to Africa last march, Justin Rood of ABC News was the only mainstream reporter to pick up on the fact that the president's just-released budget severely underfunded peacekeeping missions in Africa. At the time, Rood's sources told him that the backlog was temporary, and that the requisite funds for peacekeeping missions in places like Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, and Cote D'Ivoire would be added in the emergency supplemental.
Well, the supplemental came out recently, and sure enough it provides no additional funds for UN Peacekeeping missions in Africa. Rood, once again, is on the story:
"It's a very tight budget year," conceded Kristen Silverberg, assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, acknowledging that neither she nor Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice thought the funding request made for "an ideal situation." The administration released its proposed peacekeeping cuts days before President Bush was scheduled to make what one paper termed his "victory lap" through the African continent. White House officials talked up the trip and Bush's commitment to the continent, telling reporters how the president "really cares about Africa." In her testimony, Silverberg said U.S. funding for U.S. peacekeeping operations this year could reach $2.1 billion, but the administration had requested less than $1.5 billion to cover its share of the costs of U.N. peacekeeping efforts for 2009.Just to recap, the UN's entire peacekeeping budget for some 19 missions and over 100,000 troops is about $6 billion a year, or roughly what the United States spends in Iraq in one month. What we get for this money is the deployment of foreign soldiers to International hot spots that we, ourselves would rather not go. I personally do not want to see American soldiers deployed in great numbers to Sudan, Chad, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or Haiti. But neither do I want to let these places simply fester. Faced with the option of doing nothing, or turning these conflicts over to international troops, the United States seems to think that the latter is a good option because it is continually authorizing new missions at the Security Council. If it thought that paying for these missions just isn't worth it, it could use its veto. The current situation--approve each and every new mission, but fail to provide funding--is simply unsustainable and a recipe for disaster.