The UN is a theatre of the absurd
The Speaker of the US House Of Representatives, the late Tipp O’Neil, put it best when he called it a “theatre of the absurd” It is all the more nauseating to see all and sundry toadying up to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on his Irish visit.
Multilateralists take it as an article of faith that any life-saving action requires the blessing of this diseased institution for validity. On Kofi’s watch, Bosnia, Rwanda and now Darfur have happened and - in the case of the latter - is continuing to happen. What is Kofi’s reaction? The usual impotence, with a resolution or two and a few pious platitudes, echoing from the hollow citadel in New York’s 46th street.
Any leadership or oration? No! In the Sudan situation, with the Janjaweed as the government’s proxy having killed 50,000-plus and rising this year, what is Kofi’s decisive leadership stance? It was pretty radical - he appointed Sudan to the UN human rights committee until 2007. This is not a joke, unlike what this institution has degenerated into. Dante’s Divine Comedy comes to mind in this danse macabre.
The one positive aspect of the present Bush administration has been to expose this the farce that the UN has become - most egregiously in the Iraqi ‘oil for palaces and food’ programme.
Apart from the institutional Catholic Church, there can be few other organisations on earth that have behaved so opposite to their charted ethos.
Ireland should withdraw and citizens should withhold any donations to any affiliated organizations bearing the UN letters, until they have a clear divorce statement, decree absolute, from their delinquent parents.
But hold on! The decrepit, constipated UN Security Council is about to pass another life-saving resolution.
Phew! What a relief!
David Connolly
178 Ave Louise
Brussels B-1050
Belgium
