Recent atrocities carried out in the Democratic Republic of Congo illustrate the UN’s shortcomings.
By Micah Hanks
In international news this morning, there are horrific reports stemming from North Kivu, near the eastern border of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where reports allege that close to 200 women and four baby boys were gang-raped by Rwandan and Congolese rebels. What’s worse, the attack, deemed unusually violent even for the standards of those residing in the DRC, occurred in the town of Luvungi, only 20 miles from a MONUSCO UN base; arguably representing the UN’s largest presence anywhere in the world.
The Guardian pressed the inevitable with its analysis: “The impunity of the assault is likely to refocus attention on the effectiveness of the world’s biggest UN peacekeeping mission, which has been strongly criticised by human rights groups.” Journalist Nanjala Nyabola, also writing for the Guardian, took a different view on the UN’s lack of involvement, but detailed nonetheless the the UN’s failure to respond in a timely manner to this unsettling attack:
What does this failure mean for the viability of the mission, and its plan to exit the country in less than two years? It is now being reported that a UN envoy has said troops could not have prevented the attacks because they did not know it was happening, and that the UN has called an emergency session of the Security Council to discuss how to respond to the violence. It is clear that the UN has a lot to answer for…and needs to address the systematic failures that allowed such a horrifying event to take place under their watch.
Though Nyabola’s criticisms were less harsh in totality, it is hard to look at the facts this scenario presents and not also question the overall effectiveness of the UN’s global operations at present, since UN activity isn’t merely relegated to their involvement in the Congo. Consider how, in the midst of UN-imposed sanctions against Iran, we see a Russian-owned company, Rosatom, supplying fuel and overseeing the operation of a new nuclear facility in the country. To be clear, Iran’s new Bushehr reactor is for civilian use, supplying electricity amounting to less than 4 percent of that consumed by the country. Sanctions, on the other hand, were issued more in an effort to address concerns about Iran’s nuclear program taking interest in uranium enrichment that could be used in the development of weapons. Still, it is still ironic that the UN, after going to the trouble of imposing sanctions to prevent Iran’s nuclear aspirations, now supervises such operations at the Bushehr reactor through it’s International Atomic Energy Agency; meanwhile Russia, a permanent UN Security Council member, provides resources that enable the project. A conflict of interests, perhaps?
Or perhaps what this illustrates is merely a disparity between views long held by nations juxtaposed politically and geographically. The real conflict of interests, more likely, has existed amongst the various nations embodying the UN, with many ideological and cultural differences having escalated contention in the past which, altogether, haven’t been conducive to the organization’s effectiveness. In Linda Fasulo’s book An Insider’s Guide to the UN, she wrote, “From the late 1940s until the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, confrontation among the blocs defined most UN relationships, discussions, debates, programs, and activities. A whole generation grew up with an East–West mindset, whose ghost still surfaces at the UN and elsewhere, even though the old blocs are gone and a new world is gradually emerging.”
Back in 1978, National Review founder and editor William F. Buckley divulged similar conflicts of interest that had arisen in the midst of UN activities, exemplifying the “East–West mindset” Fasulo describes. Commenting on the UN’s Decolonization Committee efforts to remove United States activities perceived as “persecution, harassment and repressive measures” against Puerto Rico at the time, Buckley noted that the U.S. was directed to “unconditionally release the four Puerto Rican political personalities who have been incarcerated for more than twenty-four years.” “The ‘political personalities’,” Buckley wrote, “expressed their personality by sneaking into the visitor’s gallery of the House of Representatives in 1954, pulling out pistols, and shooting our elected representatives, wounding five. They were given life sentences. In most countries that voted the resolution in question they’d have been shot.” Buckley further criticized the UN nations voting in the matter, among them the Soviet Union, China, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Cuba, Ethiopia, Iraq, Syria, Tanzania and Afghanistan. “The Soviet Union’s respect for the territorial integrity of Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia is legendary. China’s respect for the territorial integrity of Tibet is one of those matters we do not mention at the United Nations. Ethiopia’s government is maintained in power by Cuba, as Cuba’s is maintained in power by the Soviet Union. Syria and Tanzania are one-party dictatorships where the will of the people is consulted as regularly as Scottish hunters consult grouse.” Do as we say, then, rather than do as we do.
When one small element is broken, the greater machine ceases to function. Likewise, problems with the UN and its operations must be addressed and accounted for, so that the organization’s stated objectives can be carried out more effectively. Whether it be conflicts of interest among member nations, or the kind of gross ineffectiveness that allowed the rape of 200 women and infants within twenty miles of a UN base, if such problems cannot be addressed and fixed, we may be faced with the realization that the broken element here, rather than merely existing within the UN, actually is the UN. The international community aspires to function on a global level where trade and goodwill among nations are paramount, but there is a vast difference between seeking honest and relations with our foreign neighbors, and entangling alliances where conflict is nearly inevitable, thus stifling actual growth and potential.
Image by cometstarmoon via Flickr.
