Why Kofi Annan Must Go
When Paul Volcker's latest report on the United Nations was released, apologists for the UN and Secretary General Kofi Annan breathed a sigh of relief.
Despite massive corruption in the oil for food program, high-level shredding of evidence, the blatant greed and influence peddling of his son, and other examples of consistent mismanagement and probable corruption, Volcker failed to find Annan directly culpable. Annan, of course, has publicly refused to resign, even though he readily threw his son overboard.
All of this misses the real point. Not only should Annan resign now; he should have resigned years ago. The Boston Globe made the case in an excellent editorial:
The real reason Annan does not belong in a post that should inspire trust in people around the world is that he has an indefensible record of placing his institutional loyalties before the value of human lives in Rwanda, Bosnia, and now Darfur.
Annan is a man of great charm and intelligence. But in 1994, when he was in charge of UN peacekeeping, he refused to heed faxes from Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire, the commander of the UN forces in Rwanda, reporting Hutu extremist plans to massacre the Tutsis of Rwanda. In January of that horrible year, Annan prevented Dallaire from capturing a large arms cache that would be used three months later to slaughter 800,000 innocent human beings. And when the slaughter began, Annan cabled Dallaire: ''You should make every effort not to compromise your impartiality or to act beyond your mandate but may exercise your discretion to do so should this be essential for the evacuation of foreign nationals."
The United Nations, founded to prevent a recurrence of the Nazi horrors, should not be impartial between the victims and the perpetrators of genocide. As depicted in the heart-wrenching film ''Hotel Rwanda," the mandate of Annan's peacekeeping department to rescue only ''foreign nationals" was a betrayal of the imperiled Rwandans, of the UN's larger purpose, and of basic human solidarity.
Despite massive corruption in the oil for food program, high-level shredding of evidence, the blatant greed and influence peddling of his son, and other examples of consistent mismanagement and probable corruption, Volcker failed to find Annan directly culpable. Annan, of course, has publicly refused to resign, even though he readily threw his son overboard.
All of this misses the real point. Not only should Annan resign now; he should have resigned years ago. The Boston Globe made the case in an excellent editorial:
The real reason Annan does not belong in a post that should inspire trust in people around the world is that he has an indefensible record of placing his institutional loyalties before the value of human lives in Rwanda, Bosnia, and now Darfur.
Annan is a man of great charm and intelligence. But in 1994, when he was in charge of UN peacekeeping, he refused to heed faxes from Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire, the commander of the UN forces in Rwanda, reporting Hutu extremist plans to massacre the Tutsis of Rwanda. In January of that horrible year, Annan prevented Dallaire from capturing a large arms cache that would be used three months later to slaughter 800,000 innocent human beings. And when the slaughter began, Annan cabled Dallaire: ''You should make every effort not to compromise your impartiality or to act beyond your mandate but may exercise your discretion to do so should this be essential for the evacuation of foreign nationals."
The United Nations, founded to prevent a recurrence of the Nazi horrors, should not be impartial between the victims and the perpetrators of genocide. As depicted in the heart-wrenching film ''Hotel Rwanda," the mandate of Annan's peacekeeping department to rescue only ''foreign nationals" was a betrayal of the imperiled Rwandans, of the UN's larger purpose, and of basic human solidarity.
3 Comments:
Very moving, Tom. I too have been thinking about what I learned about the world's feeble reaction to the Nazi atrocities and what has happened in Rwanda and Sudan. We have learned nothing; unless the UN will stand for the rights of such people it is nothing at all but a diplomat's private club.
"We have learned nothing; unless the UN will stand for the rights of such people it is nothing at all but a diplomat's private club."
Amen, MoM! And another great post, Tom.
Dear kofi Annan,please go tosave the black race ,you shed 800,000 lives in Rwanda to get there.What Africa needs is more NELSON MANDELAS not dictators .
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