Last week the United Nations still had no staff at Banda Aceh airport, which is the focal point for the tsunami relief effort in Indonesia. What could more graphically illustrate the miserable inadequacy of this once great body than its failure to act decisively following the Boxing Day disaster? It lagged behind the Americans and the Australians in bringing aid to the devastated areas and was slow to coordinate the activities of international NGOs.
Only four years ago in the Millennium Declaration the UN was described as ‘the indispensable common house of the entire human family’. Yet today it is mired in controversy. Corruption in the oil for food programme, administrative incompetence, rampant cronyism and sexual harassment of staff are among the welter of accusations it faces.
Freedom-lovers might accept a plea in mitigation for all the other sins of the organisation if it at least acted to protect the oppressed.
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