What do you do if two of your countrymen -- including one high-ranking minister -- have been indicted for war crimes by the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court? Well, if you are the Sudanese Ambassador to the UN, you indict the Chief Prosecutor right back.
In a gesture that cannot help but be compared to the childhood retort of "I know you are, but what am I?" Abdel-Mahmood Mohamad has called for Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the man leading the nearly yearlong crusade to bring some of the perpetrators of the Darfur genocide to justice, to "be tried in court," branding him "politically bankrupt" and "enemy number one of peace in Darfur."
The absurd contention that Moreno-Ocampo is obstructing peace in Darfur naturally turns the problem exactly on its head. Mohamed, perhaps taking a page out of Joseph Kony's book, is appealing to the (misplaced) notion that, if the ICC prosecutions in Sudan were dropped, the Sudanese government would offer greater compliance. Mohamed's bluster is simply the latest -- and probably bluntest -- example of Sudan's hard-headed obstruction of the ICC's work in Darfur.
Darfur is not Northern Uganda, where an actual peace accord will, it seems, finally be signed in the next couple of days. The ICC's work in Darfur, then, must now be used as a stick to enforce compliance -- as well as, of course, to ensure justice and accountability. With such outright defiance of the UN, Sudan's leaders cannot simply claim, at this stage in the conflict, that the pursuit of justice is in any way undermining their none-too-credible support for peace.
Recently, the UN Development Program (UNDP), which provides developing countries with assistance combating poverty, improving democratic governance, and achieving the eight Millennium Development Goals, has faced accusations of corruption and mismanagement from certain quarters. Responding to an April 1 editorial in The Wall Street Journal that claimed the existence of "fraud and corruption in U.N. Development Program operations in North Korea," UNDP Director of Communications David Morrison today provided a strong rebuttal to these groundless assertions.
When the concerns about UNDP's program in North Korea were first raised, the secretary-general directed the U.N. Board of Auditors to conduct an audit of the program. Contrary to [WSJ's] assertion, the audit did not find "fraud and corruption." Instead, the audit reported that UNDP, similar to other U.N. and foreign organizations, had to alter some of its programmatic and administrative practices to operate in North Korea -- a fact of which UNDP board members, including the U.S., were well aware.Morrison also cites a Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report that also found no "fraud and corruption" in UNDP's operations in North Korea. He goes on to quote Mark Wallace, the erstwhile UN Ambassador for Management reform whom the Journal's editorial was extolling, as admitting that "we do not believe nor have we seen any corruption." When UN and U.S. auditing boards both find no instances of corruption, and the individual (Wallace) who has promulgated these charges also admits not having found corruption, one would think the matter settled. In the interest of full investigation, though, one more independent panel, chaired by former Hungarian Prime Minister Miklos Nemeth, will submit its findings in the North Korea matter within the next few months, and Morrison patiently advises skeptics to await its report.
Recently, the UN Development Program (UNDP), which provides developing countries with assistance combating poverty, improving democratic governance, and achieving the eight Millennium Development Goals, has faced accusations of corruption and mismanagement from certain quarters. Responding to an April 1 editorial in The Wall Street Journal that claimed the existence of "fraud and corruption in U.N. Development Program operations in North Korea," UNDP Director of Communications David Morrison today provided a strong rebuttal to these groundless assertions.
When the concerns about UNDP's program in North Korea were first raised, the secretary-general directed the U.N. Board of Auditors to conduct an audit of the program. Contrary to [WSJ's] assertion, the audit did not find "fraud and corruption." Instead, the audit reported that UNDP, similar to other U.N. and foreign organizations, had to alter some of its programmatic and administrative practices to operate in North Korea -- a fact of which UNDP board members, including the U.S., were well aware.Morrison also cites a Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report that also found no "fraud and corruption" in UNDP's operations in North Korea. He goes on to quote Mark Wallace, the erstwhile UN Ambassador for Management reform whom the Journal's editorial was extolling, as admitting that "we do not believe nor have we seen any corruption." When UN and U.S. auditing boards both find no instances of corruption, and the individual (Wallace) who has promulgated these charges also admits not having found corruption, one would think the matter settled. In the interest of full investigation, though, one more independent panel, chaired by former Hungarian Prime Minister Miklos Nemeth, will submit its findings in the North Korea matter within the next few months, and Morrison patiently advises skeptics to await its report.
The Undersecretary General for Management responds to last week's front page Washington Post article on rising costs at the U.N.
The March 21 front-page story "Expenses at U.N. Balloon 25 Percent; U.S. Demands on Body Help Drive Up Budget" suggested that the United Nations recently "presented its top donors with a request for nearly $1.1 billion in additional funds." The implication is that spending is out of control and member states are saddled with the consequences. But the General Assembly approved the $4.1 billion budget. All additional costs reflect new demands from members, notably the United States, particularly in peace and security. The United Nations does not "present" bills to its members; it acts upon their instructions. A "doubling" of "administrative costs" is stated as part of the problem. The budget includes mounting costs of special political missions, including Iraq and Afghanistan. By no stretch can these be considered "administrative costs." The costs of U.N. operations are spiraling upward because they have never been more in demand. ALICIA BARCENA Undersecretary General Department of Management United Nations New York
The Undersecretary General for Management responds to last week's front page Washington Post article on rising costs at the U.N.
The March 21 front-page story "Expenses at U.N. Balloon 25 Percent; U.S. Demands on Body Help Drive Up Budget" suggested that the United Nations recently "presented its top donors with a request for nearly $1.1 billion in additional funds." The implication is that spending is out of control and member states are saddled with the consequences. But the General Assembly approved the $4.1 billion budget. All additional costs reflect new demands from members, notably the United States, particularly in peace and security. The United Nations does not "present" bills to its members; it acts upon their instructions. A "doubling" of "administrative costs" is stated as part of the problem. The budget includes mounting costs of special political missions, including Iraq and Afghanistan. By no stretch can these be considered "administrative costs." The costs of U.N. operations are spiraling upward because they have never been more in demand. ALICIA BARCENA Undersecretary General Department of Management United Nations New York
Mark is right to call attention to the "new international institutions" that John McCain alluded to in his speech today. In proposing a "League of Democracies" -- an idea that, interestingly, resembles a Bush administration proposal from September 2005 -- McCain's speech very neatly mirrors the foreign policy address he gave at the Hoover Institution over a year ago, when he first launched the idea of an organization that "could act where the U.N. fails to act." What, exactly, does he have in mind? Straight from the horse's mouth, courtesy of an op-ed he wrote in Financial Times last week:
The nations of the Nato alliance and the European Union...must have the ability and the will to act in defence of freedom and economic prosperity. They must spend the money necessary to build effective military and civilian capabilities that can be deployed around the world, from the Balkans to Afghanistan, from Chad to East Timor.While McCain's commitment to working together with other countries is welcome, his seemingly singular focus on a U.S.-Europe alliance could detract significantly from the objective of international cooperation. True, the UN General Assembly often grapples with tensions between the global "North" and the global "South," between "developed" countries and the "developing" 130 countries in the so-called "G-77." The existence of these tensions -- which often frustrate American objectives -- is not, however, a reason to exclude such a substantial number of states from the global decision-making process. In the 1950's and 60's, the UN reached a seminal point in its history, welcoming a flood of newly decolonized countries in Asia and Africa. To create an alliance consisting largely of militarily strong ex-colonial powers would be, to say the least, a disturbing development, both philosophically and practically. If as President McCain is serious about working with the rest of the world to address the pressing problems of the day, then he should commit to working with the -- admittedly imperfect, but hugely necessary -- institution that already exists -- the United Nations.
Mark Helprin's "Bomb Sudan" piece in the New York Times today would have been a bit more persuasive back in 2004-2005, when the Sudanese government was more directly responsible for the fighting in Darfur. Today, it reads as completely detached from reality on the ground.
To clear up any misconceptions, the United Nations--as a rule--does not send peacekeepers to places where there is no peace to keep. Somalia today certainly falls into this category.
Peacekeepers are trained to keep the peace, not mount invasions. Furthermore, the Secretary General does not have any standing forces at his disposal. When the Security Council approves a peacekeeping mission, the Secretary General must rely on member states to pony up troops and equipment. To complicate matters, member states are generally reluctant to offer their troops for a peacekeeping mission that has no ceasefire or political agreement to uphold (see: Sudan, Darfur).
The Security Council can, however, approve the kind of mission that Alex Thurston considers necessary to save Somalia.The defense of Kuwait in 1990 and Australia's interventions in in East Timor, for example, were authorized by the Security Council. However, these are not "UN peacekeeping missions," but essentially war-fighting efforts led by individual member states. For humanitarian intervention to occur in Somalia tomorrow, an individual country, NATO, or some coalition of the willing would have to take on the project themselves. Presumably, this would include evicting Ethiopian troops, suppressing an insurgency and defeating spoilers. So far, no country seems willing to take this on, so the next best option is to work to secure a political agreement between as many factions as possible and then use UN peacekeepers as the guarantors of that peace. The newest Secretary General's report on Somalia, linked here, recommends this path--and I suspect the Security Council will approve.
Kevin Drum and Jeffrey Lewis offer some background on this important Washington Post scoop on the IAEA's confrontational meeting with Iranian officials last week. I don't much to add to the story other than to point out that also last week, American Enterprise Institute scholars Michael Rubin and Danielle Pletka railed against Mohammed elBaradei's alleged anti-Americanism in the Wall Street Journal and accused him of mounting a "single-minded crusade to rescue favored regimes from charges of proliferation."
In fact, elBaradei disclosed damning evidence about Iran's nuclear program on the eve of an important Security Council vote on sanctions. Once again, IAEA delivers. And once again, its critics have egg on their face.