UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has said he will not travel to Burma because he has no "reasonable expectations of a meaningful outcome."
Mr. Ban was urged by over 100 former world leaders to visit Burma to petition the military regime to release all political prisoners. The UN Security Council called for the release of all political prisoners in 2007. No need to elaborate here on what happened after that resolution.
Is this an indication - as many fear - that the UN have all but given up on the situation in Burma? To write off any possibility of having even modest progress sounds resigned, exhausted and pessimistic.
The UN added in their statement that Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari would not return to Burma any time soon. (His last trip was August, when Aung San Suu Kyi in a confusing and wrong-headed move refused twice to meet with him).
I have friends who are in jail in Burma for the slimmest of reasons, or for what I see as no reason at all. One has a jail sentence of 142 years.
What is a "meaningful outcome?" How do you qualify and quantify that to people who are starving and desperate? Please explain.
When people want freedom and justice more than they fear the government they will get it. This entire world is at war for the hearts and minds of the people who have to do indescribable things to have food, shelter, safety. Those are tomorrow's soldiers in the war on the rest of us.
Yes, we need a better UN or whatever it's name should be. Yes we must take care of our fellow humans. Unfortunately, there is nothing else at the moment....which means to me that we can invent it. After all, the UN was just an idea at one point...One place at a time, one miracle to a customer.
Sadly the UN continues to prove its uselessness.
The UN was a decent idea that has grown fat, lazy and in some cases actually hinders real aid work.
There (to my knowledge) is no other group, organization or nation that can provide the level of food distribution, water and sanitation, health care and shelter to the world population. there in lays the dilemma. The UN is a failing and flawed organization who cant even meet its charter and protect those its meant to protect but there is no other way (currently) to distribute aid to the needy.
And their failures in Burma are just mind boggling.
The UN made 9 BILLION dollars a year, scamming and skimming the Iraq Oil For Food program.
The UN sent "peacekeepers" down to an African nation to disarm rebels and ending up selling them arms. At a substantial profit for the UN..
"The best thing for the UN to do is go condo."
-Robin Williams
Michale.....