The founding purpose of the UN was to bring peace and prosperity to the globe.
With the United States as its biggest donor, which bankrolls roughly 25% of the U.N.’s soaring spending. U.S. taxpayers contributed more than $7.7 billion to its budget, according to last official report, which by some estimates has continued to expand to well over $30 billion per year, with no clear reporting to donor nations on how that money is spent. A grand committee that reports to itself alone, the UN operates with great secrecy and is shielded by diplomatic immunity.
In the 193-member U.N. General Assembly, working in a system of one country-one vote, decisions tend to be dominated by voting blocs, such as the 56 member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (headquartered in Saudi Arabia), or the 120 member Non-Aligned Movement, chaired from 2012-2015 by Iran.
Oil for food scandal
The wholesale corruption of the Oil-for-Food relief program in Iraq, a 64 billion dollar program, in which the U.N. profited from and covered up for billions in Baghdad kickbacks, payoffs, and sanctions-busting arms traffic. Allegations have been made of corrupt behavior and practices, embracing bid-rigging, conflicts of interest, bribery, theft, nepotism, and sexual harassment.
According to the Commentary Magazine article published April 1, 2006
When CIA chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer went to Iraq in 2004 looking for weapons, the money trail took him straight to the UN relief operation, which, as he would report, had become a shill for an arms and illicit-money network that reached through Syria to Belarus and Russia. The network was buying “milk” from a Chinese weapons manufacturer.
An American criminal investigation may now, in 2016, see if it can indict Benon Sevan, the former head of the UN's oil-for-food program in Iraq.
Haiti cholera outbreak
In 2010, after the earthquake struck Haiti, a new disaster began: a cholera outbreak that killed thousands of people. Experts determined that the source of the disease was a U.N. peacekeeping camp, where now, six years later, the United Nations has admitted it played some role in the deadly outbreak. The strain of cholera that popped up in Haiti was "a perfect match" for a strain found in Nepal. The Nepal peacekeepers were staying at the U.N. camp, and poor sanitation sent sewage from the camp into local waterways.
Linked to mass murder
A Human Rights Watch report says that a local aid group exhumed the remains of a dozen people in February 2016 and identified the victims as members of a group of at least 12 people the Congolese UN peacekeepers arrested on March 24, 2014. The UN Peacekeepers had previously claimed that those people had escaped from detention after the arrests — and denied any role in their deaths. This comes after being suspect in a similar incident in 2014 in Boali.
Peacekeeper rape
A network of pedophilia rape by UN peacekeepers, currently in Africa, but this problem dates back to 1990 in Croatia. The UN claims they inherited most of these troops, referring to them as trash, yet leaves the adjudication of sexual abuse allegations to the troops’ countries of origin. Those nations’ investigations are often weak, U.N. officials said. In war torn regions where woman and children are most vulnerable, they become easy prey for sexual predators, and these predators are employed by the United Nations, as peacekeepers, dressed as soldiers and carrying guns.
For peacekeepers in the Central African Republic, “the message is clear: You can rape or abuse women and girls, and you can get away with it,” said Lewis Mudge, an Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch
A phrase has been coined, 'UN baby' across Africa for all the children born from this widespread rape across the country and Africa may now be seeking reparations.
Bribery scheme
Arrests made on John Ashe, General Assembly president in 2013-2014, and six other people. Prosecutors say Ashe received $1.3 million in bribes from Chinese businessmen including Ng Lap Seng, a billionaire real estate developer, who was seeking to build a U.N.-sponsored conference center in Macau.
Squelching Reports of Corruption
Internet based Inner City Press wrote near daily on the international corruption within the United Nations. Beginning Feb. 13, Google News users could no longer find news stories from the Inner City Press, banished and vanished from search engines.
Considering the amount of power and influence including billions in funding, while holding diplomatic status for secrecy and impunity it is very simple to see how easily the well intended program may mutate into a beast, whether in small groups in the field or in its administration. Who manages this possible beast? Well, no one.
Sources Image
United Nations Logo - googleusercontent.com Labeled for free use
United Nations General Assembly Hall - Google images- Labeled for free use
United Nations Peacekeeper - Google images- Labeled for free use
Sources Reference
The Washington Post - By Kevin Sieff
npr - by Camilla Domonoske
The Economist - from the print edition
Fox News - by Michael Y. Park
DefendDemacracy.org - by Toby Dershowitz
Reuters - By Louis Charbonneau, Nate Raymond and Michelle Nichols
The Commentary Magazine - By Claudia Rosett
