John Karuranga – President of Rwanda Peoples Party

We once again celebrate the Third Anniversary of the founding of our party, the Rwanda Peoples Party (RPP). This has been a tumultuous three years during which time we have consolidated our political role as a vanguard for democratic change and transformation in our country. We have paid particular attention to four guiding principles of our party which are:

1. Carry out the building and consolidation of      our party organs inside Rwanda and abroad. This has included safe      recruitment of party members in both the urban centres and rural areas and      providing them with the necessary political education to enable them more      effectively carry out party tasks as well as providing them with necessary      protection since the murder of our member Charles Ingabire in Kampala,      Uganda on 30/11/2011

2. Strengthen our political role so as to expand      democratic space inside our country Rwanda. Increasingly, our party has      become a consistent opposition party which not just criticises the current      Kagame dictatorship, but puts forward tangible policy proposals in all      areas of life. Increasingly our political, social and economic policies      are now seen as an alternative to the failed policies of Paul Kagame. We      have developed clear and level-headed proposals to tackle rural poverty      and youth unemployment.

           3. We are playing an important role in regional  politics and have supported the peace process,                   particularly in the DR      Congo.

4. We are also a key player in international      politics and have continued to develop cordial relations with like-minded      political parties and groups both in Africa and across the developing      world.

5. We support the celebration of the Rwandan      National Day scheduled to take place in London, to be attended by over      3,000 Rwandan citizens from around the globe whom we warmly welcome to the      City of London and wish all the best in celebrating this important      day.  We believe, like Rwanda      Independence Day, Rwanda Day is not about president Kagame but it is about      all Rwandan people at home and in Diasporas coming together and to show      full the force of love we have for our country.

 I would therefore like to salute all party members for the gallant work they have done in the past year.

UN Intervention force commander arrive in DRC to prepare for offensive against M23.

In March, the United Nations approved a so-called “intervention brigade,” the first of its kind, to carry out offensives against militant groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo‘s conflict-ridden eastern regions. Now the brigade has been formally organized, and as Congo analyst Jason Stearns explains, its impact is likely to be felt across the continent. The intervention brigade is on its way, and it has inspired Cassandras and Pollyannas alike.

Most of the talk has focused on the military efficacy of the brigade, which will consist of 3,069 troops from southern African countries and will be led by a Tanzanian general. This focus is not surprising, given the robust mandate the UN Security Council provided in Resolution 2098 to “carry out targeted offensive operations … to neutralize [armed] groups.” The brigade is expected to deploy by June or July, with its base in the town of Sake and operations probably beginning in the following months. But, despite the aggressive media campaign waged by Congolese militant group M23 against the brigade,its political importance is likely to be as hefty as its (few) helicopter gunships and armed personnel carriers.

As one Rwandan official put it to me: “Imagine the M23 kills ten South Africans. It doesn’t matter whether we support the M23 or not, [South African President Jacob] Zuma will blame us.” The brigade forms a sort of political firewall – if the M23 puts it to shame, it will draw some of the most powerful countries in the region into the conflict. This points to a larger dynamic, the regionalization of the conflict. Between 1998 and 2003 the Congolese war drew in eight countries and effectively split the region between enemies (Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi) and allies (Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe) of Kinshasa. We are obviously not back to that sort of escalation, but the intervention brigade makes this conflict more regional than at any point in the past decade. The big, muscular newcomer to the Kinshasa camp is South Africa. Two reasons can be made out.

UN Secrtary General Ban Ki-Moon (top right) joins African leaders iwho signed the DRC peace agreement in Addis Ababa.

Ref: Ref: RPP-OC3/DRC-M23/F1023/13-F22/JVK/RG-AU-UN/F24/AC

President Barack OBAMA

White House,

1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW

Washington, DC 20500,

USA

H.E Prime Minister David CAMERON

10 Downing Street

London, SW1A 2AA

UK.

Ref:  DRC Addis Ababa Peace Accord

Your Excellences

 Rwanda People’s Party has noted with great concern the signing of a peace agreement between regional governments that include DRC, Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Angola, South Africa, Tanzania and Mozambique facilitated by African Union and the United Nations aimed at bringing sanity to this tortured country in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 24/02/2013.  However, our Party has very grave concerns about the success of the imposed peace accord and the sequence at which one party to the conflict is favoured while another is excluded. This puts a very disturbing question mark on the legality of the whole process or whether this kind of blunder was well thought through or if it is just another episode of error of judgement of gigantic proportions that is the contributing factor to total breakdown and failure of leadership on the African continent.  We believe that any accord forced or imposed on parties by external forces cannot help to resolve internal conflicts because the external forces never work towards the interests of the Congolese but towards self-serving interests.  It has come to our knowledge that one of the parties in peace talks with the Government of DRC was not consulted or informed about the contents of the agreement and was not even notified about the process of signing of this infamous accord in Ethiopia.  Our concern is that some of UN staff and her affiliated partners have been seen as part of the problem to the DRC conflict and we regret to say that UN partiality in the DRC conflict may end up in genocide similar to that visited upon our country Rwanda in 1994. We believe the said agreement represents nothing other than a cloud of darkness that is waiting to hover over the people of DRC and the continent of Africa courtesy of the United Nations. This is accord that is neither workable theoretically nor enforceable practically. It represents a total failure by the international community to comprehend the problems of DRC.

Your Excellences, the problem of the DRC will never be solved by the mere signing of an agreement between the DRC government and other African nations without incorporating opposing elements that are fighting to overthrow the Kinshasa dictatorial regime on a negotiating table. What is needed in the DRC is a political process aimed at achieving political change, because the government in Kinshasa is very corrupt, incompetent, out of touch with reality and incapable of forging links with the Congolese people. It does not matter who is a party to the Addis Ababa agreement or how many foreign troops will be deployed in DRC to protect a regime that is wreaking havoc on its own people; nothing will ever change in the absence of viable and tangible political change in the DRC.

This requires the Congolese commitment and ability to forge comprehensive political arrangements that involves all rebel groups, opposition politicians including President Etienne Tshisekedi wa Mulumba, and civil rights movements. This is the only viable methodological approach that can help to rescue the DRC from a sinking ship.  This also requires putting the interest of the DRC as a nation and people to prevail before that of the individual politicians.

Your Excellences first there was incompetence, total chaos and violation of protocols displayed by the UN, when they consciously sanctioned the regional initiative headed by President Museveni of Uganda, to help bring the DRC parties to end their political differences through a peaceful negotiated resolution. However, it was the same UN that deliberately imposed sanctions on key M23 officials, preventing them from travelling to Uganda to negotiate peace with the DRC government in order to work out a joint resolution aimed at ending 60 years of political insanity that has engulfed the DRC. The UN confusion has sent the wrong message to the Kabila regime, which interpreted UN action as support for military intervention to crush the M23 aspirations for equal rights, equal opportunities, equal protection and dignity for all Congolese people.

The Uganda Asian exodus begine in 1972 after being expelled by Idi Amin.

We once again go deep into Dr Arnold Spero Bisase’s book Guardian Angel Volume One: The Beginning to find out what actually made former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin to expel Asian British passport holders from Uganda.

The story, if true, goes like this, and I knew the   narrator and his family well as they were my friends and patients at my Practice in Kampala. He told me that Idi Amin was once invited to an Asian function in 1972. He and many dignitaries, some local and some international, attended this rather lavish occasion; our Asian friends can really lay it on when they have someone eminent to impress, like The President of Uganda. The many well to do businessmen from their community paid their respects, and as per custom their families followed in their wake. Towards the end of the procession came the family of a very prosperous businessman Mr Sherali Bandari Jaffer, the owner of The Fairway Hotel by the Kitante Road, Kampala. He was now the one narrating this story to me. Among the ladies following him was his beautiful youngest daughter. One look at her and Idi Amin instantly fancied her; his gaze fixed on her until she sat down amongst the ladies enclosure. At the conclusion of the event, Idi Amin sent his bodyguard to tell Mr Jaffer that the President wanted his daughter and was therefore proposing for her hand in marriage. At that stage Amin had already four wives, so it would have necessitated getting rid of (sack) one of them in accordance with Muslim tradition.

There was pandemonium.  Sherali Bandari Jaffer was scared witless. He and the entire family scurried away to get home. But by the next morning Idi Amin had tracked down the home of Mr Jaffer and sent him his driver carrying the official confirmation of the “request”. Mr Jaffer told the President’s driver that he had to consult other members of his family before giving his response but promised to do so soon. According to my friend Jaffer, this was the longest day of his life. That night, under the cover of darkness, he arranged with one of their relative to smuggle the entire family out of the country, bribing all their way to Nairobi. Mr Jaffer, rather like the rest of us, thought that this “request” would remain harmless and dissipate itself out. Besides, he still had his investments in the country. So he stayed behind to take care of their businesses. The family had already confirmed their safe arrival on the ‘phone’. Like a beast on heat, Idi Amin could not wait to get his chance and sent for the answer. Mr Jaffer gave the excuse of this being a family and community decision not to accept and that the girls were already away (in Nairobi of course).

Amin was so incensed by this snub that he vowed to punish, and he quoted “these people who showed flagrant discrimination against him (me)” The next day All Non-Citizen Asians were given 90 days to get out of Uganda. But the reason Idi Amin gave now was that: ‘Because God spoke to him (me)in the night  and told him (me) that they had to leave as they were responsible for exploiting the indigenous citizens of the country’!! Take that! And it is exactly as I got it from Mr Jaffer. And so began the Exodus of unimaginable proportions and suffering for the victims of this man’s obsession for the skirt.

George Soros, the billionaire who ‘broke the Bank of England’. Is he also planning Africa’s downfall?

The African Union (AU) 20^th Heads state summit ended on 28^th January 2013 with no solution to the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The failure by the AU to pinpoint those western countries that are destabilizing this continent is a shame for the organization under the leadership of Dr. Nkosazana Zuma whom we had hoped would change things drastically after the departure of Dr Jean Ping. Again the AU has shown that a toothless organization could be dictated to by the likes of France and the USA on matters that must be solved by Africans themselves. The DRC crisis lies at the belly of France that has interests in the minerals in Eastern DRC.

 Part of Africa’s problems is allowing neo-colonial agencies and organizations to manipulate the political affairs of this continent.  In 2012, our continent witnessed many conflicts sparked by the French hegemony. The French positioned themselves for violent regime change in North Africa by spearheading the bombardment of Libya.  African countries watched haplessly while Libya’s infrastructure was rained on by NATO planes until jihadists took over in Libya. Africa is now  reaping from the silly actions of the Western powers in North of Africa and the Sahel region.

My organization warned the world about the Jihadists taking over the entire North Africa due to skewed Western powers’ foreign policy and hypocrisy.   The strategy of dismantling friendly regimes of Egypt and Libya in the region was catastrophic to regional and international peace in the Middle East. The French onslaught on Libya and the eventual toppling and killing of Gaddafi in Libya created a mess in the entire Mediterranean enclave.  The current riots and civil strife in Egypt are signs that the worst is yet to come.

The threats of jihadists taking over Egypt and Libya are real and the maritime threats on the Suez Canal are becoming a reality each day that passes. The French expansionist and regime change foreign policy has created a “free fall zone for   Al-Qaida in Mali” and there are serious concerns that they will spread throughout North Africa.  Sending in troops when there is no exit strategy creates more insurgence and breeds worse violence like what we see in Afghanistan today.

“Now what have we let ourselves into?” A clerk at the Uganda National Assembly seems to say as Gen Idi Amin is sworn in as President of Uganda on January 25, 1971.

We continue the serialisation of Dr Arnold Spero Bisase’s book Guardian Angel Volume One; The beginning. The author narrates how the coming to power of Idi Amin escalated the Tutsi Dynasty Plan for the governance of the Great Lakes Region. He writes about the many unexplained murders that took place shortly after Idi Amin took over power in 1971

In January 1971, the hate machine faltered. Assassins turned against their master, although history may someday reveal some startling twist to this episode, especially the murder of Brigadier Okoya and his wife (please believe that authors like David Martin either knew very little about the true activities of FRONASA or like many, they too had been played by that Movement so successfully, that fact was impossible to isolate from their disinformation); and therefore the exact way Idi Amin came to power.  For the moment, let us say that the coup d’état brought temporary relief to the persecuted (especially the Baganda) and pleasure to the external investors (British, Israelis, etc.), who had seen their investments nationalised by Obote’s policies of ‘Move to the Left’, ‘Common Man’s Charter’ and ‘ The 60/40 Nakivubo Declaration’.  Jubilation followed on the streets of Kampala and elsewhere in the country. But the military, who until then had used the gun on the orders of a civilian dictator, now acquired the role of dictating to the civilian masses. No political party or activity was allowed. Soon, the masters who had decreed extermination of people like the Baganda were themselves being hunted down. Although the Baganda civilians were enjoying a little respite after many years of one-sided victimisation, they did not know about “the silent enemy” who were already operating within the old system. That particular enemy was very happy to be in place when a new regime was not aware of their true existence and long range plan. The silent enemy had already cloned their way into every department. Theirs was a perfect masquerade, missed by every Ugandan and Foreigners, judging by the total omission of their mention in every book and journal!

So, they could only consolidate by appearing to be helping Idi Amin to ‘clean up the house’ after Obote; and unfortunately Idi Amin fell for the trick, and promptly left them untouched in his new administration. It was this singular omission by Amin that was to lead to so much chaos, so many killings, all attributed to him when in reality many were the work of their Re-cited Headquarters in Dar es Salaam. Our friends like David Barlow and his friends, Dan and Stephen, by virtue of their previous employment in the security services, were not safe now. If Idi Amin thought they were Obote die-hard men they would die. Then again, if they pledged to serve Amin well the ‘enemy within’ would still kill them. After all they were not serving The Grand Conspiracy Plan. Unaware of where and when next this exact danger from the faceless enemy would emerge, it was safer to run into exile, except Dan Nsereko who thought that he might survive the change and remained in the Police Force, a mistake which cost him his life thanks to this ‘enemy within’ factor.

French fighter jets take to the skies for Mission Mali where they’ve halted the advent of Islamist forces.

As the French-led military operation continues, Jeremy Keenan reveals how the US and Algeria have been sponsoring terror in the Sahara.

On 12 October 2012, the UN Security Council voted unanimously in favour of a French-drafted resolution asking Mali’s government to draw up plans for a military mission to re-establish control over the northern part of Mali, an area of the Sahara bigger than France. Known as Azawad by local Tuareg people, northern Mali has been under the control of Islamist extremists following a Tuareg rebellion at the beginning of the year. For several months, the international media have been referring to northern Mali as ‘Africa’s Afghanistan’, with calls for international military intervention becoming inexorable.

While the media have provided abundant descriptive coverage of the course of events and atrocities committed in Azawad since the outbreak in January of what was ostensibly just another Tuareg rebellion, some pretty basic questions have not been addressed. No journalist has asked, or at least answered satisfactorily, how this latest Tuareg rebellion was hijacked, almost as soon as it started, by a few hundred Islamist extremists. In short, the world’s media have failed to explain the situation in Azawad. That is because the real story of what has been going on there borders on the incredible, taking us deep into the murky reaches of Western intelligence and its hook-up with Algeria’s secret service.

Azawad’s current nightmare is generally explained as the unintended outcome of the overthrow of Libya’s Muammar al-Gaddafi. That is true in so far as his downfall precipitated the return to the Sahel (Niger and Mali) of thousands of angry, disillusioned and well-armed Tuareg fighters who had gone to seek their metaphorical fortunes by serving the Gaddafi regime. But this was merely the last straw in a decade of increasing exploitation, repression and marginalization that has underpinned an ongoing cycle of Tuareg protest, unrest and rebellion. In that respect, Libya was the catalyst for the Azawad rebellion, not its underlying cause. Rather, the catastrophe now being played out in Mali is the inevitable outcome of the way in which the Global War On Terror has been inserted into the Sahara-Sahel by the US, in concert with Algerian intelligence operatives, since 2002.

When Abdelaziz Bouteflika took over as Algeria’s President in 1999, the country was faced with two major problems. One was its standing in the world. The role of the army and the DRS (the Algerian intelligence service) in the ‘Dirty War’ had made Algeria a pariah state. The other was that the army, the core institution of the state, was lacking modern high-tech weaponry as a result of international sanctions and arms embargoes.

The solution to both these problems lay in Washington. During the Clinton era, relations between the US and Algeria had fallen to a particularly low level. However, with a Republican victory in the November 2000 election, Algeria’s President Bouteflika, an experienced former Foreign Minister, quickly made his sentiments known to the new US administration and was invited in July 2001 to a summit meeting in Washington with President Bush. Bush listened sympathetically to Bouteflika’s account of how his country had dealt with the fight against terrorists and to his request for specific military equipment that would enable his army to maintain peace, security and stability in Algeria. nAt that moment, Algeria had a greater need for US support than vice-versa. But that was soon to change. The 9/11 terrorist attacks precipitated a whole new era in US-Algerian relations. Over the next four years, Bush and Bouteflika met six more times to develop a largely covert and highly duplicitous alliance.

US women are already serving on the frontline in Afghanistan.

By Greg Jaffe

Hours after the Pentagon lifted the ban on women in combat, Valerie Warner typed out an ­e-mail to her grandfather, Volney Warner, a retired four-star general who helped oversee the integration of women into the Army in the 1970s. Valerie Warner, an Iraq combat veteran, excitedly laid out her ­detailed plan for incorporating women into infantry units. A few hours later, her grandfather replied, writing, “I remain convinced that women are better at giving life than taking it.” He added that although women play an important role in the Army, he thinks that they have no place in combat units. No family better captures the flurry of debate triggered by Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta’s historic announcement this week than the Warners. The decision alters decades of military tradition and opens new opportunities for women and a new debate on their role in the military.

Four of Warner’s eight grandchildren, two of them women, have fought in the Iraq and Afghan wars. In 2005, one of his granddaughters, 1st Lt. Laura M. Walker, was leading her engineer unit in Afghanistan when a roadside bomb detonated beneath her vehicle and killed her. The 24-year-old was the first female U.S. Military Academy graduate to die in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan. Their family story shows the progress made by women in the military in the past decade. But it also highlights the significant ground women must still cover to win acceptance in the military’s last all-male bastions.

As a general commanding the 9th Infantry Division in the 1970s, Warner oversaw the integration of women into hundreds of non-combat arms-support jobs. “There was little time to prepare,” he said. “They just started to arrive.”  Soon, he found himself officiating disputes over whether hair should be tucked under steel helmets and how to handle crying female soldiers. After a few months, he decided that his initial doubts about the women were misplaced. “Their job performance was what surprised me,” he said. “The first group of women was better than the men. They really wanted to be there and knew they were part of an advanced guard.” Decades later, as a grandfather, he suggested that all of his grandchildren consider a career in the Army. “I encouraged them to take on something more important than themselves and told them the military is a good place to do it,” he said in an interview Thursday.

Two granddaughters, Laura and Valerie, took his advice. They were smart, athletic and eager to prove that they were just as capable as their male counterparts. While Laura was at West Point, Valerie attended George Mason University and enrolled in ROTC.  Before the two deployed in 2004, Laura to Afghanistan and Valerie to Iraq, Warner offered them the same advice: “Follow in the tracks of those ahead of you. Keep a round in the chamber. Take care of your soldiers. Do not try to be a hero.” These days, a painting of Walker in her uniform hangs in the hallway of his home in McLean. Warner, 86, calls her death a “personal tragedy” but insists that his opposition to women in combat jobs is driven by his experiences in fighting wars, not the loss of his granddaughter.

Rwandan herdsmen like these left their country during the 1950s troubles and ended up in positions of power in neighbouring Uganda.

Last week we read from Dr Arnold Spero Bisase’s book Guardian Angel Volume One: The Beginning how former Makerere University Vice Chancellor Frank Kalimuzo led the efforts to put into action the Tutsi Dynasty Plan for governing the Great Lakes Region. How did he do this? It is all in today’s serialisation of Dr Bisase’s book. Right here.

They ferried them young, they ferried them old; they ferried them wretched, they ferried them beautiful. Into religious homes, rich homes, famous homes, humble homes, missionary schools, government schools, private schools and village schools. On local grants, international grants; as orphans and quasi orphans; as refugees and herdsmen; they entered Uganda through Namutamba, especially the European tea farms. Others used the Kagera Salient and all along the Lukoola (marshland) and extending to Lake Kyoga. (These balaalo (herdsmen) would have crossed into Uganda from Rwanda and the original Buhaya, part of Tanzania).Others crossed over via Kasese, across Lake Rwere (now Edward), Virunga National Park (Democratic Republic of Congo) and the adjoining Semliki National Park, Kanungu (which became another graveyard of the naïve Bantu, details of which will come in later books), Kisoro and the Mountains of the Moon and Bufumbira. In war terms this invasion of Uganda was like a front stretching from Lake Luttanzige (now Albert) and Bundibugyo, through the Rwenzori National Park, all the way to Mburo National Park with its Lake in Isingiro District. You will notice that all these Districts are full of lush green grazing land and plenty of water; and by being such wide, open spaces with less indigenous eyes to notice and raise alarm, they formed an ideal terrain to infiltrate together with their livestock for immediate sustenance. And what started as a trickle, with experience and confidence on a beaten path, soon became a flood.

While this infiltration on foot continued apace along a swathe of non-policed  border, the Churches and every manner of humanitarian organisations were busy ferrying and packing the so called vulnerable victims of Rwanda’s inter-tribal conflicts, into every willing and benevolent home of the naïve Bantu. We gave them food and shelter; we gave them clothes and our names for identity’s sake; but once such names entered any Official Record, Civic or Educational, the cloning process was deemed complete.

From then on they became us; the Ssalis, the Katongoles the Kalemas and so on. The list is endless and it confirms the same message, that they never, ever permitted us to become them. And once we gave them Education and ownership of land the Metamorphosis was complete. But the Kalimuzos maintained a perfect list of their cloned agents, whether wives or husbands or siblings; in readiness for final use whenever The Grant Conspiracy Plan (Tutsi Dynasty Plan) was being consummated. Have you ever wondered how Yoweri Museveni (the current Ugandan leader) knows every time who to recruit or how to “brainwash” people to become his secret force of agents? Now you know; he already knew 52 years ago at our time of Independence, where virgin and willing territory lay.

]]> http://www.thelondoneveningpost.com/features/guardian-angel-volume-one-the-beginning-how-the-rwandese-infiltrated-uganda/feed/ 3 http://www.thelondoneveningpost.com/features/why-the-united-nations-is-amongst-the-worlds-biggest-failures/ http://www.thelondoneveningpost.com/features/why-the-united-nations-is-amongst-the-worlds-biggest-failures/#comments Thu, 10 Jan 2013 01:40:14 +0000 Editorial Team http://www.thelondoneveningpost.com/features/?p=2557 Coincidentally or not, most of the UN’s astounding failures recently have been in Africa, particularly Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Congo and Sudan.  While the United Nations’ bureaucrats and troops deployed in South Sudan fly in and out of Uganda’s Entebbe airport, ordinary people take one of the many buses that depart from a derelict bus stand in the centre of Kampala for the capital Juba. A distance of 515 kilometres is covered in 12-14 hours if one is lucky, which means no rains, no accidents and no breakdowns. The Republic of South Sudan is the world’s newest country, having seceded from the Republic of the Sudan in July 2011 after a … Continue reading →]]>

The Kampala Coach Terminal where coaches depart daily for Juba in South Sudan.

Coincidentally or not, most of the UN’s astounding failures recently have been in Africa, particularly Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Congo and Sudan.

 While the United Nations’ bureaucrats and troops deployed in South Sudan fly in and out of Uganda’s Entebbe airport, ordinary people take one of the many buses that depart from a derelict bus stand in the centre of Kampala for the capital Juba. A distance of 515 kilometres is covered in 12-14 hours if one is lucky, which means no rains, no accidents and no breakdowns.

The Republic of South Sudan is the world’s newest country, having seceded from the Republic of the Sudan in July 2011 after a long and bloody civil war, becoming the 193rd member-state of the UN. South Sudan continues the trend in Africa to name a country identically or similarly to a neighbouring country. We already had Nigeria and Niger, the People’s Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and three Guineas (Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Equatorial Guinea).

As value for money or performance against expectations, one would think that the world organisation is among the world’s biggest failures. Coincidentally or not, most of the UN’s astounding failures recently have been in Africa, particularly Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Congo and Sudan.

In the many mini-wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo, more than five million have died since 1998. The second Sudanese civil war (1983-2005) is estimated to have cost over two million lives and the war in Darfur anywhere from 200,000 to 400,000 since 2003. In 1994, in the space of three months, 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda in a pre-planned massacre of Tutsis by Hutus. The Rwandan genocide makes for an average of 8,000 killed every day for over three months. Another gross failing of the UN, Srebrenica in the former Yugoslavia has deservedly earned international infamy, but Rwanda translates into one Srebrenica per day, every day, for over three months.

In all the above conflict zones, the UN did have a ‘peace-keeping’ presence, but either withdrew anticipating trouble or did nothing to stop the massacres. In a damning End-of-Assignment Report to the Secretary General of the UN in July 2010, Under-Secretary General for Oversight Services, Inga-Britt Ahlenius, wrote, “There is no transparency, there is lack of accountability. Is there any improvement in general of our capacity to protect the civilians in conflict and distress…? I am concerned that we are in a process of decline and reduced relevance of the Organisation. In short, we seem to be seen less and less as a relevant partner in the resolution of world problems.”

Even as I write these lines, we are witnessing the unfolding of a civil war in Syria, which has so far claimed over 60,000 lives in two years. Of course, the UN can only be as good as its member-states, in particular the veto-wielding five permanent members of the Security Council. But there is also the problem of a grossly overpaid and unaccountable UN bureaucracy whose principal concern is self-perpetuation and principal problem a lack of motivation. Many if not most of the UN staffers are bureaucrats more interested in their perks and tax-free pay checks than in their commitment to the cause or the mission of the United Nations.