From UNDERstatements to lapTOPs - The UN in action...aah that should be inaction!

Here's a couple of stories from ForeignPolicy.com that remind me of why the United Nations is useless. First the war crimes story is more than an understatement and most likely were committed by the UN or they sat around and did nothing while the crimes were in progress.
Then we have the One Laptop Per Child program which I first heard about several years ago (What took them so long?). The story reminds me of one written some years ago about The Ugly American...they made a movie too. Where the Americans gave some third world farmer a tractor without giving him instructions. When the radiator boiled over and burnt the farmer, the farmer went back to using his elephant to do the plowing...elephants never boil over. So it is with the UN giving laptop computers to people who are just above the basket weaving class and nobody there to teach laptop 101. We need to let the world know that it's no longer the ugly American but the even uglier UN! Remember the UN Peace Plan simply means the UN gets it's piece! (usually by raping young women). ~ Norman E. Hooben

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Understatement of the day: UN finds 'possible' war crimes in DRC

Wed, 09/09/2009

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pilan, and his office released two reports on violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in 2008, citing "possible war crimes and crimes against humanity" by the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), a rebel group formerly led by Laurent Nkunda and backed by the government of Rwanda.

Talk about your diplomatic understatement. The crimes involved dozens of killings and rapes. But for those following the DRC this statement has to seem kind of weak. There have been all sorts of atrocities in Eastern Congo for years, and the only questions really are which militia was guilty in which case. Possible? The U.N. head of mission in the DRC called the attacks war crimes immediately after they happened.

Reuters reporters shrewdly dig into the problematic fact that while Nkunda was later arrested by Rwandan forces, it was his lieutenant, Jean Bosco Ntaganda (shown above), nicknamed "The Terminator" who was commanding the CNDP forces at the time of the November killings. Guess where he is?

Ntaganda, who is being sought by the International Criminal Court on separate war crimes charges, was integrated into Congo's army in January along with other members of the Tutsi-dominated CNDP...

"We know he is there. We are aware of it. He was integrated. He was given a role. And according to our partners, he does not play a role in the operations that MONUC is supporting," said Kevin Kennedy, MONUC's head of communications.

"But it isn't our job to investigate the role of Bosco Ntaganda in the (army)," he told journalists in Kinshasa.

One other question for other Congo watchers out there. Doesn't a lot of focus seem to be just on the CNDP, when the Hutu FDLR militia has been committing terrible massacres for years? In fact, wasn't a key reason--along with grabbing minerals--for Rwandan support of Nkunda that he was protecting Congolese Tutsis from the marauding FDLR, many of whom were genocidaires? Maybe I've just missed it or Nkunda made such a good media character. Is the FDLR getting as much U.N. heat?

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Why did One Laptop Per Child fail?

Wed, 09/09/2009

Over at UN Dispatch, Alanna Shaikh has a thought-provoking eulogy for Nicholas Negroponte's fizzling One-Laptop-Per-Child program:

Americans wanted the OLPC. We fell in love with its tremendous promise and adorable shape. (note: I own an OLPC) We were the first market it conquered. OLPC launched a give one-get one promotion that let individuals pay $400 to donate one laptop and receive one for themselves. It was a huge success, except that OLPC wasn’t set up for that kind of customer order fulfillment. Laptops arrived far later than promised, and several thousand orders were simply lost.

Once the laptop finally started arriving in the developing world, its impact was minimal. We think. No one is doing much research on their impact on education; discussions are largely theoretical. This we do know: OLPC didn’t provide tech support for the machines, or training in how to incorporate them into education. Teachers didn’t understand how to use the laptops in their lessons; some resented them. Kids like the laptops, but they don’t actually seem to help them learn.

It’s time to call a spade a spade. OLPC was a failure. ...

As Shaikh suggests, OLPC is a classic case of a development program more tailored to the tastes and interests of its funders, than the needs of the people it was supposed to help. Back to the drawing board.