Remember this? (Dec.31, 2004);
United States President George Bush was tonight accused of trying to undermine the United Nations by setting up a rival coalition to coordinate relief following the Asian tsunami disaster.
The president has announced that the US, Japan, India and Australia would coordinate the world�s response. But former International Development Secretary Clare Short said that role should be left to the UN. �I think this initiative from America to set up four countries claiming to coordinate sounds like yet another attempt to undermine the UN when it is the best system we have got and the one that needs building up,� she said. �Only really the UN can do that job,� she told BBC Radio Four�s PM programme. �It is the only body that has the moral authority. But it can only do it well if it is backed up by the authority of the great powers.�
The Diplomad was posted in Indonesia at the time, and deconstructing the self-congratulatory press releases coming out of the UN as fast as they were issued. By the end of January, there was still precious little evidence of a United Nations presence, despite official claims to the contrary;
We will focus on Indonesia, The country most affected by the quake and tsunami and the one where we were working, saw the UN up close and personal, and know best. The press release is deceptive and misleading. Its author has a future in advertising, or working for the next John Kerry campaign.
So, “20 foreign militaries lent” their assets, eh? Lent? To whom? Not to the UN, that’s for sure. For at least three of the past four weeks, the UN had nothing to do with the operations of the “20 foreign militaries.” The UN certainly was not directing the Aussies, who were the first ones in; they blazed the path for the rest and thousands of people owe them their lives. They weren’t running the assets of the Kiwis or the Singaporeans, either, and they sure weren’t running ours. Up until just a few days ago, those “20” foreign militaries were Aussies, Singaporeans, Kiwis (who’ve gotten little credit for the fine work they’ve done), and Yanks with a modest but appreciated assist as of about 10-12 days ago of the Spanish and the Pakistani militaries. The coordinating was being done by the Australians, the USA and the Indonesian military. Up until just about four or five days ago, except for the disaster tourists such as Annan and Bellamy, the UN WAS NOWHERE TO BE SEEN — except quite overwhelmingly in Jakarta’s luxury hotels, a few UNocrats in Medan, and a tiny handful at the airport in Aceh writing up press releases claiming all the credit for the UN and bad-mouthing the hard-working Aussies and Americans.
Emphasis mine.
It wasn’t just the UN putting on a false front. For all the video wave replays, back-patting of the “generousity of Canadians” and uncritical coverage of Paul Martin’s photo op fiasco in Sri Lanka, the tsunami aid story has received precious little followup in Canadian media. It wasn’t until May that we learned that only $50,000 of the $425 million pledged had actually left Ottawa. One would think that such a story would be national news and a huge political scandal for Paul Martin.
Instead, we heard nothing.
Now, the Financial Times has released results of an investigation into how the UN vacuumed up tsunami aid dollars;
Up to about a third of the $590 million U.N. fund spent for the Indian Ocean tsunami relief may have gone to pay for overhead.
The Financial Times says its two-month investigation showed the money appears to have been spent on administration, staff and related costs. The $590 million was part of the United Nation’s $1.1 billion disaster flash appeal.
The newspaper also found several U.N. agencies continue to refuse to disclose details of their relief expenditure in spite of earlier pledges of transparency by senior officials.
Shades of CIDA.
Of course, this is the same “media community” who have remained virtually silent on Liberal party connections to the UN Oil-For-Food scandal.
Is the silence because they simply don’t know – or because they know too much?
Me thinks…
they know too much…!
Same old, same old. No surprises here I’m afraid. Not quite 35 years ago, when backpacking through South America, we stayed quite some time in the mountains of Peru one year after the devastating earthquake that killed about 75,000. We had the good fortune to meet a young British architect working for the UNDP attempting to design low cost earthquake resistant housing. This gave us an excellent opportunity to see first hand how the UN operates (or doesn’t operate). Over one year after the disaster, not one house had been started. The managers working with the UN were living quite well it appeared. Our architect friend? He quit in disgust shortly after we left Peru.
Yes, and I wonder how much money lined the pockets of the Maurice Strong’s of the world.
Let me see if i recall this correctly.
“there is such a thing as a global conscience”
I am ashamed of our country
Went through this topic a year ago @ Captains Quarters…USLESS…The USA should get out from under the UN..so should we..corrupt to the core.
Rember Rwanda..800,000 murdered over a 100 day period.I cant rember his name but the Liberal party of Canada let the 2nd in command of these murders into Canada..to my knowledge that monster is still in Canada
Craig:
Here, Here, I second that motion. Absolutely right.
After observing ever so closely and critically the blatant refusal of the MSM to adequately (or at all) report facts which would really hurt public opinion of the Liberal Party of Canada or Paul Martin, I cannot avoid the all-doubt-methodically-eliminated conclusion that THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA IS BIASED IN FAVOR OF THE LIBERALS AND IS AS CORRUPT AS THAT PARTY.
When the Conservatives come to power, we grassroots small-c conservatives as well as actual CPC members (I’m one) must keep the pressure on the new government to fix the bias and corruption in the MSM as well as in the government and all its agencies.
Only with a 100% free press, impervious to state interference (CRTC comes to mind as one middleman for this), can Canadians be truly free and equal.
Canadian Sentinel: Where will you get a 100% free press? Legislate it? Pass laws? Commission a news registry to review every story? Appointments by the PMO?
One thing you can start with is selling the CBC. That won’t necessarily make them unbiased but at least my tax dollars won’t go to the funding of their drivel. Also, some serious, democratic reform needs to be done to the CRTC (communist radio and television commission).
Burn the U.N.istan to the ground!
Vin:
Yep.
I have a couple of questions:
1. How much money was donated/pledged to tsunami relief?
2. Where was the funds directed? To the Red Cross, government management, etc?
3. How much actually got there and to the enduser and how much went to local government for “administration”?
4. If the Canadian public realized how much of that dollar they donated was spent on anything but aid, how would they react?
5. Could Harper and the gang do a better job?
This could be an interesting development in the election campaign. I know I get anoyed when most of my dollar never gets to the people who need it. Band Aid comes to mind.
When the revolution comes, we should keep the CBC infratsructure, but change the team so the right questions are being asked and investigations done.
Just think – a ten part CBC series on how the UN wastes our contributions and causes massive suffering among poor people aroung the world.
Or an annual awards show for the top 20 most useless NGO’s, how much money they have wasted, a month by month reveal of the expense accounts of the dufus’s running said NGO’s
I could go on and on and on
This is old hat. From a May 2005 article at my site:
http://www.thiscanada.com/2005/05/09/martins-marvellous-sri-lanka-photo-op/
Nobody cared then, and nobody will care now. That’s what photo-op politicians know, and count on. But it does sound good at the time. Like, “I will defend Canada …”.
another nice mess…correct me if i am wrong but it was my understanding at the time that the liebrels would match dollar for dollar that was contributed by individuals corporations etc. so the liberals pledge of 450m would mean that the generalpopulation contributed half of that amount. where did it go ??? where is it ???
CIDA eh? That was Moe Strong’s baby…..a slush fund for pouring Cn-bucks into his 3rd worls development projects. Now we see misdirected donations to the UN from CIDA…..am I the only one or does anyone else smell the unmistakable odor of Moe Strong? I bet he left a slime trail directly from the CIDA robbery to the UN’s banking cartel.
IIRC, the general population contributed 40 million. The amount pledged by the government probably included the 40 million with their amount.
Never, ever, ever donate to a U.N. aid agency. There are plenty of private relief agencies where your money can be sent and used properly. You may as well write out a cheque to Robert Mugabee or Maurice Strong if you decide on a U.N. agency.
The MSM (at least CTV/Globe) is doing a smear job on Harper right now, running Liberal talking points under the guise of “news” concerning both SSM and Harris (been there done that damage etc…). For example, the SSM story aledges that Harper raised this issue, when it was clearly driven by the MSM, nor does the article mention that the law in the UK is the same as the Conservative policy. It seems that the authors are trying to incite fear and prejudice against Harper, rather than impartially reporting. Meanwhile, the Klander story gets partial, delayed coverage, adn the hypocrisy of the Liberal’s emotive and ostensibly generous tsunami declaration is ignored. hmm….
maybe the larger proportion of the Canadian aid destined for Sri Lanka will be directed through the Tamil guerilla funds that are quite openly promoted and reverse promoted by the liberals.
ie. I’ll back your scratch(money) if you’ll back my candidate.
likely another sponsorship style scandal in the making but overseas.
couple of guarenteed liberal seats in Trona.
FREE THE WEST.
If I recall correctly, the CPC policy on relief would spend the bulk on funding orgs like World Vision who can do more with less and have established networks to cut graft. They would also use CIDA (but probably only after the AG disinfects it, IMHO)
As a country we seem to keep making the same mistake time and time again in the aid we provide to needy countries. We send cash (highly mobile, easy to make vanish) when we could be sending something more practical. WHEAT.
Aid in this form would serve 3 practical ends.
1. More than any one item needed by these countries is food. Wheat is food. Everything else is secondary. If by chance there is enough wheat to sustain the population of these countries, their goverments have the option to sell the surplus on the world market to raise capital for other much needed items. They would have a hard time to explain why they are selling wheat when their people are starving.
2. This country has a surplus of wheat. Why not give what you have plenty of. This would help our domestic agriculture in a large way. Farmers would be glad to have another market avenue for wheat. The federal government would pay farmers market price with a production margin preimum for the wheat. All associated business with agriculture would be glad because farmers need imputs to produce wheat. The railways and even Paul Martin’s steamship lines would get a bit of the action in moving the wheat to the country in need.
3. The taxpayer get a value for their dollar. They have a reason to feel good about this act of giving because it is something tangable, you can see the wheat, not just the intentions. You can’t get that with cash. How does a corrupt leader launder 100,000 tonnes of wheat to line his pocket? Impossible to do without getting noticed.
In summary, this is a win win for everyone involved. Remember, charity begins at home.
If the UN is involved you can bet that it will bennifit only the UN and it’s bruacracy of usless social engineers.
Paul Martin wanted to look generous, so he announced money to be immediately sent to the Tsunami region. I remember, he upped the amount daily. I also remember how much the gov’t was crowing because they were committing more money than the USA.
Canada has a law that if they send food aid, 90% must be bought in Canada and then shipped over. So wheat from Saskatchewan would be purchased and sent on a steam ship to the region at great cost. While travelling 15 miles into the interior of Thailand, rice could be bought very cheaply and distributed to the needed areas quickly.
But, if we took the most efficient route of getting help there, we’d miss all the opportunities for Canadians in power to profit from the situation.
Where is the outrage here?
We cannot allow ourselves to become so used to this sort of thing that we write it off as just the same old…..
Canada signed the kyoto accord, but did nothing,Canada promised 425 million in aid, but apparently did nothing again. These promises were made in the name of all Canadians, and it behooves us to get to the bottom of this. I am going to contact the MP for my riding, and request whatever information can be found. If there is no action, im going to write a formal letter to the constituency office, with copy to the local paper(s). I beg all of you to do the same, or whatever other action will help to get this issue cleared up. I am new to the blogosphere, but i have a growing respect for the results that can be obtained.
@ kuroki kid-
sending domestically grown food is manytimes a disaster, especially if there is plenty of food available locally, and the victems just can’t afford it. it’s better to buy the food in thailand/indonesia from local farmers, otherwise, you put all of those farmers out of business when you start giving out “free” foreign food. then you’ve created a whole other problem (farmers who can’t sell their food- go poor, ruin the local economy for many years, extend the need for more “free” food etc.). in other words, it’s a disaster.
Lee:
Canada should do nothing with the Kyoto Protocol. It has nothing to do with climate change, it is nothing more than a wealth re-distribution project and Canadians should be furious that our inept government signed on to it.
Daily Reading
I included some here but then this blanket of boredom descended on me and I left the list unfinished…
…
My husband is currently in the middle of a four-month volunteer assignment in Nepal (one of the poorest 25% of nations in the world), and now considering applying for a two-year assignment to follow, and moving our family over there for the duration. CIDA funding is involved. The UN figures of one third going to overhead sound bad, but when I look at the costs to have my husband working in Nepal, even with only his expenses paid, compared to what we know of Nepali wages and standard of living, it doesn’t surprise me. One dollar paid directly into the local economy can produce a lot more material results than the same dollar going to fund an overseas worker, or to run the administration back home. Yet, if you want accountability, and if you’re serious about technology transfer, you have to have some of your own people working, and that’s going to cost.
Could it cost less? Perhaps. Perhaps you wouldn’t get any volunteers. Would you volunteer to spend a couple of years away from your home, your relatives, your business contacts, etc., and not only that, but volunteer to live at the local standard, even though your whole reason for being there is to raise that standard to an acceptable level? Would it be cost effective to make volunteers live at local living standards, and probably see their performance suffer due to ill health and low morale? Or is it better to keep them in top form and get the most you can out of their training and experience? Keep in mind there is already a high overhead cost of simply getting them there.
I am thinking out loud here, because I am supposed to be deciding right now, what to tell my husband – should he apply for the two-year assignment? One of my greatest concerns is whether it is really cost effective to fund our family to travel and live there. Undoubtedly I could find ways to contribute as well, but I would also have to find ways to keep my kids caught up with their education.
Of course I also have to consider that we are accustomed to the wide open skies and clean air of Saskatchewan, and here we would be in a city of a million people in a mountain valley with worse pollution than Toronto.
You just described one obvious solution yourself. Why is it even necessary for UN workers to drive around in limos and Landcruisers and stay at first class hotels? Especially in light of the massive scale of corruption and ineffectiveness of the UN? Could it be that THEY are the true imperialist, hegemonic oppressors?
The US military can do the job more efficiently and more effectively.
/have at it, tin-foil moonbats.
Yes, Doug, and that’s why I question whether my husband should be over there at all. But on the other hand, you want accountability, don’t you? You don’t want to just hand money to dictators, do you? The solution may not be quite as simple and obvious as it first appears.
Laura, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this – it’s an interview with a Kenyan economist who argues that foreign aid does more harm than good, and those “dollars spent locally” often end up hurting local suppliers, now faced with competing with free goods.
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,363663,00.html
“Shikwati: … and at some point, this corn ends up in the harbor of Mombasa. A portion of the corn often goes directly into the hands of unsrupulous politicians who then pass it on to their own tribe to boost their next election campaign. Another portion of the shipment ends up on the black market where the corn is dumped at extremely low prices. Local farmers may as well put down their hoes right away; no one can compete with the UN’s World Food Program. And because the farmers go under in the face of this pressure, Kenya would have no reserves to draw on if there actually were a famine next year. It’s a simple but fatal cycle”
Sounds familiar, not that particular study, but I’ve seen very similar things from various parts of the world. As I see it, aid organizations have moved from simply sending in food and supplies, which destroys local producers; through giving money to buy food and supplies locally, which distorts regional markets; to a third stage, of trying to support local initiatives through micro-credit, technology transfer, etc. Whether this will work any better than the previous dismal record, I don’t know. My husband is working with credit unions, which emphasize support to local people who are trying to start up their own ventures to improve their situation. Partly this is financial support, through micro-credit, but more significantly it’s organizational, helping the people find ways to save their own money, pool it, and accomplish the things that they know are most important for their own situations. Still, I wonder how much good is actually done, and whether it is worth the cost. My original point about “dollars spent locally” was not to say that those dollars are somehow better, but just to point out that you can’t expect to get the usual 10 to 15% administration cost that charities accomplish within a developed nation, when you are working across huge differences in monetary value between developed and developing nations. The cost for administration will be much higher because that cost is being incurred on the developed-nation side of the gap.
Isnt it comforting to know that the americans would first on the scene to help out if we ever had a disaster of that magnitude in Canada?
lee-
I wouldn’t count on that.
I think the Americans have learned their lesson.
No aid, or support, without having a unaminous U.N. approval first.
Can’t afford to again be seen as acting in a unilateral fashion, eh?
After all, even if they do, someone will call them pikers…
So, from the American viewpoint: why bother.
Kate:
I saw a program on newsworld last night about this very issue. Its seems as though the problem is that there is TOO MUCH MONEY and they cant spend it. Thats the reason why CIDA has not as yet distributed the funds.
Im trying to keep an open mind, but its a struggle
That pmpm ‘water’ op was an ad for Mo Strong water and guess who wrote the kyoto thingie – mo and gorbychiev!! Gorby was a KGB and so was Puckin, they are all in this muck to enslave the peons (us!); step by step – the rise and fall of individuals is a diversion, the ‘plan’ is to WIN. Anyone not reporting on this group is IN this group.
Just caught this thread. Strong, whore of all whores. Strong is at present one of martin�s chief advisors and a long time mentor.