The Elders Indicate the UN Failed
Written by Daniel on July 30, 2007 – 9:57 pm - Welcome, if you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or subscribe to our email newsletter. Thanks for visiting!
Did you see this new initiative, “The Elders” ? It was announced last week. ABC News reports:
The Elders, a new alliance made up of an elite group of senior statesmen dedicated to solving thorny global problems, unveiled itself today in Johannesburg[, South Africa]. The rollout coincided with founding member Nelson Mandela’s 89th birthday.
There are ten elders: former South African president Nelson Mandela; Desmond Tutu, South African archbishop emeritus of Capetown; former U.S. President Jimmy Carter; former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan; Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Refugees; Mohammed Yunus, the Nobel laureate and founder of the Green Bank in Bangladesh; Indian microfinance leader Ela Bhatt; former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland; former Chinese foreign minister and UN ambassador Li Zhaoxing; and Nobel laureate turned human rights advocate Aung San Suu Kyi.
According to the Elders’ website, “We are moving into a global village and yet we don’t have our global elders. The Elders can be a group who have the trust of the world, who can speak freely, be fiercely independent and respond fast and flexibly in conflict situations.”
Is it just me, or is that an acknowledgment? that the United Nations has been an utter failure? Isn’t this why we have a UN? To respond to conflict situations around the globe? To intervene in internal conflicts? To mediate? To provide human rights leadership? Aren’t they proposing to pick up the slack of what the UN ought to be doing already?
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Posted in We ask the Tough Questions. |
July 31st, 2007 at 12:58 am
Government never fails, Daniel.
July 31st, 2007 at 8:51 am
Well, at least they don’t cost US Taxpayers several hundred million dollars/year.
Yet.
July 31st, 2007 at 10:23 am
A group of world leaders unites to consider how to solve problems of an international nature, and you see an evil conspiracy?
August 1st, 2007 at 12:18 pm
On the contrary. The UN has been an enormous success from their perspective, but it has so totally debased itself that even they see a credibility issue, so they had to try another approach.