UN

The 30th anniversary of the Rwanda massacre is in the news this week. It will be news for a few days and then gone just as it was when it happened. The United Nations was warned of the pending disaster but did nothing. The calls for a mandate and troops were denied. The world basically ignored the situation and the major powers at the UN discouraged any intervention. The result was the murder of somewhere between 500,000 and one million people. The killings went on for 100 days and most were killed by machetes. The river swelled with body parts. Many women were taken and kept as slaves. The UN had forces in the country but were not given the order to stop the killing. Two million people fled to neighboring countries. This whole affair just added to the frustration that many people felt then and feel today about the UN. Many of the 193 countries represented in the UN are third world countries where people barely have enough to feed themselves. These starving people send representatives to New York where they spend 9 months out of the year living a lavish life style supposedly to act when situations like Rwanda arise but they did nothing. The money wasted on these representatives could be better spent trying to help the people back home. Some feel the UN, like other international organizations, has outlived its usefulness.