It appears that political power and diplomatic clout have been allowed to trump the UN’s duty to expose those responsible for the killing and maiming of more than 1,000 of Yemen’s children.
— Sajjad Mohammad Sajid, Oxfam Director in Yemen, June 7, 2016
It is such cases that give the United Nations a bad name. And if heads and decay say something about the rest of the body, Ban Ki-Moon says all too much in his role as UN Secretary General. Always inconspicuous, barely visible in the global media, his presence scarcely warrants a footnote. This has been a point of much relief for various powers who have tended to see the UN as a parking space for ceremony and manipulation rather than concrete policy.
A most sinister feature of the latest UN reversal is the role played by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia behind the move. Other powers have previously attempted to prejudice the various organs and functions of the UN, exerting various pressures. In March, Morocco made its position clear when it expelled 84 UN staffers from a UN peacekeeping mission in the Western Sahara region after Ban deemed the disputed territory “occupied”.
The Kingdom is engaged in an enthusiastically bloody campaign in Yemen against the Shia Houthi insurgents, one that can scant be described as compliant with the laws of war. This was one of the subjects of a 40-page report, written primarily by the UN chief’s special representative for children and armed conflict, Leila…