Undoubtedly, Rasna Warah is the one who introduced me to the corruption that happens inside the corridors of the United Nations Organisation (UN).
What I was used to, were mostly rumours and unsubstantiated claims of such.
But Lord of Impunity reveals the rot at the UN from an insider. Rasna Warah worked at the UN-Habitat.
In the book, the author exposes much dirt in a case-by-case fashion.
Corruption has meant that the UN has failed to fulfil its mandate. The organization has been captured and has accepted to succumb to mediocrity, lip service and corruption.
For the slow learners, one can even ask, why hasn’t the UN fulfilled its pledge to end wars and poverty?
The answers are in the pages of this book; and one other that Rasna Warah penned. I have also read UNSilenced, which exposes how whistleblowers are victimized and then silenced by the systems that be at the world body.
It is a pity that we even trust the UN with all the mandates our countries have given it; be it human rights, women’s rights, world peace etc.
In Lords of Impunity, Ms Warah shows how UN staff abuse the immunity from prosecution that they enjoy. This has meant that UN staff commit atrocities around the world, where they are posted, and walk scot-free.
Some of the atrocious things committed include rape, murder, bribery and even gender-based violence.
There’s a loud silence at the UN about these things. This is because those that expose the ills are silenced, fired and banned from ever working at the UN.
Those that remain are treated to sham investigations whose reports never see the light of the day.
Reading the book, one gets the gory details of the turpid nature of UN operations. How International Development is a tool for oppression and by extension the role of the power of the western state over the world of aid.
UN plans poverty, for poverty is a good tool for NGOs to gloss over and get funding to feed the few who hold those jobs.
It is a dysfunctional system made that way.
The book is not rumour-mongering, it shares personal accounts of those who have faced abuse in the UN system.
The UN doesn’t solve but makes worse the problems it has sworn to tackle.
All is not lost, as the author doesn’t leave us without recommendations for improvement. She aptly captures that in the last chapter titled Making the UN accountable.
More details of how the rot stinks to high heaven are well captured in the book.
Buy the book from Nuria Store.