14 November 2005 The Spoilers and the Web By Gwynne Dyer “The situation can certainly be criticised but the proposed remedies seem much worse,” said the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres, not exactly the first organisation that you would expect to rally to the US government’s position. “If there was ever a time to invoke the …
11 September 2005 United Nations Reform By Gwynne Dyer If we set out to create a farm in the wilderness, we should not expect the top local predators to help. We have our interests, and they have theirs: as our little patch of order spreads, their ability to hunt freely and dominate the local environment …
9 July 2005 Srebrenica: Justice at Last? By Gwynne Dyer Sometimes diplomats can be very stupid. Right through late June and early July, British diplomats in the Balkans pushed the notion that Monday’s commemoration of the massacre of almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Serbian and Bosnian Serb troops at Srebrenica ten years ago …
22 June 2005 United Nations Anniversary By Gwynne Dyer “The great force on which we must rely is the hatred of the cruelty and waste of war which now exists. As soon as the war is over the process of oblivion sets in…,” Lord Robert Cecil wrote as the war drew to an end. “It …
30 March 2005 No Quick Fix for the UN By Gwynne Dyer “(Kofi Annan’s) lack of leadership, combined with conflicts of interest and a lack of responsibility and accountability, point to one, and only one, outcome: his resignation.” If that had been the conclusion of Paul Volcker, chairman of the independent committee of inquiry into …
3 December 2004 United Nations Reform By Gwynne Dyer United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s plan for UN reform, unveiled on 2 December, was a brave attempt to square the circle, but it will not work. It acknowledged the Bush administration’s strident demands for changes at the UN, accommodated a few of them, and proposed a …
13 June 2004 Sudan: Peace in the South, War in the West By Gwynne Dyer USaid predicts that 350,000 people will die of hunger, disease and exposure in the refugee camps of western Sudan in the next few months. Back in April Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary-general, was already warning that the international community …
10 June 2004 Exit Strategy By Gwynne Dyer President George W. Bush has had a good two weeks on Iraq. A United Nations special envoy helped to choose the members of an Iraqi interim government. A UN Security Council resolution then blessed the deal by which the US will allegedly hand over ‘sovereignty’ to that …
RE SUNDAY’S ARTICLE: To update, taking account of the change of Iraqi general in charge of Falluja, substitute new paragraphs 6 and 7. Full amended text follows. 4 May 2004 Iraq: It’s All Over Now By Gwynne Dyer The situation in Iraq is “disintegration verging on collapse,” said Richard Holbrooke, former US ambassador to the …
7 March 2004 The UN Is Not A Morality Play By Gwynne Dyer “It may well be that under international law as presently constituted a regime can systematically brutalise and oppress its own people and there is nothing anyone can do….This may be the law, but should it be?” asked Prime Minister Tony Blair last …