George Somerwill - United Nations Speaker
George is a United Nations speaker. His background is he came to Canada 40 years ago working for CBC and was there for 14 or 15 years. He had a secret wish as journalist to change the world and educate people to think different. However, he admits he was naive and actually no management of any organization will let you change the world, and limits what you can say and talk about.
He then moved towards humanitarian work. Worked for CEDA and CARE in Ottawa before he was sent abroad to Zimbabwe and Angola working for CARE where he was picked up by the UN where he met his wife. He was thrust in the middle of a demobilization camp after only being in the UN for a couple weeks. His responsibility was to demobilize child and teen soldiers who have been fighting the Angola civil year. There were 10 camps and the UN was responsible to take weapons off young men and providing their families with the basics to get lives back in order.
If you been in the bush for half your life need a lot of socialization to be done in order to get your life back in order
He continued to work for the UN until he retired.
George learned that ordinary people are generally pretty fantastic and supporting and welcoming of foreigners coming in to assist. Even Sadam Hussein said anybody who touches a hair on the head of the foreign aid workers will have to answer to himself personally.
They could go anywhere in Iraq and receive amazing treatment. Bureaucrats, often senior ranking somewhat less hospitable.
Every time there is a peacekeeping mission there is a Status of Forces Agreement, which defines exactly what the civilians are allowed to do.
In Sudan they had an agreement of setting up a 24 hour radio. Government of Sudan agreed yet the government kept dragging its feet. It apparently wasn’t the minister but was someone behind the scenes, a faceless bureaucrat who dictated they could set up in the south but not in Sudan, as was agreed..
He learned of the banality of evil. These folks were simply uneducated, regular people who were told by a radio station constantly broadcasting hate messages.
UN is an international humanitarian organization whose budget is only about 1.5 times that of the NY police department.
If the UN doesn’t do their job of keeping the peace, the cost of war is way higher than that of maintaining the UN. The UN currently has 16 peace keeping operations around the world.