The Insanity of Sustainable Development

By Cathie Adams, Eagle Forum International Issues Chairman: Physicist Albert Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That is exactly what the United Nations is doing with "sustainable development," which insists that economic, environmental and social equity or "justice" will produce health, peace and prosperity. The UN incorporates it in policies and treaties that target every nation, prodding them to conform to the same Marxist ideals that failed miserably in the 70-year experiment in the former U.S.S.R.

The UN has given special emphasis to the implementation of sustainable development in Africa, passing a resolution each year since 1998 entitled the "Causes of Conflict and the Promotion of Durable Peace and Sustainable Development in Africa." With devastating results today 67% of the world's HIV/AIDS cases are in Africa, as are 90% of the cases of malaria, while 33% of its population suffers from malnutrition, and 15 wars rage on the continent.

Pushing for more foreign aid is key to the UN's sustainable development agenda, but two prominent Africans believe the funding has hurt, rather than helped the African people. Andrew Mwenda, editor of Uganda's Independent newspaper, and Kofi Bentil, lecturer at University of Ghana, have concluded that foreign aid has "stunted growth and subsidized bad governance in Africa. . . . adding that the weight of regulations, bad laws and stifling bureaucracy, subsidized by five decades of development aid, prevents Africans from lifting themselves out of poverty".

Media mogul Ted Turner's billion dollar gift to the UN gives him a billion reasons to advocate for the UN and its sustainable development. Playing on American generosity, while hiding UN failures, Turner's UN Foundation president Timothy Wirth cited the UN's "frontline work" in Sudan and Libya as the reason why 85% of Americans support the UN in their recent poll. But the truth is that the UN has failed in both countries.

Since 1955, ten years after the UN's founding, civil wars have ravaged Sudan. In 2005, the UN Security Council referred the desperate situation in the Sudanese city of Darfur to the International Criminal Court. The ICC issued arrest warrants against its president, yet he remains in office, while about 100,000 persons have suffered the losses of their homes and jobs. Admitting its utter failure, the UN complains that the Sudanese president "continues denying the crimes, attributing them to other factors (such as inter-tribal clashes), diverting attention by publicizing ceasefire agreements that are violated as soon as they are announced, and finally proposing the creation of special courts to conduct investigations that will never start."

Admitting failure also in Libya, the UN states that "the international community" has let Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi "literally get away with murder" for the past 42 years. Since February, an estimated 10-15,000 people have been killed in battle, another 1,200 drowned attempting to flee by sea, and millions suffer from severe food shortages. Meanwhile, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) has extended its air war for another 90 days, as Gadhafi wages a ground war giving Viagra-like medications to his troops targeting his political opponents for rape.

The UN's international tribunals cost about $300 million annually, but have few results to show taxpayers. The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda held its first trial in 1997 for the 1994 Rwandan genocide of 800,000 Tutsis. Since then 50 trials have been held that convicted 29. Eleven more trials are in progress, with 14 individuals awaiting trials, while 13 accused are still at large. Rather than the UN Security Council shutting down the grossly inept tribunal, in 2014 it will transfer its work to a new International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals.

Since its inception, the UN has failed its first mission to resolve conflicts and avert wars, and its courts and tribunals cannot even bring the bad guys to justice. Its emphasis on sustainable development in Africa has failed to bring peace or health or prosperity; yet, it continues to prod every nation to adopt its Marxist ideals. "We the people" are looking for a presidential candidate in the 2012 with the courage to stop this insanity.

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