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Curzon
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Curzon

Date

March 25th, 2005

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…Or else we will write you a very nasty letter!

Burma warned over forced labour

The International Labour Organisation has warned Burma that it is running out of time to prove its commitment to ending forced labour…

Running out of time, you say? What’s next then, invasion? Air strikes on the presidential palace? Sanctions? Alas no:

In effect, the ILO has called on individual member states to reconsider whether they should impose sanctions on Burma. But there was no overall consensus at the Geneva meeting.

In similarly amusing news, the UN has decided to send no fewer than 10,000 troop to Sudan. Except that it will take them a few months to get there. Meanwhile, sanctions on Sudan were opposed by China, Russia, and Algeria. To quote one fellow blogger: I say we move them out of that shiny sky-scraper in NYC and move the UN headquarters to Darfur. Maybe that will give them a sense of urgency.

Comments to this entry

Curzon
March 25, 2005
3:19 pm
(By the way, the post title is quoted from Hans Blix in "Team America: World Police")
Younghusband
March 25, 2005
3:40 pm
"Ohhh! Hans Brix! How you like that Hans Brix!?"
Martey
March 27, 2005
2:07 pm
Perhaps if the United States leaned harder on China and Russia, they would have more reluctant to oppose sanctions. If we are going to move the UN to Darfur, we might as well move the White House and the Capitol along with it.
Curzon
March 27, 2005
9:00 pm
China and Russia (and Canada!) have oil and business interests in Sudan. We can lean all we want, it won't change anything except make them self-righteous and piss them off.
Martey
March 28, 2005
4:03 am
I will agree with your point that direct American pressure on China and Russia might not have any effect, but I feel that suggests that the UN's slowness in dealing with Darfur is not due to any institutional reluctance, but because of the interference of countries that have interests in the region. If that is the case, then moving the "shiny skyscraper" to the dusty confines of Darfur would have no effect.

Perhaps the US should do an end-run around the UN (a la Kosovo), and work directly with regional alliances, like the African Union.
ComingAnarchy.com » Blog Archive » Laugh or cry?
May 10, 2006
12:28 am
[...] That’s right. If the leaders of these countries now slaughter or starve hundreds of thousands of their own people, they are yet again threatened by the international community’s ultimate weapon—the nasty letter. [...]
ComingAnarchy.com » Blog Archive » Ohhh, scary!
June 18, 2006
8:11 am
[...] Surely nothing is more effective against a Taepodong-2 long-range missilethe than the all-powerful nasty letter. And if you think I’m taking this too seriously, know that this latest missile could reach the US. What say you? [...]