The beautiful and the not-so-beautiful

Uganda is beautiful.

The temperature is positively idyllic: hot enough for a bikini if you sit in the sun, but pleasant in the shade even with long pants. It cools off in the evening, but not enough to warrant long sleeves if you don’t want them. At night, fabulous Central African thunderstorms split the darkness and rock the walls. The rain comes in great punishing sheets, but the hibiscus and bougainvillea don’t seem to mind; they look radiant as ever when morning comes and the only sign of the rain is the gloss of their leaves.

The hotel where the workshop is being held is meticulously maintained, with perfect lawns and trimmed hedges and man-made waterfalls. It’s actually a little embarrassing; I feel like I’m on vacation in Hawaii.

Strategic planning in the UN system is not beautiful. As we worked through the exercises today, I was struck by how consistently we seem to avoid the tough choices. Instead of confronting the very real contradictions that occur in our work, we shy away from them. Should we speak out against human rights violations by Israel if that means we cannot be considered a neutral broker for peace? Should we continue to train and equip the Congolese army if they’re the ones committing most of the human rights abuses? These are difficult questions, but they should be confronted. Instead, we broker compromises. We suggest phased approaches for progressive solutions with benchmarks and indicators that we will monitor and report on. We fabricate as much process as possible in order to avoid the uncomfortable reality that sometimes you have to choose peace over justice, or accept that collateral damage is an inescapable reality of war. Or, if you cannot accept those propositions, that the UN as a human rights organization can never be truly neutral, should put protection of civilians above all else, and as such cannot support governments (I won’t name names; we all know who they are) who cannot or will not protect their own people.

I’m sure we all agree that those choices should be made. The trouble is, nobody wants to be responsible for making them. Nobody wants to tell the victims of human rights abuses that the war criminal responsible for their misery cannot be brought to justice because it might damage the peace process. Nobody wants to be the one who pulls the plug on support to Country X on the grounds of corruption, only to leave the population to fend for themselves.

But you can’t plan your way out of those dilemmas, no matter how clever you are. At best, you avoid the issue. At worst, you contribute to stalemate and prolonging conflict. I do hope our leaders recognize that fact. I hope, but I fear...