What The UN Does Best

The United Nations has received the usual kind of press that we may come to expect from this august body: drunkness and whoring.

UN staff in East Timor have been severely reprimanded and had an 11pm curfew imposed in an attempt to wipe out rampant drink driving.

One foreign employee has resigned and been sent home after allegedly drunkenly assaulting police when she was stopped while driving erratically in the capital, Dili.

[...] since March 1, there had been more than 80 traffic accidents where UNMIT vehicles were the only ones involved, and that "the frequency of accidents has been increasing significantly".

Excuse me. I acccidently omitted several of the UN's sterling qualities, it's Drunkeness, Assaulting Police Officers, Demolishing UN Property and Whoring. Now for the whoring.

UNITED Nations police and civilian staff are openly violating what the UN promised would be a zero-tolerance policy towards sexual abuse and misconduct in deeply religious East Timor.

Expatriates in Dili say a dozen brothels have recently opened in the city, with UN vehicles parked outside most nights. Teenage Timorese prostitutes gather just before dusk opposite a hotel on Dili's waterfront, where UN vehicles can be seen picking them up.

It is apparent what knid of economic development the UN is bringing to poor countries around the world. Bawdy houses and red light districts.

"It's disgusting … these people who have supposedly come here to help the Timorese are abusing these poor girls," says an Australian mechanic drinking in the hotel's second-floor bar, where he observes the scene every night.

One of the brothels is employing a dozen ethnic-Chinese prostitutes, expatriates say.

A UN employee told The Age that the world body was turning a blind eye to prostitution by its employees.

This is not a blind eye. This is a wink and a nod. But this is nothing new. UN forces have a proud tradition of drunkeness and rape (also here) to uphold while being supported by US tax dollars.