Venezuela

The UN has conducted many successful peace keeping interventions. Sierra Leone was but one. The problem Wars are big news, no wars aren't.

The UN is very much a sum of its parts. It has 193 members and a Security Council of 15, with 5 permanent members and 10 members voted on and off. It only takes one vote in the Security Council, to defeat a motion. Currently Russia is causing the problem in getting a truce in Syria.

The remarkable thing is not those cases where the UN has been unable to intervene, but the large number of occasions where it has got all, or most countries to agree on peace keeping measures and then got individual countries to provide both men and money to do the job.

The British army provided all the troops and logistics for the Sierra Leone intervention, which was so resounding a success.

here is a list of UN peace keeping missions
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_Nations_peacekeeping_missions

One example was ending the civil war in Sierra Leone and returning the country to peace.
Perhaps they need to build on their success then.

Oh dear

Look at their criticism of the UK!
The way it treats disabled people?
You have to be joking.

They are charged with overseeing human rights - look at their criticism of the U.K. and the way it treats the disabled for one thing, health so it would coordinate epidemic treatment etc, economic development, other stuff like refugee assistance and childhood. All members are signed up to it and it largely adher and give appropriate assistance, most of which we don’t hear about.

The UN has carried out many missions successfully.

One example was ending the civil war in Sierra Leone and returning the country to peace.
reliefweb.int/report/sierra-leone/sierra-leone-peacekeeping-success-lessons-learned-unamsil

So - if it cannot intervene in the internal affairs of countries and cannot intervene in warring countries if those involved are not happy is there any point to it?
Their peace-keeping efforts have led to its reputation being questioned and much criticism being levelled at them.

As far as Yugoslavia is concerned, the history was very complicated. It was partly formed after WW1, named Yugoslavia in 1929 I think, and formed as a federation after WW11, held together under Tito (Life President until he died in 1980).
Trying to combine such disparate countries and peoples was never going to be easy.

When we went in 1990 there was simmering tensions and financial difficulties, then just after that, of course, the terrible wars.

The UN is a peace keeping organisation. It cannot intervene in countries, just because they are badly managed, where would it start and stop? North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Zimbabwe, Venezuala, etc, etc, etc. It does not have its own army but must rely on the willingness of members to volunteer their troops to undertake the role.

It cannot intervene in warring countries if those involved in the warring are not happy for it to do so. Supposing it had tried to intervene in Syria, despite Assad not agreeing. How would it get there? Where would it land? How would it stop Syria blowing it out of the air or water before it even arrive?. What country would volunteer its army to provide the UN with the forces needed for such a suicidal mission. Would those criticising the UN be happy to see British troops being volunteered for such a mission?

The UN has been working constantly since the Syrian war started, to try to organise a peace deal and broker truces. But you cannot play tennis if your opponent won't let you on the court or permit you a tennis racquet. The UN is often quietly successful in negotiating agreements and truces, but it can only go where it is asked and supported.

More recent news from Venezuela tells us Venezuelans are fleeing the country.

Modurro has got a firmer grip on the country.

Modurro is trying to save the country by using a Cryptocurrency.

And this is the country we should aspire to follow in the path of according to some politicians. True they have been a bit quiet of late and roll their eyes and deflect questions when Venezuela is mentioned but as far as I see it they still hold Chavez and Modurro in high esteem.

My earlier BBC link was only a couple of days ago POGS and things are getting worse. Important that this is kept in the public eye.

I haven’t got time to read your links at the minute, sorry but I’ll come back to them later.

POGS Sat 12-Aug-17 19:12:44

Here is another link to Human Rights Watch :-

www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/country-chapters/venezuela

Extract

Under the leadership of President Hugo Chávez and now President Nicolás Maduro, the accumulation of power in the executive branch and erosion of human rights guarantees have enabled the government to intimidate, persecute, and even criminally prosecute its critics.

Severe shortages of medicines, medical supplies, and food have intensified since 2014, and weak government responses have undermined Venezuelans’ rights to health and food. Protesters have been arbitrarily detained and subject to abuse by security forces.

Police and military raids in low-income and immigrant communities have led to widespread allegations of abuse.

Other persistent concerns include poor prison conditions, impunity for human rights violations, and continuous harassment by government officials of human rights defenders and independent media outlets.

The Venezuelan government has targeted critics of its ineffective efforts to alleviate severe shortages of essential medicines and food while the crisis persists.."

It is worth reading the ' atrocities ' carried out by the regime in Venezuala under the headings :-

Prosecution of Political Opponents
Crackdown on Protest Activity
Operation Peoples’ Liberation
Humanitarian Crisis
Judicial Independence
Freedom of Expression
Human Rights Defenders
Political Discrimination
Prison Conditions

It will always be the case some who have feted the likes of Castro/Chavez and Moduro, those who have praised them and their Socialist Governments will continue to do so. They will apportion blame for all the woes of Venezuela onto other individuals, nations and organizations but at the end of the day Moduro is the one to take the blame for HIS actions.

POGS Fri 11-Aug-17 19:50:41

Hells bells Venezuela has been a mess for years both whilst Hugo Chavez was alive and now even more so since Nicolas Moduro took office.

What was perhaps not expected, even by the likes of Corbyn /McDonnell/Abbot is the lengths of violence Moduro has taken against his people . Mind you many others will be surprised by it to be honest.

There have been enough threads/posts that have spoken about Castro/Chavez/Maduro on GN I remember this one in June 2016.

www.gransnet.com/forums/news_and_politics/a1227066-Dreadful-situation-in-Venezuela
---

This is from the Independent in 2013 !!

' Mr Maduro's stunningly close victory came after a campaign in which he promised to carry on Mr Chavez's self-proclaimed socialist revolution, while Mr Capriles declared that the Chavez regime put Venezuela on the road to ruin.'

Mr Capriles' main campaign weapon was to simply emphasise "the incompetence of the state" in handling the world's largest oil reserves.

Millions of Venezuelans were lifted out of poverty under Mr Chavez, but many also believe his government not only squandered, but plundered, much of the one trillion dollars in oil revenues during his tenure.

Venezuelans are afflicted by chronic power cuts, crumbling infrastructure, unfinished public works projects, double-digit inflation, food and medicine shortages and rampant crime - one of the world's highest murdere and kidnapping rates - that the opposition said worsened after Mr Chavez died on March 5.

That discontent was thick across the nation."

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hugo-chavezs-successor-nicolas-maduro-wins-venezuela-election-in-highly-contested-result-8572750.html
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It will always be the case some who have feted the likes of Castro/Chavez and Moduro, those who have praised them and their Socialist Governments will continue to do so. They will apportion blame for all the woes of Venezuela onto other individuals, nations and organizations but at the end of the day Moduro is the one to take the blame for HIS actions.

NOTE THE DATE OF MY POST !

Excellent post nigglynellie you are so right.

I remember many years ago my parents spent a fair bit of time in Yugoslavia and a friend told them that she would have never, ever imagined that “this” could have happened to them. As you say whatever can happen to anyone else can happen to you/us and that’s so true.

True niggly

The UN has proved itself as useless as The League of Nations that preceded it! Watching Venezuela on TV last night was just heart breaking, a potentially wealthy country brought to its knees caused unbelievably, entirely by their own vile corrupt government! Those children will undoubtedly die, killed by their own countrymen, not a war zone which god knows is bad a enough but just mismanagement, greed, corruption and downright wickedness. How anyone this side of hell could admire a government of this nature is beyond belief. As for whether it could happen here? whatever can happen to anyone else can happen to you/us.

I agree about the UN being useless Jalima looking at Syria and Venezuela as just 2 examples it seems they no longer serve a purpose or at the very least they have no influence.

That Syrian minister standing outside the UN building defending his government made me feel sick and very angry.

I know Jalima and sometimes there can be a burn out effect, because we see so much suffering, but Venezuela isn’t at war, just a terrible government.
Your question about the UN is a good one.

Lemongrove I think many of us have worried/thought or even agonised over Zimbabwe, Bosnia, the Kurds, Syria and other places over the years and now a seemingly peaceful country like Venezuala is in the news because of the dreadful suffering there that we have become lost for words except 'Not Again'.
We can help in some cases in our own very limited way but we feel so helpless as we see one country after another suffering.

And there is no reason to think that the UK would be immune from anything like these instances in the future, we have suffered in the past but there are fewer and fewer people still alive who will remember.

The United Nations is proving useless imo - what are they FOR? Can anyone tell me?

Talking of the suffering of the people of Venezuela is using their suffering.

Talking of the victims of Grenfel, the homeless etc in this country isn't using their suffering ?

Yes, gillybob their own government.

Posters.....plural!

I wonder why I thought that all on GN would feel the same about Venezuela.....the triumph of hope over experience I suppose.
I did not mention Corbyn at all btw in the OP.
Who could not be moved by watching it on tv
It’s not obligatory to mention Corbyn, but you should be able to say what you think of the situation there.
It is, of course, telling, that certain poster cannot do that.

I very rarely do links but that piece from the BBC sums up who the people blame for their desperate situation and that seems to be their government !

But Corbyn has held Venezuela as his dream of how a country should be run.