Product Description

In recent years our televisions have beamed images of young men in blue helmets dropping from the skies into war-torn countries, sent to "keep the peace". But what really happens when they reach the frontline? Linda Polman witnessed the UN missions to Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda and Sierra Leone and met their frightened soldiers, mystified locals and jaded mercenaries. In this text, she relates the comic absurdities inside these "peace keeping" camps and the truly horrifying reality outside. As she pays tribute to the bravery of some, she also exposes the human cost of our indifference.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #559456 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Review
The role of the United Nations as international peace-keeper has never been under greater scrutiny; never has the public seen at closer quarters the arm-twisting and power struggles perpetrated by a group of stone-faced diplomats and their armies of officials in the creaking edifice of the UN headquarters in New York. And yet how much do we really know about the politics of the organization, the daily battles which its staff have to fight simply to keep the organization solvent and functional? And what of the experiences of the troops on the ground, the 'Blue Helmets' dropped into some of the world's most dangerous and troubled countries, charged with keeping a peace which is often non-existent in the first place? Written by a freelance journalist with 20 years' experience, much of it in the field, this compelling account of the workings of the UN is at times horrifying, at times funny, and always fascinating. In a relaxed yet finely crafted style, she reports on the lives and experiences of the Blue Helmets on assignments in Somalia, Rwanda and Haiti, tells of the armies of camp-followers who accompany them, private contractors who do everything from building showers to providing undertaking services, and lays bare the bewilderment of the native population who live in abject poverty and fear for their lives and for whom the so-called liberation offered by these invasion forces seems almost an irrelevance. The text is cleverly interspersed with bland press reports from the UN which conceal the gross inequalities of the system - the disproportionate power wielded by the five permanent members of the Security Council, the shameful reality that the overwhelming majority of the peace-keeping troops come from the UN's poorest member states and that those western powers who are so reluctant to put troops on the ground are even more reluctant to make their financial contribution to the organization, thus ensuring that it is at best ineffective and at worst teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. In telling a story so far untold, Polman exposes the failure of the notorious peace-keeping missions of the latter years of the 20th century and highlights the rocky road which the UN faces in the future. (Kirkus UK)

Sunday Telegraph
‘A small classic of man's inhumanity to man'

About the Author
Linda Polman studied at the School of Journalism in Utrecht. For the last twenty years she has been a freelance journalist for Dutch radio, TV and newspapers. A section from this book first appeared in Granta. She currently divides her time between West Africa and Holland.

Customer Reviews

How The U.N. blunders blithely on.
Internally displaced persons ( Or I.D.P,s) is the U.N/ given name for refugees/victims fleeing from war and genocide. It is politically correct ( The U.N. is very politically correct) jargon and helps to mask the greater truths behind the rather antiseptic words themselves , and as such is a perfect encapsulation of their mandates(s)
This book boils down to three separate accounts of I.D.P,s( Though the account of Haiti is less about displacement than how conflict affects a trapped indigenous people) and how they were handled by the U.N. and was written by Dutch freelance journalist Linda Polman ( one of the accounts written about Kibeho in Rwanda was originally published in "Granta" magazine) who spent time with the U.N. forces on three missions in Somalia, Haiti and Rwanda .
The three accounts reveal an organisation emasculated by the fact that the five key members -The U.S., U.K, Russia, France, and China- have the right of veto over any decisions made in the Security Council and invariably make those decisions in their own, rather than the country they are supposedly trying to help, favour. In effect if they don't want to do something they don't, leaving it up to poorer less powerful member states. More pertinently when they blather on about having a U.N. mandate what they are really saying is we acted in our own best interests.
Most appallingly the U. N, s strict code of non-intervention is revealed for the impotent shambles it really is. Polman witnesses thousands of innocent civilians slaughtered under the noses of the frustrated U.N. troops (As happened in Sebrenica and Kibeho) who can do nothing but observe.
These three accounts show the full incapacity of U.N. dictates and Polman relates the full horror and squalor that she found in precise, for the main part , remarkably un-emotional terms which is something considering the situations she found herself in, particularly in Rwanda.
Frustratingly, as a seasoned observer she offers no solutions though there are tantalising hints to were she thinks the answers may lay (referring to her experience in Haiti) and that is surprisingly with direct military action, carried out with sensitivity and empathy to the victims and ultimate force to the perpetrators.
Meanwhile no doubt the U.N. will continue to blunder on, repeating the same mistakes, stymied by a lack of real political will, squandering the money contributed by member states, many who cannot really afford to pay, and in the end achieving less in months than a single organised military presence achieved in one day in Haiti.

a deeply human story, with the feel of Michael Herr’s 70’s m
This book is not recommended reading. That is, not if you wish to emerge with your innocence intact.

Linda Polman is a Dutch journalist who covered all the global trouble-spots in the Nineties. In 'We Did Nothing' she reveals what actually happens when the UN is charged with tidying up unfinished wars without any real power or authority, and how truth gets manipulated to cover the savagery and horror that actually goes on. Polman’s text is punctuated by newspaper cuttings, offered without comment, reporting the same events she experienced on the ground in the worlds’ number-one misery locations. The contrast is alarming.

Her principal aim is too show how the UN is bound to fail: it has neither will nor teeth of its own, being directed by the interests of the most powerful member-states which comprise it, and who routinely withhold their subscriptions. Recently, its impossible role has been to sort out the mess after the mass-psychosis in Rwanda and whenever the triumphant US army scored another TV war victory. In the aftermath, the only nations willing to maintain troops anywhere near the ‘post‘-conflict zones are those who need the pay - like Bangladesh and Zambia - for supplying their own ill-equipped ‘blue-helmets’. A similar backdrop could currently apply to the UN in Iraq, should they get the job.

In Somalia, Rwanda and Haiti, Polman visits these troops and their supply lines at work, frequently risking her life and witnessing horrors that will doubtless effect her forever. Her account is likely to break (or possibly confirm) your assumptions on the benefits of ‘democracy’. It reveals that military might, in partnership with private supply and rebuild companies, is the force which penetrates the third world and leaves it reeling. After a shaky start, the book hits the reader in a similar way.

But its delight is its cast of characters. There’s Captain "Smile-and-Wave" Max (straight out of Apocalypse Now) who has managed to conquer and control North West Haiti with nine Rambo-style US Special Forces. He broadcasts his own up-beat evening hour to the starving, and makes things work - for now. "People tend to cooperate if you put a machine gun to their heads" he explains. Or Morris, the sharp-as-needles Australian wheeler-dealer, making a fortune selling vegetables to blue-helmets in Mogadishu, who gets shot by tribal henchmen, impatient for their money, while he waits for his UN invoices to be settled.

The scary thing is that these characters are not fictional, yet they make We Did Nothing a deeply human story, with the feel of Michael Herr’s 70’s masterpiece Dispatches. Let us hope it has an effect.

Vivid but lacking in probity
As an enjoyable read this book rates as five stars, but its treatment of vital theretical and legal issues is weak, at around three stars. However, this is again countered by the wealth of empiral, if a little anecdotal, observations within these pages.
This book paints a very vivid picture of the daily reality and failings of the UN's 'Chapter VI and a half' peace keeping operations, getting close in with the young soldiers, workers and local people of postcoldwar warzones, whilst also exposing the lies and hypocrassy of States, particularly the US, in passing the buck of blame to the UN when the foreign policies of those states fail - the UN becoming the global whipping boy.

The treatment of the legal and theoretical framework of the UN is weak, something which is important since the UN is above all a juridicial organisation.

I reccomend this book be read in conjunction with an introduction to the UN, but eitherway, its an interesting and enjoyable read for anyone who has ever had an interest in the bluehelmets.