Afghanistan Diary
P (transmitted by sociétélibre) | 08.03.2004 20:07 | Analysis | Anti-militarism | Globalisation | Oxford
It has been a while. Things have been a bit hectic. There has been yet another new plan for voter registration in Afghanistan. Now voter registration will stop in the 8 regional capitals on 7^th April and start in the rest of the country on the 1^st may and finish on 21^st May. Then elections will be 20^th June. That is only three weeks to register about 8 million people in mostly remote areas. It will take 4,200 registration sites and the hiring of about 30,000 new local staff. Can the UN manage to achieve this mammoth logistical task? Of course not. Any that believe it will happen as planned are ill-informed or stupid, which covers quite a few UN international staff..
My boss felt so motivated that he went on leave to get drunk everyday in Dubai instead of in his guesthouse in Afghanistan. His contribution is sorely missed. It is quite strange not seeing him playing cards on the computer after sobering up from the night before. How many jobs would pay a card playing alcoholic about $11,000 a month? He is admired by collegues for being able to drink a bottle of gin, walk into the wall when leaving and still staggering back a little later for another drink. This is not the first mission (UN job) he has contributed to in this way. Cronyism and lack of accountability are popular in the UN.
His second in charge also went on leave so my boss is now a half-wit whoring fool. He loves the UN. He used his UNV ID card to get whores in Uzbekistan, ‘what so you mean no girls? Look at this!’ This is one of his favorite whore stories from his trips. He leaves the humanitarian business to engage in the exploitative business. He is not a man to spot irony easily. At the moment voter registration in the north is in his hands. It would be comic if not so sad. So far he has changed my deployment to another province a few times according to what his drinking friends tell him. I discovered this by asking an area manager i.e. his boss who after a while admitted he had changed my deployment based on
this man’s recommendations. He said. ‘You must respect your boss’. I explained I did not respect his judgment, intellect, character or him as a human being. Perhaps not the best way to carve a career in the UN. However, I am looking for other work. The decisions being made at the moment defy logic or common sense.
By the way a Taliban spring offensive is rumored to be coming any time soon.
My boss felt so motivated that he went on leave to get drunk everyday in Dubai instead of in his guesthouse in Afghanistan. His contribution is sorely missed. It is quite strange not seeing him playing cards on the computer after sobering up from the night before. How many jobs would pay a card playing alcoholic about $11,000 a month? He is admired by collegues for being able to drink a bottle of gin, walk into the wall when leaving and still staggering back a little later for another drink. This is not the first mission (UN job) he has contributed to in this way. Cronyism and lack of accountability are popular in the UN.
His second in charge also went on leave so my boss is now a half-wit whoring fool. He loves the UN. He used his UNV ID card to get whores in Uzbekistan, ‘what so you mean no girls? Look at this!’ This is one of his favorite whore stories from his trips. He leaves the humanitarian business to engage in the exploitative business. He is not a man to spot irony easily. At the moment voter registration in the north is in his hands. It would be comic if not so sad. So far he has changed my deployment to another province a few times according to what his drinking friends tell him. I discovered this by asking an area manager i.e. his boss who after a while admitted he had changed my deployment based on
this man’s recommendations. He said. ‘You must respect your boss’. I explained I did not respect his judgment, intellect, character or him as a human being. Perhaps not the best way to carve a career in the UN. However, I am looking for other work. The decisions being made at the moment defy logic or common sense.
By the way a Taliban spring offensive is rumored to be coming any time soon.
P (transmitted by sociétélibre)
Comments
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We don't get to hear stuff like this in the press!!!
28.03.2004 12:11
Perhaps the psychology of my condition is a bit like when keeping one's head under the covers, all warm and snuggled up in bed, one does one's best to ignore the bits of cold air coming in from between the gaps. And perhaps I am not the only one to feel like this but that others, even possibly powerful others, say in the mainstream press and wherever, also feel like this with the result that we all stay nicely snuggled up inside our warm blankets ignoring the reality showing itself between the cracks.
We need to get up and do something about this world we live in. Specifically we need to discover how to organise ourselves in ways which ensure the well being of us all and of our planet. I always keep the following thought in my head. The human race is old and so should have learnt a thing or two about govening itself. However, there was an ice age some fourteen thousand years ago that wiped out whatever we had learnt until then. Thus all our ideas regarding how best to govern ourselves come from a mere fourteen thousand years of experimentation. There must exist better ways of doing that than we have come up with so far. And that must be our priority and that is why I feel optimistic.
Reports such as these from Afghanistan are a good reality check to keep us awake and keep trying to make a better world.
Thanks
Julius Guzy
Homepage:
http://juliuspaintings.co.uk
Oh Man. . .
22.07.2004 17:46
Read your post about Afghanistan. You make me glad that I thought twice about asking for another UNV post after my strangely simliar experiences with the UN in Timor. But there I did find that in an environment of no accountability, I could do alot of good work for the people with just my computer & printer, Jeep and telephone- I just never reported it to my superiors.
Cheers mate. Try not to go into a cynical funk afterward like I did.
-E
Mr. E
e-mail:
diakkelai@yahoo.com