Posted on 01/02/2005 11:11:10 AM PST by John Jorsett
I've often seen the term "Toyota Taliban" used to refer to non-governmental 'aid' agencies and U.N. bureaucrats. I've even used it myself on occasion. What does it mean, and where does it come from? Here's an excerpt from U.N. Insider's June 04 summary:
In a letter from Kabul, British satirical biweekly Private Eye reported on the private life of international community members in the Afghan capital. It claims that only 16% of the $4.5 billion pledged at the Tokyo conference goes to the government; the rest in the hands of NGO; a term used to refer to "the well heeled" international staff of the U.N. and aid organizations who reportedly spend time shopping for wide screen tvs and laptops at a new Sony Centre. "Most other shopkeepers only ever glimpse them as they are driven past in one of the $75,000 Toyota Landcruisers most of them owned by the U.N. -- known here as the Toyota Taliban," the letter says, adding that the cruisers ferried them from office to restaurant to guest house. It continues: "There's a swimming pool at a central U.N. compound and regular parties and barbecues. Memories of a party held by the DHL courier group last November, when an opium pipe was passed around by U.N. staff, are still fresh. If boredom strikes, aid workers might also sign up for Tai Chi and Argentinean tango lessons."
Additional on-the-scene reports from Instapundit's Afghanistan correspondent Professor John Robert Kelly of Boston University, Congressional Chief of Staff Joseph Eule, and a Roger L. Simon commenter with 18 years experience in Afghanistan add further depth to the picture, in both positive and negative ways. This excerpt from John's comment is especially instructive:
"My experience with the UN over the past 18 years is in Afghanistan. Here's what I've seen since 9/11...sorry for the garritous length.
....An enormous and highly profitable international aid apparatus has assembled in Kabul and has largely ignored the input of the Afghan people or their largely American liberators; the latter stand by in disbelief as taxpayers contributions to Afghanistan disappear into outfitting the extravagant needs of European aid community. The UN pays $400 a day (more than a year’s pay for an average Afghan ) plus a generous per diem. This enormous aid infestation has fostered rightful resentment. The UN and associated NGOs ran through years of aid funding in a matter of months. Now when money cannot be found for reconstruction, the UN issues reports criticizing the parsimonious Americans. Meanwhile, the UN and NGOs live like pashas. Hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked for Afghans have been transformed into fleets of top-of the-line Toyota Landcruisers, villas and estates to house their workers complete with swimming pools, an endless supply of underpaid servants, luxurious furnishings (accented with looted antiquities,) the latest laptops, video equipment, cases of Johnny Walker Blue and the bling bling ...perks that might even seem excessive to Ken Lay are justifiable expenses charged off to the US. No accountability, no oversight. They don’t bother cooking the books, they don’t even keep the books!
Afghan citizens fear that vocal objections to this patronizing treatment will result in economic reprisals by the UN...."
Amazingly, the story gets worse as one continues. To say that John is upset about all this is a massive understatement.
Perhaps this should not be surprising with respect to the U.N., whose makeup and structure nearly guarantees this sort of behaviour. What is clear, however, is that non-governmental NGO "do-gooders" and international bodies deserve closer scrutiny than they usually receive, and require rigorous accountability mechanisms that include the threat of public exposure.
This is consistent with the reports that the UN's first response to the tsunami crisis is to talk about how it's going to spend lots of money setting up residence compounds for its aid workers. Wonder how many big-screen TVs and SUVs it takes to help a single village?
This says it all:
[i]The UN and associated NGOs ran through years of aid funding in a matter of months. Now when money cannot be found for reconstruction, the UN issues reports criticizing the parsimonious Americans. Meanwhile, the UN and NGOs live like pashas.[/i]
Stingy, stingy Americans!
There were a couple of signs that this had to b a racket. First, they skedaddle if there is danger, hardly in the tradition of Florence Nightengale. Second, they protested that they couldn't get aid in, if we invaded, and people would starve. Turns out they had been trucking in the same bags of surplus grain for 25 years. Europeans are just mercantilists. That's how they relate to the third world.
Are you blinded by your selfishness? So concerned with your own safe comfortable station in life that you cannot wait to attack the brave and determined warriors of the UN who's lives are daily threatened by a faceless enemy.
You hurl accusations like an orangutan hurls dung. By the beard of the prophet Kofi Annan, you are evidentially a disturbed American taxpayer.
rich children playing "let's help the refugees". Pathetic.
Oh man, if this is true -and I'm at this point inclined to believe that it is- it needs to be widely reported. Unfortunately, I can't think of any of the useless MSM propagandists that would be interested in exposing the UN to this kind of scrutiny. It pisses me off to think of all the taxpayer money wasted by these corrupt scumbags.
In the Balkan countries, the U.N. people buying drugs using the local underage prostitutes was really getting to be a problem. It probably still is. The alphabet networks wouldn't report it, they're too busy telling us that the U.N. is going to save the world.
Yep. FoxNews is the only network saying anything about the oil-for-food racket. The other networks refuse to report a thing.
Thanks for the article. One more reminder that the UN has so many evil dark attributes to it. One problem I am sure many of us would agree on, unlike a soverign nation, lets say America, the UN is not bound by a set of laws that then are closely and judicially monitored by it's own. They get away with deals many countries probably could not. They have immunity to commit all kinds of scandals and get away with it.
I wonder if all the monies slated for the Afgan peoples was actually spent on only them, if Afganistan would be far less prone to continue to harvest poppies. I realize that poppies have been grown in that land for a long time mostly due to a poor agricultural setting. But surely with the right help and educations, many of those farmers could switch to "hearty versions" of grains, and still make a living and start to support their own peoples with healthy foods. Probably the UN is mostly at fault for much of the continued misery in that land. But surely no newly elected Afgan federal of provincial government official will open their mouths up and say how baddly UN directed funds are being used. Their probably already on tha take.
Sad world.
Most Freepers are probably familiar with the growing UN sex scandal in the Congo. There's more here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1413501,00.html.
And peole wonder why we don't want to give aid through the UN.
It is said frequently here, but we have to say it to others--family, friends, colleagues, church members, etc.--giving through any UN affiliated entity is NOT helping victims of disasters. It is simply pouring money down a toilet called the UN.
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