Bureaucrats

One of the most aggravating features of the world of international organisations is the poor breed of people that are all too often drawn to their corridors. Pasty, lily-livered, cynical specimens who would not know a principle if it fell on them, and yet are the ones who are supposed to defend human rights and democracy in the world. Such individuals are to be found even in field missions of the UN, the OSCE, the EU etc. etc., albeit usually in the headquarters in the capital cities, where they plot and scheme and tread over their colleagues in their ambition to land a plum job in New York, Vienna, Brussels or Geneva.

In field missions there are, thankfully, large numbers of admirable, committed people, working hard for the betterment of the communities they are living in. Feisty human rights lawyers, young idealists not long out of college, hard-bitten old timers who keep on trying to make a difference, despite any number of disappointments.

But their efforts are constantly undermined by the armies of career bureaucrats, with their petty regulations and mealy-mouthed language. Human resources departments which in the past ten years have steadily imposed their vision of mediocrity wherever their putrid tentacles have been able to reach. Human decency out the window. Plane-spoken standing up for principles shunned in favour of "diplomatic" fudge.

And why is it that diplomats, those masters of evasion and equivocation, have come to be seen in recent years as the natural heads of international missions, the standard bearers for human rights? Honourable exceptions aside, why were they ever considered to be qualified to promote the interests of the weak and powerless, the victims of unjust states and conflicts? Diplomats whose whole training and ethos is to deal with states, quietly, behind closed doors? That's not to devalue the importance sometimes of quiet approaches behind the scenes. But when the need arises to speak out loud and clear, with a strong voice, to shout to the skies for justice, why would anyone expect a diplomat to be the one to do that?

Today I am feeling angry. I had a confrontation yesterday evening with one of those horrible career international bureaucrats. A despicable individual who drew amusement from the trampling of a field mission that tried to stand up for the right thing in Georgia, and came up against the weight of organised international shame and ignominy. I wanted to smash the sarcastic grin off his face. I didn't, but I really wanted to.