Excerpt from statement before House Committee on International Relations

           In the late 1980’s I served—along with Congressman Sam Gejdenson—as a Congressional delegate to the United Nations. I was deeply impressed with the professionalism, integrity, tenacity, and competence of then International Organizations’ Assistant Secretary John Bolton.

Mr. Chairman, it is worth noting that meaningful UN reform—then and especially now—would never have occurred without John Bolton.  As UN Ambassador, reform is at the top of his list of priorities.

Given his exemplary quarter century of service, from AID General Counsel back in 1981 to most recently, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, Ambassador Bolton is the right man, at the right place, at the right time to press for transparency and accountability.  He is a seasoned, tough reformer.

We need reform at the United Nations now more than ever.  UN peacekeeping has been devastated by the gross sexual misconduct and exploitation of refugees and vulnerable people by UN peacekeepers and civilian personnel in the Congo, in which  peacekeepers traded sexual contact with Congolese women and girls, some as young as 11-14, in exchange for food or small sums of money.  Dr. Jane Holl Lute, Assistant Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations, told our Subcommittee on March 1st, “…The Blue Helmet has become black and blue through self-inflicted wounds of some of our number and we will not sit still until the luster of that Blue Helmet is restored....It is unacceptable.  It is simply unacceptable.  The United Nations peacekeepers owe a duty of care to the people we serve….It will be stamped out.”

In the arena of human rights, the Commission on Human Rights has become a bizarre Orwellian Animal House in which countries which severely violate human rights of their citizens are the arbitrators of human rights conditions at the UN.  Even UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in March told the Commission that “unless we re-make our human rights machinery, we may be unable to renew public confidence in the United Nations itself.”

Ambassador Bolton, this is a critical time at the UN, and we need your tenacity and effective leadership if we are to accomplish meaningful reform, including the reforms passed by this Committee and the full House in HR 2745.