MIAMI, F.L., December 12, 2010 – The United Nations has lost its credibility as an honest broker, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) said Friday, referring to its lack of control at the opening plenary of the Haiti Reconstruction Conference.
“The UN is an unruly place and sometimes it gives a forum to those who don’t really deserve it,” she said in an exclusive interview to Fox News. (Read article: “Ros-Lehtinen Not Optimistic About Conference Outcomes.”)
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| UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Haitian President Rene Preval of the conference steering committee. The group has "lost its credibility," Rep. Ros-Lehtinen explains. |
The Conference, which is being hosted in Ros-Lehtinen’s home district of Miami, was ambushed by President-for-life Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, whose surprise visit to the event was condoned by the conference Steering Committee, chaired by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Though uninvited, Chavez was allowed to address the delegates, and he used that opportunity to deliver a rant against America’s assistance to Haiti.
“This is one of the flaws so the current conference organization,” she said. “To allow a human rights violator…to just speak out of turn and in an insulting fashion at a conference that’s suppose to be about the international community coming together to help a country in need completely politicized what should otherwise be a nonpolitical event.”
The congresswoman, who is poised to take over the chairmanship of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in the next Congress, is a “leading voice on the need for UN reform,” according to her website. She introduced HR 2712, the United Nations Transparency, Accountability, and Reform Act, aimed at combating the “rampant moral and fiscal corruption” of the international body.
“Unfortunately, the UN just doesn’t have the capacity to effectively enact global change,” she said.
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