EBOLA - Is this the time to put West Africa under UN trusteeship?

EBOLA - Is this the time to put West Africa under UN trusteeship? HT: Crof.

Blogging Ebola must be getting to me. NGOs and humanitarian agencies are reduced to abject begging to save the millions at risk. The economy of Liberia is imploding before our eyes, and Guinea and Sierra Leone are likely close behind. 

We are clearly beyond high-minded appeals to our better angels. Since December 2013, Ebola has upset the live of close to 200 million people, and seems likely to upset the lives of many more. The governments on the ground, however well-meaning, clearly cannot cope and should not be blamed for it. 

I grew up in the twilight of the great colonial empires, and was glad to see their subjects take control of their own lives. Imperialism has provided a few European nations with cheap sources of raw materials and captive markets for manufactured goods; no wonder they clung to them so long.

But all bad things must end, and imperialism (at least in its old form) is over. After World War II, the United Nations took over some former colonial possessions and ran them under the United Nations Trusteeship Council. This is what I found on its website:

Status 

The Trusteeship Council suspended operation on 1 November 1994, with the independence of Palau, the last remaining United Nations trust territory, on 1 October 1994. By a resolution adopted on 25 May 1994, the Council amended its rules of procedure to drop the obligation to meet annually and agreed to meet as occasion required -- by its decision or the decision of its President, or at the request of a majority of its members or the General Assembly or the Security Council. 

Background 

In setting up an International Trusteeship System, the Charter established the Trusteeship Council as one of the main organs of the United Nations and assigned to it the task of supervising the administration of Trust Territories placed under the Trusteeship System. Major goals of the System were to promote the advancement of the inhabitants of Trust Territories and their progressive development towards self-government or independence. TheTrusteeship Council is made up of the five permanent members of the Security Council --China, France, Russian Federation, United Kingdom and United States. The aims of the Trusteeship System have been fulfilled to such an extent that all Trust Territories have attained self-government or independence, either as separate States or by joining neighbouring independent countries. 

Functions and powers 

Under the Charter, the Trusteeship Council is authorized to examine and discuss reports from the Administering Authority on the political, economic, social and educational advancement of the peoples of Trust Territories and, in consultation with the Administering Authority, to examine petitions from and undertake periodic and other special missions to Trust Territories.

After twenty years, this may be the time to renew the Council's mandate—not out of some neocolonial impulse, but the naked self-interest of the great powers.

No single country could or should take charge of the rehabilitation of West Africa. But as a global campaign, supported by all the United Nations, the UN might offer the Ebola-stricken countries a respite.

The world could send in not the Marines but the doctors and engineers who could stamp out Ebola and build the infrastructure needed to keep it stamped out: everything from hospitals to roads and schools. 

The imperialists in the 1960s essentially deserted their colonies when killing people didn't work any more, and left them on their own—or bribed their new rulers into cooperation, or simply tolerated their corruption as a cost of continuing to extract their wealth.

This would be different: A temporary taking charge with a guaranteed exit date. By that date, the UN would also guarantee those countries a functioning bureaucracy, adequate roads and railways, and a corps of highly trained medical personnel. (As long as we're daydreaming, let's throw in Haiti as well, and clean up the UN's cholera mess while we're at it.)

Such a measure would indeed be as nakedly self-interested as France in Algeria and Indochina, or Britain in Nigeria and South Africa. But now the interest would be in keeping their own populations safe and healthy in a world where the former colonials now fly in and out of Heathrow and De Gaulle (or desperately try to cross the Mediterranean to Sicily). 

I know, it's an idea only an old science-fiction writer could come up with. But Ray Bradbury famously said that the job of science fiction is not to predict the future, but to prevent it. A future dominated by Ebola and its allies is a future we urgently need to prevent. 

Hmmm.....I found this post a very interesting way of dealing with the Ebola threat.