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Don’t Look the Other Way! Lessons in Leadership from a Dutch UN General
(Atlas Contact Publishers, Amsterdam)
I have a love-hate relationship with the United Nations. Don’t get me wrong I sincerely believe that our planet is better off with the UN than without, but it is a frustrating, slow-moving, hyper-bureaucratic organisation with an overabundance of dead weight in what is more politely called Human Resources.
As an ex international civil servant, I was very curious to read the thoughts of Major-General Patrick Cammaert, a now retired Dutch general with numerous UN peacekeeping operations under his belt.
I did not serve at the same time as Cammaert, but I wish I had. He understood what I and a critical mass of people at the UN understood it is better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. This was something Cammaert put into practise on several occasions, including going after suspected war criminals in the Balkans without waiting for his bosses to clear t