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Emergency Sex

Tim Cribb

Emergency Sex

by Kenneth Cain, Heidi Postlethwait and Andrew Thompson

Ebury Press $165

Subtitled 'True Stories from a War Zone', the three UN workers write about a decade in the world's hot spots: Cambodia, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Rwanda and Liberia. Lawyer Kenneth Cain, doctor Andrew Thompson and nurse Heidi Postlethwait tell their sometimes amusing but harrowing stories about what was happening around them. This brutally honest three-handed memoir reverberates still as debate about the role of the UN grows louder amid the food-for-oil scandal. The authors question the UN's responsibility for the genocides of Rwanda and Bosnia. They hold UN Secretary General Kofi Annan responsible, particularly in Rwanda, where he refused permission for UN forces to intervene, despite promises of protection. They also accuse the Security Council of putting geopolitical interests ahead of humanity. Cain has said he's mystified why the left in the US and Britain defend the indefensible as neoconservatives criticise Annan's leadership. 'If prevention of genocide and protection of the vulnerable are not core priorities of the left, then what is?'

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