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Christian Holger Strohmann - Private

I have worked already more than 20 years for the United Nations (UN) on five continents as journalist, public relations manager, spokesperson for peacekeeping operations and director for environmental education projects. For the two most recent UN Secretary-Generals – Kofi Annan and his successor Ban Ki-moon – I drafted talking bullets, arranged for press briefings, monitored media reports and prepared news feeds. Currently I am looking for a new challenge in the media or public relations sector. I hope that my insider information of the United Nations system as well as my in-depth knowledge of international peace, security and development affairs which is not to be “googled” through the world-wide-web might be of interest to some readers. As an author for Suite101 I want to help straightening a bit the sometimes distorted picture of the United Nations. Quite often I observed that UN Member States happily take the merit whenever a UN project – say in education or health care – was successful. But if the international community has failed as was the case in Rwanda, where an entire people was almost extinguished, or when a fanatic head of state abuses the UN stage to discredit citizens of another nation – then the UN is to be blamed by many with the briefest possible delay. However, that somewhat slow and bureaucratic “monster” can only be as good as its 192 Member Countries allow it to be. I agree – reforms of that organization including of its Security Council are overdue. But painting a black & white picture does not help. I am determined to add some different colors to the mosaic to this omnipresent world body for which we don’t have a replacement.