https://www.irrawaddy.com/culture/books/hellfire-and-damnation-in-myanmar-ex-world-bank-country-head-recounts-rohingya-catastrophe-response.html
D
isclaimer: I have had extended family members who worked at the UN, including favorite Uncle Shane and "Uncle Joe"--my father's lifelong "student"--
BUT--
I have a low opinion of UN in general--I wish I had hand-copied a poem about Living High on the Hog, from the office door of Jere Berhman, a professor of Economic Development at Penn.
I wish I had kept the book outlining how the UN went bankrupt, its florists' bill for instance.
Jo
e himself told me "To get a job there, you need a relative already there."
His Geography professor at Univ of Chicago Norton Ginsburg found him the job with ADB in Manila.
All this was before Ted Turner bailed out the UN. By the 1980s the carpets were already threadbare.
I suggested through a former colleague who flipped in 2011, that Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz go to Burma. Stiglitz and my late mentor Dr. Ronald Findlay did.
I have never met Ellen Goldstein, but her 2 year job at WB sounds not unlike my 3 years of suffering job abuse at hands of a junta-inclined Burmese dept head at Radio Free Asia.
I stuck it out for the sake of 8 months unemployment insurance before the think tank arm of The Burmese Exile Govt--the Burma Fund hired me a a senior analyst.
This was the NCGUB, not the current NUG.
NCGUB was headed by Dr Sein Win, a math. Ph.D. with a German degree.
His father was U Ba Win, Aung San's elder brother.
The 2 brothers were assassinated the same morning 19th July 1947 with other members of Aung San's cabinet and a bodyguard.
Aung San - Wikipedia
I have met David Scott Mathieson at a migration conference in Chiangmai--he's a good person.
To all Burmese I would say--don't put your trust in anyone, including the UN and Myanmar generals and cronies and your own blood relatives.
Everyone is in it to make money.
"Helping people" is just their cover story.
The worst is that they develop a "know it all mentality."
They don't.
Kyi May Kaung Ph.D.
3-16-2024
