Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures

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Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures is an unveiling book by three former UN employees Heidi Postlewait , Kenneth Cain and Doctor Andrew Thomson . The three authors worked on behalf of the UN in crisis regions around the world for a period of twelve years. The book was published in June 2004, although the UN leadership threatened two authors with dismissal if published.

Authors

Andrew Thomson is a New Zealand born medical professional. He decided to go to Cambodia after meeting a Cambodian medical student in his class at Auckland University . Postlewait had previously worked as a social worker in New York for a long time . For financial reasons, she took a job in a UN office in 1991 and decided a short time later to go to Cambodia. Kenneth Cain studied law at Harvard University . Even before graduation, Cain was looking for an opportunity to avoid the Harvard graduate career as a corporate lawyer. Through a former classmate, he learned about a human rights organization that was looking for a lawyer for Cambodia. He applied and was immediately hired.

content

The book is based on diaries, letters to relatives and friends as well as memories of the three authors during their UN missions from 1990 to 2003, which are reproduced in the book in chronologically ordered sections. Postlewait, Thomson and Cain first met in 1990 in Cambodia. On the subsequent missions in Somalia , Haiti , Bosnia , Rwanda and Liberia , they were mainly deployed separately, but sometimes worked together again for a short time.

Thomson initially worked as a doctor in Cambodia and then was responsible for the medical care of inmates. He later worked as a pathologist in Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia. Here he was significantly involved in the investigation of mass graves and led a. a. the team during the exhumation of the mass grave in Srebrenica . Cain was mainly engaged in organizing elections and negotiating with the local military. Postlewait was also responsible for conducting elections and otherwise mostly worked in UN offices.

UN criticism and attempt at censorship by the UN

The publication of Emergency Sex in 2004 caused a lot of media coverage. Postlewait, Thomson and Cain had sharply criticized the UN leadership in their book. Among other things, a 23-year-old UN employee died in Somalia during a firefight on a transfer trip, presumably because the responsible security officer had disregarded the security regulations. A short time before, Cain had experienced for himself how a security officer was driving on a road marked as "No Go" and had also lost the armed escort vehicles responsible for protection. The UN did not initiate an investigation into the case. The authors continued to criticize UN policy in Haiti, Rwanda and Bosnia, cases in which, after the withdrawal of UN troops, there had been massacres that were foreseeable in advance.

Postlewait and Thomson threatened the UN leadership with dismissals prior to publication if the book were to be published. Thomson was fired after publication, but hired again due to public pressure following a media campaign by the authors. According to press reports, the then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was considering legal measures against the publication. UNMIK communications director Hua Jing said she had not heard of the occurrences described in the book.

Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures provided the template for a play by the Australian playwright Damien Millar . It won the Griffin Theater Company's 2007 Griffin Award for "an outstanding new play"

Web links

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  1. ↑ Markus Bickel: In bad company amnesty journal June 2004