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The United Nations is UNbelievable
 Serial rapists envy United Nations peacekeepers. And who could blame them? Most rapists do not get to police their own crime scenes, food to trade for sex, diplomatic immunity and indifference from the people supervising them.Sexual abuse charges against U.N. peacekeepers remain high due to the organization's "culture of dismissiveness," according to Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid al-Hussein, Jordan's U.N, ambassador. He thinks it could take three to four more years for a reform program to take hold. Potential rape victims in the world's hot spots will have to be patient. There have been allegations against 295 troops, police and other U.N. staff. So far, 170 have been sent home or dismissed: 17 civilians, 16 police officers and 137 military personnel (six of them commanders). U.N. peacekeepers and staff in West Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, have been accused of rape, pedophilia and enticing hungry children with food or money in exchange for sex. Jean-Marie Guehenno, the U.N. peacekeeping chief, said that "We are making headway in laying the foundation for the prevention of the problem in the long term." In plain English, everyone will have to be very, very patient. If the U.N is incapable of stopping its own personnel from abusing the people they are there to protect, what is it capable of doing? A program to assist the victims soon will be proposed, Mr. Guehenno said. Knowing that something soon will be in the U.N. pipeline to help them should be great comfort to the victims regardless of the decade in which the abuse happened. Yes, decade. This had been one of the U.N.'s dirty little secrets for decades until news reports two years ago about the disgraceful behavior of the peacekeepers forced the U.N. to act -- or more accurately, to act as if something actually is being done about sexual abuse other than having U.N. bureaucrats study the problem into perpetuity. Legal experts still are not quite sure how to deal with rapists who have a U.N. license to rape ("diplomatic immunity"), or which entity -- the U.N., the countries where the abuse occurred, or the governments providing the troops -- has the right to prosecute. Hussein admits that it is hard to change the U.N.'s culture of dismissiveness that has "long developed within ourselves, in our countries and in the mission areas." The U.N. has 18 peacekeeping missions and more than 85,000 people on staff from more than 100 countries. How many have been victimized by U.N. personnel while you have been reading this is anyone's guess. How many of its victims' accusations will be dismissed by the U.N. also is anyone's guess. To put this monstrous criminal enterprise in perspective, let's pretend the United States was responsible for this madness instead of the United Nations. Instead of the crime scenes being (among other places) in West Africa or the Congo, let's say they were at Abu Ghraib prison or the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay. And let's say it lasted days instead of decades. How many of the U.N.'s 191 member nations would have been horrified and outraged? How many would have demanded that the abuses end instantly, that the criminals be punished and that victims get compensation? Why does the United States remain in the United Nations? Posted by: tipper 2006-03-01 |
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