UN to tackle claims of Congo sex abuse

[emad]

Independent
By David Usborne in New York
02 March 2005


The United Nations is to investigate claims of sexual abuse by its peacekeepers after conceding that recent cases involving its soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo may not be isolated to that country and similar abuses have probably happened elsewhere.

An internal UN report is expected to recommend for the first time that any peacekeepers accused of sexual molestation will not be allowed to return home until they have been prosecuted in the country where the behaviour is said to have been committed. Their own militaries would have to conduct the court martials.

The report, being prepared by Jordan's UN ambassador, Prince Zeid al Hussein, will aim to end the present arrangements under which accused soldiers are allowed to return home to face trial. Many are never prosecuted so offenders can go unpunished. The UN also wants to identify publicly countries whose soldiers face sex charges.

The UN, already reeling from multiple scandals, notably involving alleged corruption in the management of the oil-for-food programme in Iraq, knows it must take firm action to address the Congo debacle as quickly as possible. Instances of abuse in the country began to come to light last May.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=615961

[seemslikeadream]

1. I wonder if they'll have time to check on that cannibal thing

On the Trail of the Congo's "Cannibal Rebels"

From: Eliza Griswold
Subject: Cannibalism as a Crime of War
Friday, March 26, 2004, at 8:20 AM PT

Maria lost her arm defending her children; she says soldiers ate flesh from the arm after they amputated it

In Bunia, the town's population has swelled from 6,000 to 120,000 people. Most have left everything—crops, possessions, their families—to escape the ongoing massacres in the bush. Through a network of local human rights organizations, I arrange to meet with a handful of survivors. One Sunday morning, over a hundred people show up to tell their stories.

One of them, Vivienne Nyamutale, 30, says that she spent 75 days captive with the Lendu fighters in the bush. "I was taken as the fourth wife of the fetish chief, Chief Abele." On five separate occasions before the Lendu fighters attacked a Hema village, Vivienne says, Hema men were brought before the crowd, cooked, and eaten by the fighters. Vivienne is Hema. She survived captivity only by swearing that she was Alur, the most common tribe in this part of Congo. Finally, after one massacre, she ran into the night and escaped. Vivienne is one of a handful of women who tell me about rape camps farther along the Fataki road where we found the two dead men.

Later, I visit a camp for displaced people and meet Chantal Tsesi, 24. We sit in the camp's office to talk. On the floor, a 2-week-old baby cries. The baby's parents have been killed; she was left at the camp by a neighbor who grabbed the infant while fleeing the massacre.

more
http://politics.msn.com/id/2097314/entry/0/

[dArKeR]

2. 'Horrific' escalation in rape

Geneva - Thousands of women, children and some men, aged between four and 80 years-old, have been raped in the Democratic Republic of Congo as wanton violence escalates in the northeastern province of Ituri, the aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres said on Thursday.

"When there's fighting, the number of rapes increases," MSF International (Doctors without Borders) president Rowan Gillies said.

"When the fighting reduces and there are no gunshots, there are still 30 to 40 women a week being raped, even when there's supposed to be security and stability," he added.

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_1671096,00.html

Did this happen in Iraq while Saddam was in power?