UN staff in Congo face child sex claims

[seemslikeadream]

17/05/2004
UN staff in Congo face child sex claims
The Financial Times

One of the United Nations' toughest missions in Africa is facing allegations that peacekeeping troops as well as civilian UN personnel have been involved in the systematic sexual abuse of minors.

The future of UN peacekeeping operations was being discussed at a special meeting of the Security Council today. One of the UN's hitherto most successful missions in Africa - policing the border conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea - is already undermined by similar allegations of sexual abuse, including claims that UN soldiers were involved in paedophilia and pornography.

UN officials in Congo said the claims of sexual abuse surfaced in January and involved members of a Uruguayan peacekeeping contingent who were allegedly exploiting under-age girls at an internally displaced camp in Bunia, the provincial capital of the troubled province of Ituri. One of the girls involved had been raped repeatedly in the past by Congolese militia members.

Preliminary UN investigations showed that the abuse might have been much more widespread than initial claims involving Uruguayan, Nepalese and Moroccan peacekeepers and possibly others including civilian UN personnel.

Girls involved were between 12 and 15 years old.

more
http://www.monuc.org/news.aspx?newsID=2591

[seemslikeadream]

1. UN Probes Reports of Sexual Abuse by Congo Staff

"Faced with some information regarding some cases of reported abuses, we have launched an internal investigation," said Leocadio Salmeron, a U.N. spokesman said by phone from Bunia.

Salmeron refused to give details of the abuses or the number of people being investigated. But he said that it was a question of "a few incidents that have emerged recently among a small group of people, rather than wide-scale abuses."

"We have taken the necessary measures to stop the situation from getting out of control in an environment where we have lots of military and civilian personnel working with the local population," he said, adding the investigations were nearly complete.

However, another U.N. source speaking on condition of anonymity said the reports on the alleged abuses referred to "more than just a few cases" and involved both U.N. civilian and military staff, some of them quite senior.

more
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5095088


The Christian Dogs of War
by Mina Hamilton
www.dissidentvoice.org
May 16, 2004


We've heard of the brutality of war before. How US GI's in Vietnam called the enemy gooks, dinks, and slopes. How the marines threw terrified prisoners out of helicopters cruising at 1500 feet and machine-gunned down innocent women and children.

We know US soldiers are trained to hate the enemy through a careful indoctrination in racism. How else could they be persuaded to go against the bedrock moral of "Thou shall not kill"? How else could they be convinced it's okay to embark on a steady diet of murder, decapitating humans with air strikes, smashing brains, severing limbs, burning babies?

We know US society as a whole, whenever a war is in the offing, is indoctrinated with the same racism. How else could good, honest, decent Americans be persuaded to send their innocent sons off to kill and be killed?

We know that it's usual for warriors to bring home trophies. A recent piece in the New York Times mentioned one US soldier who, during World War II, sent a Japanese skull to his sweetie. Later she was photographed by Life magazine as she stared dreamily at this odd gift. (1) This was not a unique event. In the Pacific Islands US soldiers affixed Japanese skulls atop poles at the entrances to conquered villages and mounted them on ruined Japanese tanks. Marines took photos of other marines diligently preparing their skull trophies, boiling off the facial flesh in metal vats. (2)


more
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/May2004/Hamilton0516.htm


ACT Alert, DRC: Illegal Congolese workers in Angola forced to repatriate
14 May 2004 14:51:00 GMT

Elisabeth Gouel


Action by Churches Together (ACT) - Switzerland
Website: http://www.act-intl.org
Alert

Democratic Republic of the Congo - 1 / 2004

Illegal Congolese workers in Angola forced to repatriate

Geneva, 14 May 2004

Tens of thousands of Congolese have been expelled from Angola over the past weeks. According to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), some 67,000 Congolese have been registered by local crisis committees after entering Democratic Republic of Congo's Bandundu and Western Kasai Provinces, which border Angola. Official estimates indicate that between 80,000 and 100,000 illegal migrant diamond workers have been or will be evicted from Angola. Many of those expelled have found refuge with host families or are constantly on the move throughout a vast area in Kandundu and Western Kasai Provinces, making verification and monitoring of the vulnerable population difficult.

ACT Katanga Consultative Structure (ACT KTCS) reports that a massive influx of people who had been expelled from Angola crossed the border into four Congolese provinces: Bas congo, Kasai Occidental, Bandundu and Katanga. ACT Katanga is focussing on people from North Lunda province in Angola who have sought refuge in Katanga, and specifically in Kapanga Territory (1,000 kms from Lubumbashi, and in Sandoa Territory (776 kms from Lubumbashi). Those expelled fled Angola, leaving all their possessions behind. ACT Katanga reports that it appears that some of the people who have been expelled have suffered physical abuse in one form or another.

ACT Katanga reports that the people who have sought shelter in Kapanga Territory have formed group at seven separate sites: Kasamayi, Musevu, Mbuchi and Kakuni, Musumba, Mutombu a Tshibang, Kalamba and Panda Mwila. All seven sites are within a 200 km range of Kapanga. 1,725 people (183 women, 1,368 men and 174 children) have been identified as vulnerable and in need of supplementary food, medicines and basic non-food items.
more
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/108454653284.htm

[Just Me]

2. The abuses around this world render me speechless and shocked.

Good Lord,...we still have so much work to do with respect to growing equal value of all human life and nurturing the dignity of every individual.

This news saddens me. :cry:

I certainly hope the UN proves itself willing to pluck such darkness from its midst.