U.N. Peacekeepers Caught Raping Again
A group of U.N. peacekeepers in Cote d’Ivoire a.k.a. the Ivory Coast have been pulled off their mission because of charges of sexual abuse of the natives:
“It means they don’t participate in our operations,” said Hamadoun Toure, spokesman for the U.N. mission in Cote d’Ivoire (ONUCI). “Those who are found guilty will be sent back home.”
The world body said the measure was in addition to a decision to confine the entire battalion of 734 soldiers to barracks.
U.N. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Friday the investigation involved Moroccan soldiers having sex with a large number of underage girls in the West African country’s northern rebel stronghold of Bouake.
The accusations came up from U.N. workers’ canvessing locals about sexual abuse.
These peacekeeper must think of themselves as semi-barbarians. They engage in raping without the pillaging. How many instances [via OTB] of sexual abuse by peacekeepers do we need before the U.N. gets its act together?
So what does the Zalmay Khalilzad want? More U.N. help for Iraq. While it isn’t a request for peacekeepers (yet) it will probably be unsuccessful.
Last Friday, Michael Rubin wrote,
but the major problem which Khalilzad doesn’t address is the fact that the United Nations had been in Iraq. After being targeted by a terrorist bomb, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan ordered U.N. workers to leave. The lesson, unfortunately, that insurgents and terrorists took, is that if they don’t like the direction of the U.N. process, that they can disrupt it and force the U.N. to flee through terrorism. It is an unfortunate legacy which the U.N. has yet to address, but one with which it will have to live.
How do we know a couple suicide bombers won’t drive U.N. workers out of Iraq? Or how do we know they won’t abuse the locals like too many peacekeepers?
“U.N. Suspends Peacekeepers Amid Sex Abuse Charges” [via memeorandum]
