National Rifle Association vows to fight arms trade treaty at U.N.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

This coming from a European?

Could have come from an Asian, an African, an American or whatever. It's a simple fact. Since when does it matter where facts are voiced from?

By the way, I am no longer a European. I am a US citizen. It's been that way for about a decade now.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

U.N. 'PEACEKEEPERS' RAPE WOMEN, CHILDREN

U.S. sailors indicted on charges of raping Japanese woman on Okinawa

Shite happens, don't it?

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/world/08nations.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

MEMO FROM THE UNITED NATIONS: Peacekeepers’ Sex Scandals Linger, On Screen and Off

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

Published: September 7, 2011

UNITED NATIONS — On screen, two senior United Nations officials in Bosnia are arguing about firing Kathy Bolkovac, an American police officer battling to stop peacekeepers from both trafficking in young women and frequenting the brothels where they became indentured prostitutes.

“It is a point of honor for me that the U.N. is not remembered for raping the very people we must protect,” says Madeleine Rees, a spirited human rights advocate played by Vanessa Redgrave.

“Those girls are whores of war,” growls the male bureaucrat heading the United Nations mission. “It happens; I will not dictate for morality.”

Ms. Rees, the director of the human rights office in Sarajevo from 1998 to 2006, said that dispute in the movie “The Whistleblower,” recently released in the United States, was lifted almost verbatim from a running argument she had around 2001.

A decade later, a string of sex scandals from Bosnia to the Democratic Republic of Congo to Haiti involving peacekeeping missions has forced the United Nations to change the way it handles accusations of trafficking, rape and related crimes. But the issue still bedevils the institution — a point underscored by the skirmishing among senior United Nations officials over whether to embrace the movie or try to ignore it.

The issue has certainly not gone away. This week, hundreds of Haitians protested in support of an 18-year-old who said he was sexually assaulted by peacekeepers from Uruguay on a United Nations base, eliciting a furious rebuke from Haiti’s president and an apology from Uruguay.

The United Nations has focused serious attention on addressing sexual crimes among the more than 120,000 personnel it has deployed in 16 peacekeeping missions globally, including widespread training. But the question that diplomats, advocates and even some United Nations officials ask is why the efforts still lag in terms of investigating accusations and, most important, making sure those who send troops and contractors abroad hold them accountable.

Human rights experts and some member states fault the United Nations for leaving too much of the job of enforcing its “zero tolerance” policy announced in 2003 to the countries contributing troops. Individual cases and any disciplinary action are rarely made public.

“They never come up with actual facts; they never come up with actual cases,” Ms. Bolkovac said.

She won a wrongful dismissal case in 2003 against a subsidiary of Virginia-based DynCorp International, which was contracted by the State Department to provide police officers for the United Nations peacekeeping force in Bosnia. But Ms. Bolkovac says she has never been hired by another peacekeeping mission. (DynCorp issued a statement noting that “The Whistleblower” was a work of fiction and that new owners had since enacted their own zero tolerance policy.)

United Nations officials brandish the statistics published on the organization’s peacekeeping Web site as evidence of transparency. The numbers, whose source is somewhat vague, indicate that cases dropped from 108 substantiated accusations of sexual exploitation and abuse in 2007 to 85 in 2008, then to 63 in 2009, 33 last year and just 5 so far in 2011.

But more than 200 such accusations remain unresolved, and the United Nations annual report on such crimes for 2010 noted that sexual activity with minors and nonconsensual sex represented more than half of reported accusations, little changed since 2008. Cases have come to light where peacekeepers paid children $1 or with candy to make a rape seem like prostitution.

Finally, efforts to gather information from troop contributors about legal or disciplinary action are often ignored. The United Nations got answers roughly a quarter of the time, or 88 responses from 333 queries sent, since 2007, according to its figures.

Senior officials defend the numbers as improving, and argue that publicly shaming member states would make finding peacekeeping troops more difficult. “Going into a blame and shame approach is counterproductive because this requires a mind-set change,” said Susanna Malcorra, head of the logistics end of peacekeeping.

Activists and some diplomats condemn the United Nations as timid, with internal policing particularly weak under Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Mr. Ban waged an extended feud over hiring with the head of internal oversight before she left in 2010, leaving dozens of investigator jobs empty. Senior officials admit that its investigators have the mandate to do more to track sexual abuse cases.

The United Nations pays $1,024 a month per soldier, making peacekeeping a profitable venture for many poorer nations. In June, member states voted themselves a bonus of roughly $100 per soldier per month, costing $85 million, for the coming year. The United Nations lost an opportunity by not hinging the bonuses on better cooperation, advocates contend.

“Member states are not reliable enough to do a good job on their own, especially in the early stages of a military investigation,” said Prince Zeid Raad Zeid al-Hussein, the Jordanian ambassador and the author of a damning study of sexual exploitation in peacekeeping in 2005 as special adviser on the issue under the previous secretary general. Mr. Ban never filled the post.

Member states rejected the study’s recommendations to establish a coordinated, nimble investigation and discipline process. Soldiers serving the United Nations are subject to their own countries’ military justice. The only wrist slap often faced by contractors is being sent home, because they enjoy immunity as United Nations employees.

Soldiers linked to crimes are often repatriated. In April, 16 peacekeepers from Benin were sent home from Ivory Coast — more than a year after Save the Children U.K. found that the soldiers traded food for sex with poor, underage girls. More than 100 troops from Sri Lanka were sent home from Haiti in 2007 because of widespread accusations of sex with minors.

In many cases, however, the final outcome remains a mystery.

“The U.N. is not even a player in the investigation, doesn’t know the evidence and has no way to follow up with the way the military decides to deal with this issue,” Prince Zeid said. “We, the member states, have by and large failed to do what I had hoped we would do.”

The State Department’s 2010 report on human trafficking criticized the United Nations, saying, “No comprehensive information is available on the number of cases of disciplinary action.”

A leaked memo from the United Nations human rights office in New York reflected the divisions over openness. In a lengthy discussion about how to address “The Whistleblower,” Kiyotaka Akasaka, the head of public information, and Patricia O’Brien, the top lawyer, argued for playing down the movie and certainly not screening it at the United Nations headquarters, the memo said.

But the executive director of the newly created agency U.N. Women, Michelle Bachelet, the former president of Chile, argued for a more open approach, it said, along with several others.

Mr. Ban wrote to the film’s director, Larysa Kondracki, saying he had watched the movie with his senior advisers and was “pained” by it. “Your film points to one area where our work left questions behind,” he said.

A public screening will be held at the United Nations soon, he told her.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7420798.stm

Peacekeepers 'abusing children'

Page last updated at 08:46 GMT, Tuesday, 27 May 2008 09:46 UK

Children as young as six are being sexually abused by peacekeepers and aid workers, says a leading UK charity.

Children in post-conflict areas are being abused by the very people drafted into such zones to help look after them, says Save the Children.

After research in Ivory Coast, southern Sudan and Haiti, the charity proposed an international watchdog be set up.

Save the Children said it had sacked three workers for breaching its codes, and called on others to do the same.

The three men were all dismissed in the past year for having had sex with girls aged 17 - which the charity said was a sackable offence even though not illegal.

The UN has said it welcomes the charity's report, which it will study closely.

Save the Children says the most shocking aspect of child sex abuse is that most of it goes unreported and unpunished, with children too scared to speak out.

A 13-year-old girl, "Elizabeth" described to the BBC how 10 UN peacekeepers gang-raped her in a field near her Ivory Coast home.

"They grabbed me and threw me to the ground and they forced themselves on me... I tried to escape but there were 10 of them and I could do nothing," she said.

"I was terrified. Then they just left me there bleeding."

No action has been taken against the soldiers.

The report also found that aid workers have been sexually abusing boys and girls.

"In recent years, some important commitments have been made by the UN, the wider international community and by humanitarian and aid agencies to act on this problem," said Save the Children UK chief executive Jasmine Whitbread.

"However, all humanitarian and peacekeeping agencies working in emergency situations, including Save the Children UK, must own up to the fact that they are vulnerable to this problem and tackle it head on."

After research involving hundreds of children from Ivory Coast, southern Sudan and Haiti, the charity said better reporting mechanisms needed to be introduced to deal with what it called "endemic failures" in responding to reported cases of abuse.

It also said efforts should be made to strengthen worldwide child protection systems.

Heather Kerr, Save the Children's Ivory Coast country director, says little is being done to support the victims.

"It's a minority of people but they are using their power to sexually exploit children and children that don't have the voice to report about this.

"They are suffering sexual exploitation and abuse in silence."

Save the Children says the international community has promised a policy of zero-tolerance to child sexual abuse, but that this is not being followed up by action on the ground.

A UN spokesman, Nick Birnback, said that it was impossible to ensure "zero incidents" within an organisation that has up to 200,000 personnel serving around the world.

"What we can do is get across a message of zero tolerance, which for us means zero complacency when credible allegations are raised and zero impunity when we find that there has been malfeasance that's occurred," he told the BBC.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

MEMO FROM THE UNITED NATIONS: Peacekeepers’ Sex Scandals Linger, On Screen and Off

'I didn't think of Iraqis as humans,' says U.S. soldier who raped 14-year-old girl before killing her and her family

As I said, shite happens in armed conflicts. All the time. Everywhere.

Edited December 29, 2012 by Mr. Big Dog

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://pjmedia.com/claudiarosett/how-the-un-achieves-sustainable-peacekeeper-rape/

How the UN Achieves Sustainable Peacekeeper Rape

January 11th, 2012 - 12:23 am

Year after year, since 2005, the United Nations has proclaimed its “zero-tolerance” policy for UN peacekeepers sexually exploiting or even raping the people they’re sent to protect. Year after year, the abuse continues. One of the more recent horrors took place last year in Haiti, when five UN peacekeepers allegedly pulled an 18-year-old Haitian into a UN base, pinned him down on a mattress, beat and raped him. Part of the scene, in which he screams for help while being assaulted, was caught on video.

Haiti’s president protested. The five peacekeepers, all from Uruguay, were sent home to face prosecution. Uruguay’s ambassador to the UN apologized. But now comes a report from ABC News — “Haiti Outrage: UN Soldiers from Sex Assault Video Freed.” ABC’s Brian Ross reports that the case has apparently stalled. It’s been put on “indefinite hold.” And a UN official has confirmed to ABC that the former peacekeepers have been turned loose. It seems the Uruguayan prosecution could not find the victim, though ABC’s Ross notes that his name and address are well known, “if there is any interest in finding him.”

It gets worse. ABC’s report includes an interview with a UN peacekeeping official, an American, Assistant Secretary-General Anthony Banbury. Asked if there’s any way to ensure that UN peacekeepers accused of sexual exploitation and assault will face justice, he simply admits, “Sometimes we can, sometimes we can’t.” In an earlier incident, when more than 100 Sri Lankan peacekeepers in Haiti were expelled for sexually exploiting underage girls, there was no sign they were ever prosecuted. That’s been largely the way of it, as cases of sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers have turned up again and again, in places such as the Congo, Bosnia, Cambodia, Liberia, the Ivory Coast, Burundi, Haiti, and South Sudan.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/mar/25/unitednations

Report reveals shame of UN peacekeepers

Sexual abuse by soldiers 'must be punished'

Owen Bowcott

The Guardian, Thursday 24 March 2005 21.43 EST

The reputation of United Nations peacekeeping missions suffered a humiliating blow yesterday as an internal report identified repeated patterns of sexual abuse and rape perpetrated by soldiers supposed to be restoring the international rule of law.

The highly critical study, published by Jordan's ambassador to the UN assembly, was endorsed by the organisation's embattled secretary general, Kofi Annan, who condemned such "abhorrent acts" as a "violation of the fundamental duty of care".

The embarrassment caused by the misconduct of UN forces in devastated communities around the world - including Haiti, Sierra Leone, Bosnia, Cambodia , East Timor and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) - has become an increasingly high profile, political problem.

Allegations have recently surfaced that troops sent to police Liberia were regularly having sex with girls aged as young as 12, sometimes in the mission's administrative buildings.

In the DRC, peacekeepers were said to have offered abandoned orphans small gifts - as little as two eggs from their rations, says the report - for sexual encounters.

Used condoms, an inquiry by the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services discovered, littered the perimeter of military camps and guard posts.

Alarm about the involvement of UN peacekeepers in sex trafficking first became widespread during the 1990s when investigators found soldiers were customers in brothels run in Bosnia and Kosovo which relied on women sold into forced prostitution. One recent estimate suggested up to 2,000 women have been coerced into sex slavery in Kosovo.

Yesterday's report, by Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid al-Hussein, was commissioned to reform the way in which troops behave on UN missions. It was also aimed at devising a new investigative framework to detect and deter soldiers exploiting young victims, who are often impoverished refugees.

The UN is coordinating 17 mandated, peacekeeping operations around the globe, involving a deployment of 75,000 personnel from scores of contributing nations.

"Despite the distinguished role that United Nations peacekeeping personnel have played over the last half-century," the study notes, "there regrettably will always be those who violate codes of conduct and dishonour the many who have given their lives in the cause of peace. Sexual exploitation and abuse by military, civilian police and civilian peacekeeping personnel is not a new phenomenon."

But the study, released at the UN's headquarters in New York, adds: "The reality of prostitution and other sexual exploitation in a peacekeeping context is profoundly disturbing because the United Nations has been mandated to enter into a broken society to help it, not to breach the trust placed in it by the local population." There have even been reports of paedophilia committed by peacekeepers.

Entitled A Comprehensive Strategy To Eliminate Future Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, the document insists that UN interventions operate on the principle that they will not "in any way increase the suffering of vulnerable sectors of [a] population".

In the DRC, the report says, "sexual exploitation and abuse mostly involves the exchange of sex for money (on average $1-$3 per encounter), for food (for immediate consumption or to barter later) or for jobs".

Sexual exploitation by peacekeepers may threaten the security of missions, the study suggests, exposing them "to blackmail and violent retaliation". It also speeds the transmission of HIV/Aids.

"Victims frequently suffer from psychological trauma as a result of their experiences. Victims and abandoned peacekeeper babies may face stigmatisation by their families and communities, which deprive them of all support."

One possible precaution, Prince Zeid contemplates, is to ban all sexual relations between local populations and members of resident UN military missions in high-risk areas. It would "protect the reputation and credibility of the mission" and safeguard "a local population highly vulnerable to abuse".

Another solution may be to encourage better recreational facilities for soldiers off duty. "Sites could [contain] sports areas, free internet facilities and subsidised telephone lines to facilitate contact with family and friends."

An increase in the percentage of female peacekeeping personnel would help, the report observes. "The presence of more women in a mission, especially at senior levels, will help to promote an environment that discourages sexual exploitation and abuse."

But the report's more radical recommendations are contained in proposals to over haul the investigation of allegations of rape and abuse. Courts martial, it says, should be set up within mission areas for "serious offences" to ensure immediate access to witnesses and evidence.

They would demonstrate that there was "no impunity for acts of sexual exploitation and abuse by members of military contingents". At present many of the accused return to their home countries where prosecutions are rarely pursued.

There have been exceptions. In the DRC, France recently jailed one UN civilian employee for rape and making pornographic films. South Africa and Morocco have also taken action against others.

Soldiers found guilty should have their pay docked and be made financially accountable, the report says.

It adds that there should be "DNA and other tests to establish paternity" and fathers forced to provide child support.

Edited December 29, 2012 by Bad_Daddy

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2081634,00.html

Court Says the Dutch U.N. Peacekeepers Are to Blame for Srebrenica Deaths

By Lauren Comiteau / The Hague Wednesday, July 06, 2011

It's been a long road to justice for Hasan Nuhanovic. The former U.N. interpreter for Dutch peacekeepers who were stationed in Srebrenica in 1995, at the end of the Bosnian war, has been battling the Dutch state in civil court for nine years, trying to force it to take responsibility for the murders of his father and brother by Bosnian Serb forces. When a ruling Tuesday by an appeals court in the Hague placed the blame squarely on the Dutch government's shoulders, Nuhanovic was rendered virtually speechless. "I really don't know what to say," he told journalists outside the courtroom. "I prepared myself for a negative outcome, I didn't prepare myself for a positive outcome." He then added that he felt "relieved."

On July 11, 1995, the Bosnian Serbs overran Srebrenica, which had been designated a UN safe haven. By July 13, outnumbered and poorly equipped, Dutch U.N. peacekeepers — or Dutchbat — bowed to General Ratko Mladic's demands and forced the many Muslim families who had sought refuge on their base out of the compound. The women were separated from the men, who were driven away and murdered by Bosnian Serb troops. In total, some 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed over the course of one week that July, more than 200 of whom had been thrown off the Dutch base.

Such were the hurdles facing Nuhanovic as he tried to overturn a lower court's 2008 decision that the Dutch state bore no responsibility for having handed his family over to the Bosnian Serb troops that even Nuhanovic's lawyer, Liesbeth Zegveld — who declared before the verdict that "it's hope against knowing better" — said she didn't consider such a victory possible within the confines of the Netherlands. "It's too big, it's too much a trauma in our state," she said on Tuesday. "And I thought the court would not be able to disentangle themselves from the drama."

But disentangle it did. In a historic decision, appeals judges ruled that "the State is responsible for the death of these men as Dutchbat should not have turned these men over to the Serbs." The Dutch had already witnessed, according to a summary of the decision, Bosnian Serbs beating up or killing male refugees outside the compound in Srebrenica and were aware of the risks of sending the three men off the base.

The men at the center of the case were Nuhanovic's father, Ibro Nuhanovic; his 19-year-old brother Muhamed; and Rizo Mustafic, an electrician who worked on the compound. Mustafic's son was also in the Hague Appeals Court to hear the verdict on Tuesday. "I am very happy, finally," Mustafic says. "It feels great. I'm going to bury my dad [on] July 11, and this is so good." Every July 11, the anniversary of the takeover of Srebrenica, relatives of those who were killed have the opportunity to bury the remains of their loved ones, which are still being dug out of mass graves and identified.

For Nuhanovic, the court's finding that his family was forced off the base on July 13 and didn't leave of its own accord is crucial. Nuhanovic was allowed to stay because he worked for the U.N. At the last moment, his father, who represented the Bosnian Muslims in negotiations with Mladic and then Dutchbat commander Thom Karremans, was told he could also stay. But Nuhanovic's mother and younger brother were ordered to leave. "Initially state lawyers said my father was given a choice to stay or leave," Nuhanovic told reporters after the ruling. "But my father was not given a choice, because his younger son was sent out. How can a father leave his younger son like that? So my father went out of the compound with my brother." And his mother. Nuhanovic never saw any of them again.

The Dutch state has always argued that because its troops were serving under the auspices of the U.N. during the Bosnian war, the Netherlands could not be held responsible for its actions. But judges found that after the fall of Srebrenica, Dutch military and political leaders were in "effective control" of their troops — even though command and control was officially in the hands of the U.N. "It's the first time, I believe, that a state is being held accountable during a peacekeeping operation where things went wrong," said Zegveld, Nuhanovic's lawyer. "The state had always warned — almost threatened — during the proceedings that if that happened, there's a chance that [The Netherlands] won't contribute any new troops [to U.N. peacekeeping missions.]"

Indeed the ruling could have far-reaching implications for other countries that may be wary of sending their troops on peacekeeping operations in which they could ultimately be held responsible for their actions. And because the Dutch government has been ordered by the court to pay compensation to the plaintiffs, Tuesday's ruling could pave the way for similar claims by other Srebrenica victims, especially those whose relatives were also forced off the Dutch compound.

After the verdict, former Dutchbat commander Thom Karremans sent a statement to a Dutch news program saying that although he always regretted what happened in Srebrenica, his regret won't bring Nuhanovic's family back. Lawyer Zegveld, Nuhanovic and Mustafic's relatives have a criminal case pending in the Dutch courts against Karremans and two other top Dutchbat officials.

Surprised government lawyers, meanwhile, say they will have to study the verdict before deciding whether or not to appeal. That will no doubt reopen a painful chapter in Dutch history. In 2002, the government collapsed after an investigation by the National Institute for War Documentation (NIOD) blamed it — along with the U.N. — for sending ill-equipped Dutch soldiers on an impossible mission to Srebrenica. "You can say people would know what would happen with hindsight," says NIOD spokesman David Barnouw of Tuesday's decision. "But if [the Bosnian Serbs] killed three or four Bosnian Muslims, it's hard to infer they'd go on to kill 7,000."

"It's a correct verdict," said Joseph Reynen, a reserve officer in the Dutch army, who happened to be outside the courthouse after the verdict. "But the Dutch government is responsible for all 7,000 deaths because they sent the Dutch army not with a pistol, but with a water pistol."

Across town from the appeals court, at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Mladic is on trial for 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity — including genocide for what happened in Srebrenica. Nuhanovic watched in court Monday as the former general was thrown out of his own arraignment for disrupting the proceedings and interrupting judges, leaving the bench to enter 11 please of "not guilty" on his behalf. "It's a spectacle for everyone. I don't care about that," said Nuhanovic on Monday, after Mladic was thrown out of court. "I care about the substance of the case."

And Nuhanovic isn't done seeking justice, if indeed he ever finds it. "This is just one of the cases I started, but definitely the most difficult one," he said, referring to his litigation against the Dutch state. "I started a case against the killer of my mother in Bosnia. And I might start a civil case against Mladic." Before Tuesday's judgment was even handed down, Nuhanovic was already filling out the preliminary paperwork to get that process started.

Edited December 29, 2012 by Bad_Daddy

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Is there anyone on here that was born in the USA that wants to see the U.N. calling the shots in this country? I know I sure don't.

Edited December 29, 2012 by Bad_Daddy

[웃 910]