<http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB110428235654211678,00.html>
The Wall Street Journal
December 29, 2004
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Sex for Food
December 29, 2004; Page A8
Two years after the charges first surfaced, Kofi Annan has finally admitted
that U.N. peacekeeping troops sexually abused war refugees in the
Democratic Republic of Congo. "I am really shocked by these accusations,"
the United Nations Secretary-General told reporters last week.
He shouldn't be. Allegations of sex crimes committed by U.N. staff and
troops date back at least a decade and span operations on three continents,
in places like Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Cambodia. But rather than
showing the kind of "zero tolerance" toward sexual crimes that Mr. Annan
now promises, the U.N. has treated such instances with cavalier nonchalance.
In Congo, some 150 cases are under investigation. The charges range from
rape, in which some victims were children, to sexual exploitation. In some
cases, women and young girls have been coaxed into sex in exchange for
essential food items. A French U.N. staffer was arrested for raping
underage girls and taking digital pictures of them. He has been sent back
home where he will stand trial.
U.N. officials reportedly are worried that if these pictures and other rape
videos allegedly shot by U.N. troops find their way into the media, it
could become the U.N.'s "Abu Ghraib." The difference, of course, is that
the abuses in Iraq came quickly to light through the chain of command and
were immediately prosecuted by the U.S. military. In contrast, the U.N. is
investigating the cases in Congo only after much delay and even now is
unwilling to "name and shame" the countries whose soldiers committed these
crimes.
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