Another U.N. story not getting any media or forum play....

[j2k4]

Has anybody noticed this?

Is it worth your thoughts or comments?

Does this reflect on Kofi Annan at all?

Or would you prefer not to discuss it?

The U.N.'s rape of the innocents
Michelle Malkin
February 16, 2005

Kofi Annan must have the world's thickest set of industrial-quality earplugs.

How else can he block out the cries of Congolese girls raped by United Nations "peacekeepers" sent to protect the innocents from harm?

Fifty U.N. peacekeepers and U.N. civilian officers face an estimated 150 allegations of sexual exploitation and rape in the Congo alone. Last Friday, ABC's "20/20" program aired a devastating expose by investigative reporter Brian Ross highlighting some of the worst alleged crimes.

The accused include Didier Bourguet, a U.N. senior official from France charged with running an Internet pedophile ring in the Congo. According to ABC News and others, pictures taken from his personal computer contained thousands of photos of him with hundreds of girls. Police say Bourguet had turned his bedroom, plastered with mirrors and rigged with remote-control cameras, into a stealth porn studio. He was caught in a sting operation while allegedly preparing to rape a 12-year-old girl.

In one of the photos confiscated from Bourguet, a tear can be seen rolling down the cheek of a victim.

Hundreds of babies, fathered by U.N. personnel, have been born to Congolese girls and women -- including the 15-year-old deaf mute daughter of Aimee Tsesi, who told Ross she was turned away at the gates of the U.N. camp when she went for assistance. "The U.N. is not able to give me food or money for my grandson," she told ABC News. "But if the U.N. hadn't brought this soldier here, my daughter would not have become pregnant. And I would not be going through this suffering."

Annan's spinners would have us believe that the problem of U.N. sex predators is confined to a tiny band of rogues and locals beyond the control of headquarters. But according to Bourguet's lawyer, there was an entire network of U.N. personnel who had sex with underage girls in Congo and the Central African Republic. Investigators are now digging into claims of U.N. infiltration by organized pedophiles.

The Times of London reports further that two Russian pilots who served in the U.N.'s peacekeeping contingent based in Mbandaka "paid young girls with jars of mayonnaise and jam to have sex with them. They filmed the sessions and sent the tapes to Russia. But the men were tipped off and left the area before U.N. investigators arrived." The paper also reports that at least two other U.N. officials -- a Ukrainian and a Canadian -- left the Congo after getting local women pregnant.

In July 2002, Congolese military official Jean Pierre Ondekane said that all the U.N. mission in Congo would be remembered for in the village of Kisangani was "for running after little girls." Annan's special adviser from Jordan, Prince Zeid Raad Al Hussein, concluded last year that the "situation appears to be one of 'zero-compliance with zero-tolerance' throughout the mission."

Human rights groups say such monstrosities have been tolerated by U.N. brass for years. Joseph Loconte noted in the Weekly Standard last month that the Congo revelations come three years after another U.N. report found "widespread" evidence of sexual abuse of West African refugees. Girls and women in East Timor, Cambodia and Kosovo have reported sex crimes perpetrated by U.N. peacekeepers.

In 2001, American whistleblower Kathryn Bolkovac, a Nebraska policewoman who worked for U.N. security in Bosnia, uncovered scores of sex crime allegations and prostitution rings in the Balkans involving her fellow U.N. employees. Girls were forced to dance in bars for U.N. personnel and beaten or raped, Bolkovac reported. After being fired from her job for "time sheet irregularities," she told a British tribunal that Mike Stiers, the international police task force's deputy commissioner, flippantly dismissed victims of human trafficking as "just prostitutes."

This mother of all humanitarian abuse scandals at the U.N. is only just beginning to pierce the world's conscience. Annan has trotted out a refurbished zero-tolerance policy and is trumpeting a few arrests in Morocco. But such faint-hearted damage control measures are not enough.

It's time to rethink the nearly half-billion dollars in aid we send to U.N. peacekeeping operations. How much more aid must we squander on holier-than-thou wolves in do-gooders' clothing? For the sake of the innocents raped and pillaged in the name of humanitarianism, let's get stingy.

[TheDave]

something should be done about these individuals

[DanB]

hung, drawn and quartered perhaps?

[lynx]

I fail to see how it reflects on Kofi Annan.

It does reflect rather badly on the ability of Michelle Malkin to write coherently. Just about every article of her's that I've found is rabidly anti-U.N., could it be because the U.N. is trying to get Israel to adhere to the hundreds of resolutions passed against them.

Look at this bit:

Annan's spinners would have us believe that the problem of U.N. sex predators is confined to a tiny band of rogues and locals beyond the control of headquarters. But according to Bourguet's lawyer, there was an entire network of U.N. personnel who had sex with underage girls in Congo and the Central African Republic.

It probably is confined to a "tiny band of rogues and locals", but it is the lawyer's job to try to smear the blame as far and wide as possible in order to mitigate his client's responsibility.

Investigators are now digging into claims of U.N. infiltration by organized pedophiles.

How convenient that she doesn't actually point out that they are U.N. investigators.

The Times of London reports further that two Russian pilots who served in the U.N.'s peacekeeping contingent based in Mbandaka "paid young girls with jars of mayonnaise and jam to have sex with them. They filmed the sessions and sent the tapes to Russia. But the men were tipped off and left the area before U.N. investigators arrived."

So in fact, now she does acknowledge that the U.N. were investigating, but says the men were tipped off - any actual proof of this?

The paper also reports that at least two other U.N. officials -- a Ukrainian and a Canadian -- left the Congo after getting local women pregnant.

Not unusual with any armed force from any country, but it doesn't fit her agenda to say so.

I could go on and tear this disreputable rant to shreds, but what is the point. After all you weren't interested in the actual content any more than she was, you were simply looking for another attack on Kofi Annan who, unlike this somewhat biased reporter, has to act on evidence not hearsay. Shame on you.

[Biggles]

The majority of these crimes have been commited by soldiers of donor nations involved in peace keeping duties. Where UN staffers have commited crimes then the UN should pursue them. Where it was soldiers it should be the donor countries.

I am sure the good lady would not argue that the US should stop funding its military just because some individuals have besmirched the uniform.

The issue is real and the UN should deal severely with those of its people involved in crimes (which it appears to be doing) and if possible pursue donor countries to do likewise with soldiers who have brought shame on their units.

The agenda of the journalist, however, is not real and is consequently why the story has not had the slant she would so dearly like.

The story was covered at length in my paper a couple of weeks ago (sans UN bashing).

[Rat Faced]

Its the same wherever troops are sent.

I wonder how many Brits born during the '40s have American fathers, or Germans in all the years afterwards that have Brit, US or Russian fathers?

There are many reasons that people join the military, unfortunatly one of them (thankfully quite minor) is that some people enjoy inflicting pain and suffering and the military gives plenty of opportunity for doing this.

British Troops have raped girls in Germany and Cyprus etc. and some of the stuff they get upto in Belize is..

Americans have Raped British Girls and German Girls.

Troops, unfortunatly, will be troops.. and drunken troops the world over will get into trouble.

Thankfully some, like British and American do so a lot less than others.. But they do do it.


As to the UN personnel.

I agree they should also be hunted down.

However, how many of our own Politicians get upto crap like this when they can get away with it?

We all know that some of them do.. what makes it so special that its UN?

Its right to point out this stuff.

Its wrong to spin it to say that its "The UN" system, and not something thats widespread in every country and culture.

Some of those "Peacekeepers" were no doubt American, British, French etc... so why pick on just a couple of them?

[j2k4]

...it doesn't fit her agenda to say so.

I could go on and tear this disreputable rant to shreds, but what is the point. After all you weren't interested in the actual content any more than she was, you were simply looking for another attack on Kofi Annan who, unlike this somewhat biased reporter, has to act on evidence not hearsay. Shame on you.

Such would not fit my agenda either, Lynx; anyone who, at this time, would sit still for having a lot of hot air about the U.N. blown up his/her skirt is being foolish.

The U.N. needs a high colonic, and the higher, the better.

To defend Kofi Annan is to put lipstick on a pig.

Tearing the "rant" to shreds will change neither the events which occurred under U.N. auspices nor the need to conduct a U.N. make-over.

I remember many on this board complaining that the U.S. should adhere to a higher standard, due to it's rhetoric about it's altruistic intentions; I think perhaps, given the U.N.'s charter, it's standards ought to be even higher, don't you think?

[Rat Faced]

*sigh*

Then lets have a Democratic UN...

Except i know at least 5 countries that would object to that

[Biggles]

I would agree fully that the UN standards should be high and I am sure many in the UN will be distraught by these crimes.

There is however a dishonesty about the article that is disappointing. The way it is constructed it sounds as if the rich and corrupt bodies of Western colonialism are raping their way through Africa.

The peacekeepers provided to assist the Congo were, for the most part, from other African countries. Whilst many of these units are professional and well trained it is debateable if they all are. Moreover, the UN can only work with the forces supplied to it by donor nations. Unless J2 is suggesting that there should be a UN army above that of mere National Armies, this is unlikely to change in the near future.

The journalist makes much of these crimes. However, rather than calling for the UN to pursue the criminals she suggests the US pulls out of supporting peacekeeping. I am not sure I follow the logic. Moreover, I am not sure that those who have benefited from the protection of the majority of the good peacekeepers would follow it either. As I said above, is she arguing that Lyndee England negated the work of the coalition in Iraq? - because that is where her logic takes her.

[j2k4]

I think Ms. Malkin is saying that the U.N. escapes any blame by reasoning as you have about the assets it can bring to bear on any situation, Biggles.

The situation she describes is that of the organized and entrenched Authority-on-the-Scene, which answers to nobody, and which also has a penchant for offending repeatedly.

These are not the actions of a "few bad apples", or "renegades", these are the systematic actions of a U.N. "cabal" operating with the impugnity born of past experience.

If the U.N. decides to intercede internationally, and then is given a pass based on the presumption it cannot field a capable and disciplined force, what good is it?

I believe she would agree with you about the damage done to American efforts by Lyndee England, but might disagree as to the relativity of your characterization.