By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations is investigating about 150 allegations of sexual abuse by U.N. civilian staff and soldiers in the Congo, some of them recorded on videotape, a senior U.N. official said on Monday.

The accusations include pedophilia, rape and prostitution, said Jane Holl Lute, an assistant secretary-general in the peacekeeping department.

Lute, an American, said there was photographic and video evidence for some of the allegations and most of the allegations came to light since the spring.

"We are shining a light on this problem in order to determine its scope, and we will not stop there," Lute told a news conference. She did not say if 150 different people were involved but indicated some suspects committed more than one offense.

In May the United Nations reported some 30 cases of abuse among peacekeepers in the northeastern town of Bunia, where half of the soldiers are stationed.

Since then one French soldier was sent home and three U.N. civilian staff were suspended, with many other cases expected to follow. Reports from the region say soldiers from other nations have also been repatriated to face charges at home.

Jean-Marie Guehenno, the U.N. undersecretary-general for peacekeeping, went to the sprawling central African country, formally called the Democratic Republic of the Congo, last month. He has promised an overhaul of staff discipline.

The U.N. internal oversight office is expected to release a report soon on the abuse in Bunia. In addition, the peacekeeping department is sending at least two other teams to Congo to deal with various aspects of the problem, Lute said.

The United Nations has jurisdiction over its civilian staff but troops are contributed by individual nations. Consequently, the world body has only the power to demand a specific country repatriate an accused soldier and punish him or her at home.

The revelations of peacekeeping abuses is usually kept quiet at the United Nations until reporters or individual countries disclose the news, as happened in Cambodia in the early 1990s and later in Somalia, Bosnia and Ethiopia.

In the Congo, the United Nations mission has some 10,800 peacekeepers and some 60 civilian staff, led by an American, William Lacy Swing. The mission has previously released reports of abuses but not details of the ongoing investigation. Continued ...

© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.

(the UN, that is). They feel themselves in a position to lecture the civilized west on morality while having none of their own.

Catz

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I'll get nicer when you get smarter.

You would be justified in your arguement if it werent for the fact that the peacekeepers are members of other states since he UN does not have its own military establishment.

As a concept and in its implimentation (not the various abuses that happened because individuals, not the system, chose to act immorally and improperly) was justiied and well-placed.

Moreover, by that standad, should the US be disestablished and, as you so eloquently put it, "razed" because of the actions of the soldiers and "contractors" in Abu Ghraib (amongst other Iraqi and Afghani prison "camps.")?

Sheesh, some new ideas from the left would be welcome about now.

Catz

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I'll get nicer when you get smarter.

Yeah, peacekeepers come from many different countries, but who oversees them? Who is responsible?

If you look at the structure of those forces, the countries themselves. They are collectively known as the "UN Peacekeepers" but they are maintained and controlled by their own generals and commanders.

I would love to allow the UN to control them, but do you want American soldiers controlled by Kofi Annan?

How can you pass blame without passing control? The UN simply recruits nations to provide their forces under their auspices... beyond that, unfortunately, the UN is powerless. It does not control what goes on in the barracks because the SC nations (primarily the US) is opposed to ANY loss of sovereign power it holds over its military.

Some thought, any rational, coherent and sensible thought, would be welcome from the right...

...The UN needs some serious "re-organization", I will admit..But who has made the UN ineffective? Member Countries, that is...All Member countries are responsible for the organization and should all come together to "fix it".

The UN is controlled by the most powerful nations on the globe. Almost all policy is driven by the SECURITY COUNCIL, A block of 5 nations. If we do away with this organization, who will represent the voices of the lesser nations?

The UN needs some fixing..sure..but lets not simply eradicate it because I think the ideals and principles upon which it was founded stand true today (much more than ever)..

I disagree. I think that the structure of the UN (all nations having equal standing without regard to human right violations in said countries, thus placing libya on par with the U.S.) is fundamentally flawed. I support razing the UN and replacing it with something modeled on NATO, a model that has proven more effective over the years at intervening in world crises.

Catz

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I'll get nicer when you get smarter.

The comparison to Abu Ghraib is a valid one. It's not fair to tar the entire U.S. military because of the actions there, and it's not fair to tar the entire U.N. peacekeeping operation because of the actions here. In both cases, the abuses are being investigated and prosecuted.

Further, the urge to scrap the U.N. and replace it with a NATO-like structure is a flawed one. That would cover only the intervention/peacekeeping function of the U.N. It would not deal with the broader function of the U.N.: a place where countries come together to discuss problems, where every country has a voice, and which does a reasonable amount of cooperative good.

Further, flawed as the UN is, a NATO-like body of interventionists would not have the credibility that U.N. peacekeepers do. It would be too easy to label such a body an imperialistic force, a tool of the West.

Also, the Security Council exists precisely to mitigate the "every country is on equal footing" nature of the General Assembly.

I support reforms aimed at making sure the UN is effective and ethical. I think the peacekeeping function needs to become more muscular and transparent, so that (for instance) another Srebenica doesn't happen, and we aren't routinely treated to the spectacle of UN troops being held hostage. I think the fact that the U.S. foots a quarter of the UN's bill gives us plenty of leverage to achieve these changes.

But I think simply scrapping the UN would be a mistake.

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Man up.