Congo US Sex Abuse Continues

UN peacekeepers in Congo are continuing to rape and abuse young girls even as the UN is investigating the case.

The UN report, published yesterday (an old trick -- releasing bad news on Friday so people like your scribe might miss it), showed just how ineffective the UN is in controlling peacekeepers who really aren't under their control at all:

Although the troops knew that the investigation was being conducted in eastern Bunia town from June to September last year, they continued their activities, as evidenced by "the presence of freshly used condoms near military camps and guard posts and by the additional allegations of recent cases of solicitations brought to the attention of the OIOS team during the last days of the investigation."

The UN investigators said that most of the peacekeeping leadership in Congo resisted the investigation, that verified that girls as young as 12 were sexually abused. Prostitution by mere girls in Congo doesn't provide much, according to the report: sometimes an egg or two, sometimes a dollar or two. Some of the victims were abandoned orphans and were often illiterate.

Here's where we are as the investigation of the first 72 of 150 known cases are investigated:

• 44 cases lacked names and identifying information, making it difficult to pin down the perpetrators
• Abuse of underage girls was substantiated in six cases involving soldiers from Malawi, Morocco, Tunisia and Nepal, plus one involving a French civilian, who awaiting trial in France on charges of child abuse and child pornography.
• The UN repatriated four of the soldiers and rotated a fifth to another post while the investigation was being completed.
  
• One allegation was dismissed.
  
• The South African government is taking action against two of its soldiers.
  

So six cases identified out of 72 investigated, and three soldiers under or awaiting prosecution. About the level of competence we'd expect from the UN. But rest assured, the UN's head of peacekeeping operations is outraged:

Mr. [William Lacy] Swing said he was shocked, outraged and sickened that peacekeepers had caused grievous harm to the people they were sent to protect.

He ought to be outraged and sickened -- but not partularly shocked. As LATimes reporter Maggie Farley reported in today's LATimes:

The U.N. has no power to prosecute peacekeepers or civilians on its staff, and can only waive the immunity of those accused and send them home to face justice in their own national systems. Historically, there has been little action by the home countries, or follow-up by the U.N.

Farley said the U.N. is exploring the idea of court-martialing accused soldiers in the country where the crime is committed. Good idea, but not enough. How about disciplining the uncooperative officers in the field? And how about getting control of the Peacekeepers before more women and girls are raped?