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UN troops enjoy rape in the Congo.

 
 
Brand X
 
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 10:20 am
Excerpt

Quote:
Sex and death in the heart of Africa
Hungry, frightened and helpless, young women in the Democratic Republic of Congo are selling their bodies in exchange for food and shelter. And the men expecting such 'payment' are the UN peacekeepers responsible for protecting them. By Kate Holt and Sarah Hughes
25 May 2004


Faela is 13 years old; Joseph is just under six months. Sitting on the dusty ground in Bunia's largest camp for internally-displaced people (IDPs), she cradles Joseph in her arms, and talks about how she ensures that she and her son are fed.

"If I go and see the soldiers at night and sleep with them, then they sometimes give me food, maybe a banana or a cake," she says, looking down at her son. "I have to do it with them because there is nobody to care, nobody else to protect Joseph except me. He is all I have and I must look after him."

It is a story that might not sound out of place in any part of the war-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo but for one thing: the soldiers Faela is talking about are not from the rebel groups who have devastated Ituri province, in the north-east of the country, during the past four and a half years of conflict. Rather, they are part of the United Nations peacekeeping force, Monuc (UN Mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo), and are stationed on UN orders next to the IDP camp in Bunia.


Excerpt

Quote:
"I came to this camp nearly six months ago, when the fighting got bad in our village," she explains, quietly. "The soldiers, different ones, were coming every night and we didn't know what was going on, we were all scared. Every night the soldiers would come to our hut and make my sisters and I do it with them. We had no choice. If we said no, then they would hurt us. Sometimes they put their guns against my chest and sometimes between my legs. I was really scared." Scared enough to leave the village where she had been born and begin the long walk through the jungle of Ituri province to the IDP camp. She knew before she left that she was pregnant, her child's father one of the anonymous band of soldiers. "I had Joseph in the forest," she says. "My father cannot help me any more - he is ashamed of me because I had this baby when I am not married. He has my brothers and sisters to look after."



The rest of the sad story.
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Type: Discussion • Score: 0 • Views: 2,194 • Replies: 33
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revel
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 10:36 am
It is terrible thing and I hope that there is an independent investigation.
0 Replies
 
McGentrix
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 10:48 am
*Insert sarcastic remark regarding the US handover of Iraq to the UN*
0 Replies
 
panzade
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 10:57 am
I would have preferred the title to read "UN troops accused of rape in the Congo" I get on Tarantrix all the time about sensational titles. "Enjoy" is ...well...just not germane.
0 Replies
 
revel
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 10:58 am
MGM, we live glass houses so we can't really be throwin stones at the UN.
0 Replies
 
plainoldme
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 11:06 am
That's what happens in war.
0 Replies
 
Sam1951
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 01:07 pm
plainoldme wrote:
That's what happens in war.


Oh really! Oh yes, lets have an independent investigation. Fat lot of good that will do. Read the article. These women-children are not only rape victims they are being treated as THINGS, by the rapists, by their own families and by the UN so called peace keepers.
Have you ever been raped? Have you ever been impregnated by a rapist? Just FYI I have. Do any of want to try living throughout that? Living in the USA, I had the option of placing my baby for adoption, imaging cutting your own arm off with a dull, rusty saw.
IMO The article points out two separate issues.
First, through out many parts of the world female = less than human = thing = do what ever you want to. War and it's aftermath merely concentrates this attitude in a smaller area.
Second, the "powerful" are willing to intervene up to a point. See we have troops there to keep the peace, we are wonderful humanitarians. Bull S**t
concentrating refugees in camps with out sufficient food sanitation and medical attention is nothing short of genocide.
One more point, the men using these refugee women-children are most likely either Christian or Islamic. Do any of you know what Christianity and Islam have to say about rape and fornication?

Mad Evil or Very Mad

Sam
0 Replies
 
Sam1951
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 01:27 pm
Hey McG,

Where is the snappy come back? What about a Buddhist perspective on either the original post or mine?

I'm waiting

Sam
0 Replies
 
McGentrix
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 01:37 pm
Waiting for what? I felt the story stood well by itself.
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 02:53 pm
McG wrote:

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Insert sarcastic remark regarding the US handover of Iraq to the UN*


This is the same U.N. in charge of the Iraqi food for oil program during the sanctions. And this is the same U.N. in which numerous high level excecutives are being investigated for diverting hundreds of millions of those dollars into their own bank accounts. Yet the world seems to think we ought to put them back in charge of Iraq. I guess it's for the best, but it sure seems like a screwy way to do business.
0 Replies
 
Fedral
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 03:14 pm
And you of course realize that if these had been United States military troops doing these things, it would have been front page news on every newspaper, television and wire service for the next 2 months.

I can see the headlines now:

U.S. troops rape and pillage across the Congo (Bush blamed for out of control troops)

American troops sweep across Congo like Mongol Hordes (Ghengis Rumsfeld needs to take responsiblity)

French, Belgian and swedish Peacekeepers claim: "We were at church when they did it, besides we couldn't stop them"[/i]

Ahhh yes ... the unbiased press ...
Laughing
0 Replies
 
Craven de Kere
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 03:25 pm
Fedral has it right. Makes no sense to fault.. oh wait, Foxfyre already did. ;-)

Foxfyre, are we also unfit to handle Iraq because of the abuses of individual soldiers?
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 03:29 pm
We are disciplining our soldiers in addition to plastering all the ugliness over every front page in America for weeks on end.

Compare that to the bru ha ha being raised over anybody else's abuses.

I think we've earned our right to be involved.
0 Replies
 
Craven de Kere
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 03:31 pm
Foxfyre,

When said abuses are confirmed I bet the responsible parties will discipline their own as well. But you seem to have done exactly what you speak out against. You seem to fault the UN for the actions of individuals just like those who fault the US for the soldier's actions.

As to earning a "right" to be "involved" (invade), well I'm not sure how that works it's been argued on very fuzzy terms.
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 03:40 pm
The difference as I see it is that the U.S. is supposed to admit every allegation of wrong doing, apologize profusely and publicly for it, and fire at least one high level official as proof we are truly sorry. No such standards seem to be applied to anybody else.

I am fully supportive of the media cooling it until there are at least formal charges and I am in favor of that being the policy re everybody. I have said that again and again, usually at the risk of being accused of wanting to suppress speech or whatever.

It's the double standard I mostly protest.

And I do think it wise to see what comes of the allegations of high level corruption in the U.N. before entrusting them with administration of billions more of our money.
0 Replies
 
blueveinedthrobber
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 03:47 pm
Foxfyre wrote:
The difference as I see it is that the U.S. is supposed to admit every allegation of wrong doing, apologize profusely and publicly for it, and fire at least one high level official as proof we are truly sorry. No such standards seem to be applied to anybody else.

I am fully supportive of the media cooling it until there are at least formal charges and I am in favor of that being the policy re everybody. I have said that again and again, usually at the risk of being accused of wanting to suppress speech or whatever.

It's the double standard I mostly protest.

And I do think it wise to see what comes of the allegations of high level corruption in the U.N. before entrusting them with administration of billions more of our money.


But the US promotes itself as the the most moral country in the world, on the high ground, the worlds babysitter, a country whose opinions are more important than others while all the while doing as much dirt behind the scenes as anyone else. That's the double standard I protest. We try to clean everyone elses house while allowing ours to be dirty.
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 03:57 pm
But BPB we have BEEN cleaning house. The guilty are removed from duty, have been or are being charged, tried, convicted, sentenced and apparently no sentences will be a light slap on the wrist. I have deplored the media feeding frenzy before the trials were completed, but we can't say we don't air all our dirty linen.

I doubt you can find a true saint anywhere on earth and there are no saintly countries. But the U.S. isn't the great Satan either as the terrorists call it. We are among the most generous, forgiving, and caring of all people, and I see nothing wrong with pointing that out when nobody else seems to need to admit to or make restitution for any wrong doing.
0 Replies
 
Craven de Kere
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 04:01 pm
Fox,

You didn't seem to be proitesting the double standard so much as implying that these individual acts render the UN unfit.

Is that not the case?
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 04:10 pm
I guess I am protesting both Craven. IMO, if the United States was accused of the allegations in the Congo and/or the diversion of funds intended to feed and school Iraqis, the hue and cry would be deafening and the headlines would be damning on the front pages of most of the world's newspapers. The assumptions would be that we were guilty and, if later it turned out we were not, there would be few retractions and those would be mostly buried.

And, if the UN members turn out to be guilty of the allegations for which they apparently are not seriously censuring themselves, should it not even be questioned whether they are the best choice to resume administration of funds and processes in Iraq?
0 Replies
 
Sam1951
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 04:11 pm
For crying out loud! What we are all talking about in this and many other threads is that people who know better are acting like brutes. I would bet even money that every last one of the individuals committing rape, torture and murder profess to follow to some religious belief. To the best of my knowledge no currently active religions espouse any of these acts as commendable behavior.
I would also bet with the same odds that they all have families. If the victims were their family members they would want the perpetrators to be punished to the fullest extent of the law? No bet on that one.
The really unbelievably sad, disgusting thing is that the same things are going on all over the world, not just in war zones, not just in refugee camps but, next door too. Think about it, the species that can claim as members people like Budda, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr. and all of the others who refuse to do what they know to be wrong is producing vicious, savage brutal monsters. I don't know what the future will be but, humanity looks really bad right now.

When we dehumanize others we dehumanize ourselves. When we torture another human being we destroy part of our own humanity. When we do nothing to stop brutality we too become brutes.

Sam
0 Replies
 
 

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