UN Sex for Food Scandal

....The Left continues to carp on Abu Ghraib even though some of the soldiers have been punished while others still face trial. The Left wants a pound of flesh in the form of resignations from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice for starters.

This would only undermine the Bush Administration and that is precisely what the Left wants. How else to explain the rantings of Senator Edward Kennedy, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and most recently former Vice President Al Gore in his infamous address in front of MoveOn.org at New York University? If it did not harm the Bush Administration, the Left would not have shed a tear for the prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Those who might doubt this conclusion need look no further than the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly known as Zaire) at the disgraceful behaviour of the United Nations peacekeeping force in that country. Known as MONUC (UN Mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo), it was recently revealed by the UK newspaper The Independent that MONUC soldiers have been raping and impregnating girls as young as thirteen years old in exchange for food. The MONUC soldiers are from Morocco and Uruguay.

Kate Holt and Sarah Hughes, who co-authored the article, interviewed more than thirty girls who disclosed that they had been raped by the soldiers. Testimony from one girl named Faela is particularly chilling:

If I go and see the soldiers at night and sleep with them, then they 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.

Faela is only thirteen years old.

These girls live in a camp for displaced person in Bunia that was set up by Atlas, an NGO, under UN supervision. Many of them came from the Ituri province, in the northeast of the country, which has been devastated by ethnic strife. Many of these girls are without families and have no one to feed, shelter and protect them. NGO workers seem afraid of the MONUC soldiers and are unwilling to help those who are most vulnerable. One relief worker who spoke to Holt and Hughes on the condition of anonymity said:

Yes, we know that girls go and visit the UN soldiers every night. There is nothing to stop them, and the girls need food. It is best to keep quiet, though. I am frightened that if I say something I may lose my job, and I have children of my own to feed. ...