"When a government becomes powerful, it is destructive, extravagant and violent; it is an usurper which takes bread from innocent mouths and deprives honorable men of their substance for votes with which to perpetuate itself." - Cicero
"Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is force." - George Washington
"In all that people can do for themselves, the government ought not to interfere." - Abraham Lincoln
"The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power." - John Stuart Mill
"The government's role is whatever the government defines it to be." - Helen Clark

Blogarama

Review Kiwi Pundit

< ? kiwi blogs # >







inHOUSE: Software development and services, web design, computer training, crystal reports, sql, business intelligence and reporting in Wellington, New Zealand

 
"Peacekeeping"

From the Washington Post story on the report into the U.N. "peacekeepers" in the Congo:

U.N. peacekeepers threatened U.N. investigators investigating allegations of sexual misconduct in Congo and sought to bribe witnesses to change incriminating testimony, a confidential U.N. draft report says.

The 34-page report, which was obtained by The Washington Post, accuses U.N. peacekeepers from Morocco, Pakistan and Nepal of seeking to obstruct U.N. efforts to investigate a sexual abuse scandal that has damaged the United Nations' standing in Congo.

The report documents 68 cases of alleged rape, prostitution and pedophilia by U.N. peacekeepers from Pakistan, Uruguay, Morocco, Tunisia, South Africa and Nepal. U.N. officials say they have uncovered more than 150 allegations of sexual misconduct throughout the country as part of a widening investigation into sexual abuse by U.N. personnel that has plagued the United Nations' largest peacekeeping mission, U.N. officials said.

"Sexual exploitation and abuse, particularly prostitution of minors, is widespread and long-standing," says a draft of the internal July report, which has not previously been made public. "Moreover, all of the major contingents appear to be implicated."

The latest disclosure comes as U.N. officials confirmed that a senior U.N. official in Congo was suspended from his job with pay in recent weeks pending an investigation into allegations of "inappropriate conduct." The senior official, a New Zealand national, was accused of being seen drinking with Congolese prostitutes at a bar when the U.N. leadership was trying to address a major sexual abuse scandal, officials said. William Lacy Swing, a former U.S. ambassador who heads the U.N. mission in Congo, declined to discuss the matter except to say the official is no longer in the country.

Sad to hear that a New Zealander is involved. I hope we do eventually find out who the person is and the extent of his offending. There can't be many New Zealanders who have been senior U.N. officials in the Congo.

I wonder how much media coverage this will get. You'd think that rape, prostitution and paedophilia involving U.N. peacekeepers would be a big deal, bigger even than a story about people being forced to wear underpants on their heads.