|
UN's Pillay Says While Few States
Discipline Abusive UN Troops, They Are Needed
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
December 9 -- While the UN relies
on troop contributing countries to discipline UN peacekeepers who rape
or abuse,
"very few states in fact have prosecuted" them, the UN system's top
human rights official told the Press on Tuesday. Inner City Press asked
Navi
Pillay, High Commissioner for Human Rights, what the UN should do to
ensure
that more than "very few states in fact... prosecute" their soldiers
who
are accuse of abuse. Shouldn't the UN stop taking troops from such
countries,
or at least withhold some of the payments? "We need the troops," Ms.
Pillay said. Video here,
from Minute 39:43.
Later on
Tuesday her Office's representative in New York, Craig Mokhiber, told
reporters
not to accept governments' "justifications" the human rights abuses
they should control. Video here.
But what is the UN's and Ms. Pillay's
argument, that the lack of discipline of abusers is excused by the need
for
troops, but a justification? If a government said it would not
discipline
soldiers in its own army for war crimes because then it would be more
difficult
to get volunteers, Pillay and the UN would surely not accept the
premise. But
how is the UN's position any different?
Pillay went
on to say that her office did get several generals from Nepal removed
from
duty, due to involvement in disappearances. She mentioned the case of
Rwandan
general Karenzi with the UN in Darfur, where despite indictment for war
crimes
by a Spanish judge, Karenzi remains in place.
UN's Pillay on Tuesday, discipline of abusive UN peacekeepers not shown
Also
concerning Spain, Inner City Press asked Ms. Pillay about the
controversy
surrounding the $23 million ceiling of the new human rights chamber in
Geneva,
whether Spanish international cooperation funds should have been used
and
whether, as reported, a square meter of the ceiling has already fallen.
I would
be alarmed by the ceiling, she said, since she will be sitting under
it. She
said Spain's Ambassador told her the funds used for the ceiling had
never been
expressly earmarked for the poor. International cooperation,
apparently, can
mean many things.
Footnote: Mokhiber
appeared with a pro-UN pollster,
Steven Kull, and Peggy Hicks from Human Rights Watch. Kull, when asked
why he
had not included sexual orientation rights in his poll, said he hadn't
"found a sponsor" for such questions. Inner City Press asked if that
didn't mean that the questions asked were directly by funders. Oh no,
Kull
assured. But strangely enough his organization has not, for example,
polled
people in the Congo on what they think of UN peacekeepers. To come full
circle,
the word for this is impunity.
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
UN Office: S-453A, UN, NY 10017
USA
Tel: 212-963-1439
Reporter's mobile (and
weekends):
718-716-3540
Other,
earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available
in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
Copyright
2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at]
innercitypress.com -
|
