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Posted on 12/23/2004 8:20:32 AM PST by Ginifer
HOME-MADE pornographic videos shot by a United Nations logistics expert in the Democratic Republic of Congo have sparked a sex scandal that threatens to become the UN’s Abu Ghraib.
The expert was a Frenchman who worked at Goma airport as part of the UN’s $700 million-a-year effort to rebuild the war-shattered country. When police raided his home they discovered that he had turned his bedroom into a studio for videotaping and photographing sex sessions with young girls.
The bed was surrounded by large mirrors on three sides, according to a senior Congolese police officer. On the fourth side was a camera that he could operate from the bed with a remote control.
When the police arrived the man was allegedly about to rape a 12-year-old girl sent to him in a sting operation. Three home-made porn videos and more than 50 photographs were found.
The case has highlighted the apparently rampant sexual exploitation of Congolese girls and women by the UN’s 11,000 peacekeepers and 1,000 civilians at a time when the UN is facing many problems, including the Iraqi “oil-for-food” scandal and accusations of sexual harassment by senior UN staff in Geneva and New York.
The prospect of the pornographic videos and photographs — now on sale in Congo — becoming public worries senior UN officials, who fear a UN version of the scandal at the American-run Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq. “It would be a pretty big problem for the UN if these pictures come out,” one senior official said.
Investigations have already turned up 150 allegations of sexual misconduct by peacekeepers and UN staff despite the UN’s official policy of “zero-tolerance”. One found 68 allegations of misconduct in the town of Bunia alone.
UN insiders told The Times that two Russian pilots based in Mbandaka paid young girls with jars of mayonnaise and jam to have sex with them.
They filmed the sessions and sent the tapes to Russia. But the men were tipped off and left the area before UN investigators arrived.
The Moroccan peacekeeping contingent based in Kisangani — a town on the Congo River with no road links to the outside world — had one of the worst reputations. A soldier accused of rape was apparently hidden in the barracks for a year.
In July 2002 the rebel commander Major-General Jean Pierre Ondekane, who subsequently became Minister of Defence in a postwar transitional government, told a top UN official that all that Monuc (the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo) would be remembered for in Kisangani was “for running after little girls”.
An international organisation examining the sex trade between Monuc and local women found that in March there were 82 women and girls who had been made pregnant by Moroccan men and 59 more by Uruguayan men.
According to UN insiders, at least two UN officials — a Ukrainian and a Canadian — have had to leave the country after getting local women pregnant.
Jordan’s Prince Zeid Raad Al Hussein, a special adviser to the UN Secretary-General, who led one investigative team, said in a confidential report obtained by The Times: “The situation appears to be one of ‘zero-compliance with zero- tolerance’ throughout the mission.”
Sexual exploitation and abuse mostly involves the exchange of sex for money (on average between $1 — 52p — and $3), for food — for immediate consumption or to barter — or for jobs, especially affecting daily workers, the prince’s report said.
Why am I not surprised? Let's see how much play this story gets...Then again...
"Zero tolerance". What a laugh. The UN has produced NOTHING good or worthy in decades.
Of course humiliating prisoners of war, of a totalitarian and viscious regime, is equivalent to Peacekeepers bribing starving civilians for sexual entertainment.
This is a keeper. Bookmarked for sending to liberal friends. They certainly won't read the story in the US media.
Bring out the Hellman's and bring out the best.
With a name like Smucker's, it's got to be good.
The UN, sending you the sexual perverts that they think you need.
I want to see pictures on the front pages of the NY Times and the WaPo, day after day, and I want to hear from them calls for accountability on the part of the leaders of the UN because this stuff obviously goes up the chain of command. Holding breath.
I wish we could beat them over the head with this. Massive demonstrations in front of the UN... Egg on their faces.
Sorry for the rant. I just so mad that nobody goes after these pompous a$$es and hold them accountable.
Don't you mean "Bring out the Hellman's and bring out the breast"?
They didn't hesitate to put Iraqi's with dog collars splashed all over the world.
Put them on tv.
It really did have to be said.
Nicely done.
Oh, and screw the UN. Friggin' hypocrite bastards.
You gotta admit the price is reasonable. Although apparently these pervs haven't heard about the prevalence of AIDS in Africa.
To even put the two articles in the same report is disgusting.
Click this picture & go to the "last" for the latest UN scandals:
Amazing.
And Kofi, and the rest of the. . .were sooooo into criticising USA. . .these are the worst and most dangerous hypocrits ever.
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