Posted on 05/29/2008 7:21:39 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - The United Nations on Thursday feted 60 years of peacekeeping around the world, with its overstretched "blue helmets" in high demand but somewhat tarnished by sex abuse and corruption scandals.
"Today, we have more than 110,000 men and deployed in conflict zones around the world," UN chief Ban Ki-moon said in a message to mark International Day of Peacekeepers.
"They come from nearly 120 countries, an all-time high, reflecting confidence in United Nations peacekeeping," he said.
And Jean-Marie Guehenno, the Frenchman who has led the UN peacekeeping department (DPKO) for the past eight years, also paid tribute to the blue helmets' "sacrifice and dedication in pursuit of the noble goals of the United Nations."
He noted that 90 peacekeepers died last year, taking the total number of personnel who have died since the first operation was established exactly 60 years ago to over 2,400.
Just Wednesday, a Ugandan policeman serving with the UN-African Union peacekeeping force (UNAMID) in Sudan's Darfur was found dead riddled with bullets. He was the first UNAMID peacekeeper to be killed since the joint force took over from an overstretched AU mission at the beginning of the year.
But Thursday's anniversary also came as UN peacekeepers faced new charges of sexual abuse and other misconduct.
The British Charity Save the Children on Monday issued a report alleging that "children as young as six are trading sex with aid workers and peacekeepers in exchange for food, money, soap and, in very few cases, luxury items such as mobile phones."
It also highlighted instances of rape, verbal sexual abuse, child pornography and prostitution and trafficking of youngsters, many of whom are poor, displaced or orphaned by conflict.
It said its findings were based on work with hundreds of youngsters from Ivory Coast, southern Sudan and Haiti.
And New York-based Human Rights Watch accused the UN of covering up allegations of embezzlement against Pakistani and Indian UN peacekeepers implicated in alleged arms and gold smuggling while serving in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The UN denied the charge.
The UN -- after turning a blind eye for decades to cases of sexual abuse by their troops -- recommended in 2005 that erring soldiers be punished, their salaries frozen and a fund established to aid any women or girls made pregnant. But this proposal was not accepted by member nations.
"It is the hard work, the sacrifice of thousands men and women working in difficult conditions which has helped to build UN peaceekeeping into the resilient, flexible and dynamic institution it is today," said Guehenno, who is to relinqish his post next July.
"But the indisputable fact of their self-sacrifice and service does not provide any excuse for misbehavior. UN service is a privilege ... not a right," he warned.
"When incidents of misconduct and misbehavior arise we must all those responsible be accountable and we must be unrelenting if we are to retain the trust of those we serve."
The world body does not have its own military force and depends on contributions from member states. As of last March, 118 countries contributed military and police personnel to UN peacekeeping.
The largest troop contributors are Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria and Nepal, which together provide more than 40 percent of all blue helmets.
The European Union, the United States and Japan are the top financial contributors to the UN peacekeeping budget, which now totals more than 6.5 billion dollars a year.
Last year, DPKO was split into a a reorganized peacekeeping unit, tasked with strategy, day-to-day direction and management, and a Department of Field Support that consolidate the support functions of UN field personnel, procurement and financial management.
Guehenno, who is credited with turning UN peacekeeping into a professionalized service, underscored how UN peace missions have grown in complexity over the years.
New operations involve a range of activities from security tasks, electoral assistance, disarmament and demobilization to human rights and infrastucture building support for post-conflict situations.
The first UN peacekeeping operation began in 1948 with the deployment of unarmed military observers of the UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) who were tasked with monitoring the Armistice Agreement between Israel and its Arab neighbors. UNSTO is still operating today.
A blue helmet should be considered an imminent threat and engaged immediately.
That is, if you want to keep your wife/daughters from being raped and/or sold into slavery.
You want real security
get that Rolling Thunder that just visited D.C.
I’d put my money on that group taking on the entire U.N. and their “blue helmets”.
“Peacekeeping?”
LOL
If I was drunk I’d cry from laughing.
Get the US out of the UN and the UN out of the US!
All I see is corruption and run and hide.
U.N. stands for Useless Nations.
Yeah, But at least they’re not torturing people like the US at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib./sarc
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