Saturday, March 19, 2005
Just another reason why we should withdraw from the U.N.
It's bad enough that the U.N. has been involved in scandals such as the Oil-For-Food program and rumors of accepting bribes- the latest outrage, and what I think should be the final straw, is in this sex scandal in the Democratic Republic of Congo-
From Fox News:
U.N. peacekeepers in Congo sexually abused and exploited women and girls, some as young as 13, according to a report released by a U.N. watchdog agency Friday.
So now they're trying to report to hold them accountable, they say? Well shouldn't they have been held accountable for past violations of human rights and ethics too? Last I checked, Kofi Annan was still in the U.N. That's not exactly holding him accountable. But I digress.
Quite simply, some major changes need to occur in the U.N. Like maybe it should be disbanded all together-
"A major challenge for U.N. officials is imposing punishment on the guilty. Because of sovereignty issues, the United Nations doesn't have the authority to discipline peacekeepers who hail from its member states. And most countries don't want to give the world body that authority.
"It gets down to accountability and, the U.N. being an international body without sovereignty unto itself … It can't prosecute acts of heinous crimes of personnel and soldiers given to it by member states," Robert McClure, an American Army colonel who commanded an engineer battalion in Haiti to support a U.N. peacekeeping contingent, said. McClure spent two years on the U.N. peacekeeping staff keeping watch over U.N. missions in Sierra Leone and the Republic of Congo.
"If you [allow the U.N. to prosecute international personnel], then you supercede laws of the international nations … how much sovereignty does a state want to give up to the United Nations? And the answer is, not much," McClure said."
So basically, we CAN'T hold corrupt U.N. "peacekeepers" accountable for their actions on an international level. Then what can we do? We can get out and not associate on that kind of blatant human rights violations.
bravenet.com