Where’s The Outrage, Part II: The UN Sex For Food Scandal
By Aaron Goldstein (06/07/04)
Recently, I penned an article concerning the response of the left wing press to the execution of Nicholas Berg. The response ranged from not reporting the story at all to blaming the incident on the United States and Israel – the favorite straw men of the Left.
The Left continues to carp on Abu Ghraib even though some of the soldiers have been punished while others still face trial. The Left wants a pound of flesh in the form of resignations from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice for starters. This would only undermine the Bush Administration and that is precisely what the Left wants. How else to explain the rantings of Senator Edward Kennedy, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and most recently former Vice President Al Gore in his infamous address in front of MoveOn.org at New York University? If it did not harm the Bush Administration, the Left would not have shed a tear for the prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
For those who might doubt this conclusion need look no further than the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly known as Zaire) at the disgraceful behavior of the United Nations peacekeeping force in that country. Known as MONUC (UN Mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo), it was recently revealed by the UK newspaper The Independent that MONUC soldiers had been raping and impregnating girls as young as thirteen years old in exchange for food. The MONUC soldiers are from Morocco and Uruguay.
Kate Holt and Sarah Hughes, who co-authored the article, interviewed more than thirty girls who disclosed that they had been raped by the soldiers. Testimony from one girl named Faela is particularly chilling:
“If I go and see the soldiers at night and sleep with them, then they give me food, maybe a banana or a cake,” she says, looking down at her son. “I have to do it with them because there is nobody to care, nobody else to protect Joseph except me. He is all I have and I must look after him.”
Faela is only thirteen years old.
These girls live in a camp for displaced person in Bunia that was set up by Atlas, an NGO, under UN supervision. Many of them came from the Ituri province, in the northeast of the country, which has been devastated by ethnic strife. Many of these girls are without families and have no one to feed, shelter and protect them. NGO workers seem afraid of the MONUC soldiers and are unwilling to help those who are most vulnerable. One relief worker who spoke to Holt and Hughes on the condition of anonymity said, “Yes, we know that girls go and visit the UN soldiers every night. There is nothing to stop them, and the girls need food. It is best to keep quiet, though. I am frightened that if I say something I may lose my job, and I have children of my own to feed.”
While the UN has announced an internal investigation into the matter there is little reason to be optimistic. First of all, since the girls are “internally displaced persons” they do not come under the mandate of the UN High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR). As for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), its head Matteo Frontini, while concerned with the girls, said, “(T)here is an urgent need for more UN agencies to be operational in Bunia, as well as an increased response from the Congolese government.” Well, Frontini did not name the UN agencies he thought should be involved and given that the Congolese government is in the midst of a civil war don’t count on them to be forthcoming with assistance.
Surely, one would think that the rape of girls in a refugee camp would warrant the same level of attention as abuse of terrorists in a war prison. But so far Senator Kennedy, House Minority Leader Pelosi and former Vice President Gore who can’t talk enough about Abu Ghraib fall silent when it comes to girls being raped by UN peacekeepers. So far left wing periodicals such as The Nation, The Progressive, The American Prospect and Mother Jones have been also been silent choosing to focus on Abu Ghraib.
And I thought the Left cared about the rights of women and girls and opposed their exploitation. So why the silence concerning the Congo? I can think of three reasons:
A) The Left cannot find the Democratic Republic of the Congo on a map.
B) The Left believes that the UN is above criticism.
C) The Left cannot blame the United States or Israel for the rape of the Congolese girls.
The first reason admittedly is a bit of an exaggeration, of course. But given their tunnel vision concerning the Middle East it is not far from the truth. The second reason has been demonstrated amply in recent years with the Left looking upon the UN as a sacrosanct organization that need not be accountable for its action. The Left looked the other way as the UN has fumbled its way in Angola, Bosnia, Cambodia and most notably in Rwanda. As for the third reason, you can bet that if the incident in the Democratic Republic of the Congo involved Americans and Israelis it would make the front page of The New York Times everyday for a month as Abu Ghraib has done. But in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Al Gore has no one to admonish with a “How dare they”. Ted Kennedy will not criticize the management of Congolese displacement camps. Nancy Pelosi will not declare that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to be incompetent. General Anthony Zinni has no Jews he can blame.
No one should have a monopoly on caring for our fellow man. But in America, the only persons and organizations that have drawn attention are the Fox News Channel, Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review Online and Andrew Sullivan of www.andrewsullivan.com.
Once again, I am left to shake my head and am forced to ask: Where’s the Outrage?
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