Concerns about the quality, training and ethics of peacekeepers are growing as developing nations with questionable human rights records increasingly send troops for international peacekeeping operations
- From: Chim <ChimS1@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2007 16:22:18 -0700
UN official: better peacekeepers needed
By WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writer
Sat Jul 28, 3:27 PM ET
VIENNA, Austria - U.N. standards for selecting peacekeepers are too
low, and soldiers from countries whose armies are suspected of abuse
should not be considered for peacekeeping duty, the U.N.'s chief anti-
torture investigator said.
U.N. special rapporteur Manfred Nowak also told the Austrian news
magazine Profil in an interview for Monday's editions that the U.N.
should reconsider forming its own professional standing army.
Concerns about the quality, training and ethics of peacekeepers are
growing as developing nations with questionable human rights records
increasingly send troops for international peacekeeping operations,
Nowak said.
"The criteria are not very high," he told Profil, which released
excerpts of the interview on Saturday. "The U.N. must impose stricter
standards in recruiting soldiers."
Nowak did not mention past abuses by soldiers from the U.S., Britain
and other Western countries who have formed the bulk of many
peacekeeping operations worldwide.
In the excerpts, Nowak also did not explicitly say whether he thought
an entire army should be disqualified from contributing peacekeepers
to U.N. operations if a few of its troops were found to be guilty of
torture or rights violations.
Nowak did single out soldiers from Morocco, who are alleged to have
abused minors in Ivory Coast.
The U.N. has said its own investigation "revealed serious allegations
of widespread sexual exploitation and abuse" by Moroccan peacekeepers
in the West African country, where about 9,000 U.N. troops have been
deployed since 2003 to help prevent all-out civil war.
Last week, a 730-member battalion of Moroccan troops was confined to
its barracks in the northern Ivorian city of Bouake shortly after the
U.N. began receiving allegations of the abuse of minors there. U.N.
spokeswoman Margherita Amodeo said only one unit of the battalion was
allegedly involved.
The allegations are the first of their kind against the U.N. mission
in Ivory Coast, though U.N. officials have said that more than 300
members of U.N. peacekeeping missions around the world have been
investigated for sexual exploitation and abuse over the past three
years in nations including Congo, Cambodia and Haiti.
Moroccan officials were unavailable for comment Saturday, but the
French daily Le Monde reported that U.N. and Moroccan authorities
would go to Ivory Coast next Tuesday to investigate.
Nowak also highlighted Nepal, where he alleged there is "systematic"
torture.
He told Profil he would recommend that "as long as the military in
Nepal tortures, no (Nepalese) troops should be consulted for
peacekeeping missions."
In 2005, Nowak alleged that armed forces in Nepal routinely tortured
Maoist rebels to extract confessions or information.
He said his investigation found that troops beat detainees with bamboo
poles or plastic pipes, applied electric shocks to their ears, rolled
iron rods over their thighs and tied up some so they were hanging
upside down.
Although Nowak said senior army and police officials admitted to the
alleged abuses, the Royal Nepalese Army denied the accusations at the
time. Nepalese authorities did not immediately react to the U.N.
envoy's latest remarks.
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