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DIPLOMATIC LICENSE

Current Events at the United Nations

Aired March 6, 2005 - 16:00:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are not engaged in a war. We are engaged in trying to create peace.

MERYL STREEP, ACTRESS: I feel like we are on a march of progress as a species and this is part of that battle. That's why I'm involved.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD ROTH, CNN HOST: Can the United Nations get a break?

Welcome to DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth.

The United Nations once one a Noble Peace Prize for peacekeeping, but I remain baffled how anyone can conduct peacekeeping operations in countries when the citizens are still fighting each other. Of course, in the last two weeks on the program we have talked about world failure to support peacekeepers in Rwanda and peacekeepers forcing young girls in Africa into sex.

What happened this week and is anything still going on?

U.N. forces in Congo killed up to 60 militia fighters. The mission was to search for weapons at a suspected militia hideout in the Ituri region of northeast Congo. The United Nations denies it was a retaliation raid in response to the ambush of nine Bangladeshi peacekeepers last week in what is currently the largest U.N. peacekeeping operation.

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KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: It is a very difficult and complex operation. It is also a very large country, and so the number of troops we have may not be adequate, but we are doing the best we can with what we've got.

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ROTH: Peacekeeping officials appealed for satellite and sensitive listening devices and surveillance equipment to keep tabs on the rebels and they are concerned about cross-border traffic. Hello Rwanda and Uganda, where the rebels may be getting help.

Of course, these fighters described by the United Nations as professional, not rag tag, have ties to political opponents that the United Nations would like to see in the new government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Hence, the U.N. peacekeeping dilemma in Congo.

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MARGARET CARLY, U.N. PEACEKEEPING DEPARTMENT: We need basic security on the ground so that the parties themselves can create peace and establish some kind of legitimate governance, and our role is to create that security and to protect innocent civilians who are preyed upon by these parties in the process.

We do not -- we are impartial. We do not fight a war against one party.

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ROTH: The United Nations representative in charge of the Congo mission, American William Swing, came to New York at the end of the week to talk. William Swing has been there, allegations of sexual abuse of Africans by U.N. peacekeepers have escalated. Despite rumors Swing would resign, Annan put out a statement after the meeting saying for the moment, with Swing's plate full, it wasn't time for a sudden change. Swing's term ends in June.

U.N. peacekeeping and sex, a natural topic for the U.S. Congress, which has been holding numerous hearings on the problems of the United Nations.

DIPLOMATIC LICENSE producer and reporter Liz Neisloss listened in.

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LIZ NEISLOSS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A U.N. peacekeeping official faced an angry U.S. Congressional committee over abuses in the Congo.

REP. CHRIS SMITH (R-NJ): Hundreds of vulnerable women and children are being revictimized. The reputation of the United Nations is being badly damages. When the peacekeepers become the exploiters, something is dreadfully wrong.

REP. JOHN BOOZEMAN (R-AR): I can't describe what kind of negative publicity this kind of stuff is doing as far as the United Nations and how it is not of in this country.

A couple of weeks ago, my wife came to me and she said, "John, is that true? You know, are U.N. peacekeepers trading peanut butter to little kids for sex?"

And I said, "That's true."

NEISLOSS: The problem, U.N. peacekeepers sexually abusing civilians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Young children where bribed with food or a few dollars to have sex. In the past year, the United Nations has looked into more than 150 allegations of sexual exploitations in Congo. 56 cases have emerged so far. More are expected.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I spoke to one woman who said to me that after she had had her child, she went to the peacekeeper who had fathered the child and who admitted paternity, actually. He sent her away with $100, promised to send more, and then, of course, he was rotated out. She doesn't know where he is and the commanding officers of his contingent now won't talk to her and have put up extra barbed wire around the fence so women like her don't come anymore.

NEISLOSS: The number two at U.N. peacekeeping told the members of Congress she shared their outrage.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The blue helmet has become black and blue through self-inflected wounds of some of our number and we will not sit still until the luster of that blue helmet is restored.

NEISLOSS. Every peacekeeper gets a copy of a code of conduct which says no sex with anyone under 18, no soliciting prostitutes.

Recently the United Nations announced a nonfraternization policy there, telling its peacekeepers no contact at all with the local population unless it is part of your job. That means no nightly visits to the local bar, a policy that only works with enforcement.

Annan says he needs 100 more police and investigators.

ANNAN: We want to make sure that all peacekeepers have this as part of their training and we shouldn't assume that it is only limited to Congo. You have to prepare for all locations.

NEISLOSS: For now, the United Nations has to leave to the governments to bring their soldiers to justice in their native countries, but it is unlikely witnesses would ever want to travel to testify.

One idea being floated, court marshalling soldiers in the country where the crime is committed.

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A senior U.N. official has been sent to the Congo to set up an investigative office, something that may become a permanent feature in the U.N. mission. But with the intense focus now on sexual abuse, Kofi Annan says the news on cases will get worse before it gets better -- Richard.

ROTH: Thank you, Liz.

To take us further now into the world of peacekeeping in the United Nations, some insight from some guests. In London is Paul Higate. He is a lecturer in social policy at the University of Bristol. Mr. Higate is studying the relationship between peacekeeping done by male soldiers and the local women. He is in our rather noisy empty London bureau.

In New York, Maggie Farley, the U.N. reporter for the "Los Angeles Times" at the United Nations. Ms. Farley was recently in Congo and interviewed young women who had to trade sex for food.

Paul Higate, you've ridden with the peacekeepers. Cyprus, Sierra Leone, Congo. Is this really just the tip of the iceberg, what we've been hearing about in Congo?

PAUL HIGATE, UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL: Well, I mean, I was in the Congo doing research in 2003, and my limited field work certainly suggested that, you know, there was abuse of younger women, women under the age of 18.

(AUDIO GAP) ROTH: What struck you, Maggie, in Bukabu (ph) and other places in Congo when you were there?

MAGGIE FARLEY, "LOS ANGELES TIME": How widespread it was and how long it had been going on without any real action.

The first cases were reported in 2001, just a year after the mission started, and it had really been brushed under the carpet until a few years later. Then there was a zero tolerance policy declared, but not necessarily implemented. They later found that there was zero compliance with zero tolerance.

Now they have a zero contact policy, and it is yet to be seen whether that is working or not.

ROTH: Paul Higate, when you are there, the atmosphere -- I mean, these people -- you write about these different experiences, when they come into contact, the locals with international peacekeepers, and the poverty they live in. Can you describe the interaction at least?

HIGATE: Well, I think the most important thing to stress on the interaction itself is that it is an interaction between two fundamentally unequal partners, if you will.

I mean, the local population of the Congo is a post-conflict society. They are incredibly poor. And the peacekeepers, in contrast, particularly military observers, are incredibly rich, if you want to put it like that. The mission support allowance gives them a significant amount of money on a daily basis, well beyond any figure that a Congolese citizen might consider.

NEISLOSS: And it doesn't take much. It is sex for $1 or a bottle of water or some bananas. It is really survival sex. These people are in very desperate situations and being taken advantage of.

ROTH: Paul Higate, tell us some anecdotes from some of the people you talked to and some of the peacekeepers and the young women.

HIGATE: Well, the peacekeepers stressed to me, and certainly it was born out in my observations, that, you know, they were, in the world of one peacekeeper, you know, fighting off the women. I mean, the peacekeepers would often tell me that it was the women that were, you know, coming on strong to me, what could they do, almost. It was some kind of displacement of responsibility for their actions.

I interviewed a number of them through translators, a number of local women in Kisangani (ph). One particular woman had been raped by a Ugandan or Rwandan militia and had been impregnated and subsequently she had resort to sex with Moroccan peacekeepers in order to support her child.

ROTH: How do you settle and stop this?

HIGATE: I think it is extremely difficult to stop it. I mean, I think that we've already talked about what can be done by the military, sort of authority, the hierarchy, if you like, the chain of command, to actually sanction peacekeepers who are found to be --

ROTH: Do you think the zero tolerance policy that Kofi Annan is trying to do, is it really going to be practical? His deputy secretary- general is traveling Africa preaching this this week.

HIGATE: Well, in all honestly, I don't think the zero tolerance policy is going to succeed. I mean, I think that when you ask these men to go away from their families or from their home countries for six months or a year, it is extremely -- you know, there is a sense that they may think that their biological needs, if you will, will drive them to have sex and they won't have much sort of choice over that.

So, I mean, there are all sorts of other things that you can do, like rotating the troops more frequently. Gender awareness training in a much more fundamental and, you know, comprehensive sense.

ROTH: Should William Swing, the U.N. rep there, have been kept on? It's kind of meaningless. It's only a few months. Was he going to be tossed under a bus, like many U.N. officials, where something bad happens under their watch? Or is the problem obviously much bigger?

FARLEY: He seems to have swung back into favor. His contract was going to end in June anyway, and June is an important month in the Congo because that's when their long-awaited elections are happening. So it was a bad time to change personnel, and he's actually very well respected and very active for a 70-year-old career diplomat.

ROTH: They liked him in Haiti and in other places.

We have to stop there, I'm sorry. Thank you, Paul Higate, lecturer and peacekeeping analyst at the University of Bristol, thank you for making the long trip for us to London. And Maggie Farley, of the "Los Angeles Times," based at the United Nations. Thank you both.

Coming up, death of a spy? The man who caught Eichmann.

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ROTH: Adolf Eichmann, on trial in Israel in 1961. Eichmann was a Nazi SS officer who was in charge of the Final Solution, killing 6 million Jews while Germany tried to conquer the world.

Eichmann eventually became the only person executed in Israel. He wasn't killed or captured when World War II ended. He fled to Argentina. For 14 years, there was no trace.

This week, the man who nabbed the top Nazi died here in New York City. Peter Malkin was an Israeli Mossad agent. He grabbed Eichmann and brought him to a safe house for 10 days before a secret flight to Israel. Later, he wrote a book called "Eichmann In My Hands."

How did Malkin capture Eichmann? Well, we don't like recreation of actual events here. I think the TNT channel movie "The Man Who Captured Eichmann" in 1996 captures the moment. Garibaldi (ph) Street, Buenos Aires.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

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ROTH: Malkin had a backup team with him. They filmed on the real Garibaldi (ph) Street, though his house had been turned into an auto mechanic shop years later.

Journalist Uri Dan in Israel was a close friend of Peter Malkin. DIPLOMATIC LICENSE asked him what Malkin's memories of tackling Eichmann were.

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URI DAN, JOURNALIST/FRIEND OF MALKIN: He walked on Garibaldi (ph) Street, one on one, to capture Eichmann, and say to himself maybe I went too far when I insisted that I will do it with my own hands. Since if I fail, 6 million pair of eyes are regarding me from the sky.

(AUDIO GAP)

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