RINJ / UN Peacekeeping Consultation: Women Needed



Download this document (pdf).  RINJ-UN Peacekeeping Consultation 

A need for radical change follows the Decision of a Court in France not to prosecute UN Peacekeeping Child Rapists.

Women Peacekeepers - More Needed
The RINJ Foundation Consultation on Peacekeeping

Women and children are the primary victims of war. Men fight wars. Women and children are displaced, raped, beaten, starved and murdered. Women now want the peacekeeping role.

UN Rapists are a threat to Children and their Mothers

Being raped in a United Nations’ Protection of Civilians (PoC) camp is not the fulfillment of a promise of safety that beckoned these people to be there. From a position of trust, UN Peacekeeping rapists commit the most heinous of crimes. It is a cancer the UN has been unable to treat because it so far can only accept what it gets as peacekeeping force contributions. The RINJ Foundation Women propose change.

The Cancer Within The United Nations

The United Nations and those who have been asked to prepare reports on the prolific problem of rape within the UN Peacekeeping regime continue suggesting that better reporting and accountability be provided. We suggest, “Don’t deploy rapists, deploy women instead.”

The report of Canadian Justice Marie Deschamp a year ago proposes several procedural absurdities (because it expects a system that hides its transgressions as it did with the abuse it levelled at the UN whistle blower Alders Kompass whose fight for integrity got her the job) that can be seen in the massive sets of institutional problems across Canada within the RCMP and among the Indigenous Peoples of Canada, many of whom are have been raped and gone missing.

  • Too many rapes go unreported.
  • Cases are not prosecuted.
  • The impunity of UN Peacekeepers is assured.
  • Justice is denied.

The United Nations must do for the communities it protects just what safe communities around the world do when they abide and enforce the rule of law. You increase the number of women on your enforcement team and above all: Don’t rape!

In the alternative, the U.N. “Boys will be Boys” attitude is going to be the death of the United Nations. That cancer must be eradicated.

Fighting for the safety of women and children.

The women of The RINJ Foundation seek to protect women and children. We women are speaking out on the Peacekeeping role of the UN which thus far works fine in concept but is a disaster in execution, especially when the news stories are not about peace but more about breaches of the peace and the raping of women and children.

UN Peacekeepers are raping the children. You already know they have been raping women for years. Now they rape the kids. You need to pay attention to this. Moms are FURIOUS. Many communities are now saying they do not want the dangerous UN presence.

“The patriarchal United Nations will unlock a maelstrom of ‘blowback’ if this does not get fixed,” said Katie Alsop of The RINJ Foundation.
“There is a problem with apathy and with the horrid example of member states, particularly the token service of members of the elitist Security Council which doesn’t seem to know how to even spell “Human Rights,” she added upon listening and reading many complaints from RINJ members in the region. “hearing this would make you angry too…”

In Malakal, South Sudan — a state where there are 13,000 UN Peacekeepers — at a Protection of Civilians camp housing and allegedly protecting 30,000 people, the mass rape of women has been reported.

UN peacekeepers claim to carry out regular armed patrols to secure the ground outside the camp but are accused by people of not being present. Even when they are present, they do not attend to reports of gender-based violence against women, when it is brought to their attention by the victims’ screams in the event. Violence against women resulting in rape, is not a priority, they say. That is disgusting truth and a disturbing reality that has tainted the once noble vision for UN Peacekeeping.

“The security guards and the peacekeepers at the gate saw me being captured. But they did nothing,” said Theresa, a resident and rape survivor who suffers from that violent rape.

The UN Secretary General has repeatedly invited suggestions for making ‘UN Peacekeeping’ work. Some observers say it doesn’t.

The former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said in a recent report to the Security Council, “There is a very real risk of mass atrocities being committed in South Sudan… it must be clearly understood that United Nations peacekeeping operations do not have the appropriate reach, manpower or capabilities to stop mass atrocities.”

When RINJ once said it had some ideas, the patriarchal UN which has never had a female Secretary-General, said, “Really? We are going to listen to a bunch of women instruct us on how to end wars?” 

Yes.

In the three years RINJ worked on the project, many criticisms of the United Nations were heard. Most were based on complete ignorance of events and the noble history of the United Nations and how it has evolved. Probably that is a fault of widespread apathy within education institutions and some shoddy media reporting in the fringe outlets.  The UN has taken some extremely unfair hits.


Please indulge us and read through our brief recall of events leading to the need for change. Yes we have our own slant on things. This is the perspective of women, survivors of your wars and ‘peacekeeping’ battles.


Forward

Forward by Robert Bothwell, University of British Colombia Press:

In the spring of 1945, a Canadian delegation took its place in the San Francisco opera house, under the careful supervision of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. They were there as members of “the United Nations,” the title given to the coalition of countries that was fighting Germany and Japan. They had come to the Pacific Coast city to celebrate the end of the Second World War, not by concluding a peace treaty, but to found an international organization that would prevent another war.

Mindful of the importance of the occasion, King had carefully included representatives from the opposition parties, who would be symbolically useful in signifying the unity of the Canadian people behind this new effort to secure the peace. But the politicians – those from the opposition, anyway – would not be doing the real work of the conference. That was reserved for the civil servants who, with civil servants from other countries, would hammer out the details, prepare the speeches, and advise their political masters on what to do, how to do it, and when. Prominent among the civil servants was Lester B. Pearson, the Canadian ambassador in Washington, one of Canada’s most effective and experienced diplomats who would eventually become the ‘father’ of the concept of UN Peacekeeping.

For Pearson the stakes were high in San Francisco. Bitter experience – the disunity and drift to war in the 1930s, and the failure of the League of Nations – drove him to embrace the new UN organization. Yet at the same time, Mackenzie King issued strict instructions as to how far the UN could or should go – reserving absolute sovereignty (with Canada in mind). Consent and consensus ruled, in King’s mind, and the actions of the UN should be made as non-automatic as possible. And, it should be said, King’s view was in the overwhelming majority at San Francisco.

The UN would be a collection of sovereign nations, but simultaneously, and officially, it was also an organization designed to prevent war – the ultimate sovereign act.

That was a significant power, but as one early observer of the UN put it,

“The greater the power which is prematurely given to an international organization, the more severe will be the checks which the Member states impose by way of escape from the excessive powers thus granted.” (This could also be said about the International criminal Court [ICC] ed.)

UN Peacekeeping Must Evolve

Evolving UN in a Changing World

The UN in the 1950s looked nobly towards the beginnings of a Super-State and moving forward from the anarchic self-help and war of the old world.

This gathering of  ‘eagles’ post-WWII was the prelude to successful UN Peacekeeping in the Suez.

Since that time the Peacekeeping concept worked on projects which were truly capable of peacekeeping, meaning a truce or other conclusive ending to the conflict was at hand.

The nature of sectarian disputes may have changed or is it the preponderance of weapons and greedy fools willing to sell them? No matter the answer to the “Why” question, the perceived measure of most UN operations has been wrongly summed up in one word: “failure”.

By the 1990s, perceived acceptance became the norm for mild yardsticks against the Falklands Crisis, El Salvador, Angola and Mozambique.

Then came the controverted UNPROFOR/UNMIBH UN Peacekeeping efforts under Boutros Boutros-Ghali in the former Yugoslavia/Bosnia-Herzegovina. These missions came into being after the former Western European Union failed to handle the problems that followed Yugoslavia’s benevolent dictator Tito’s death.

The scrutiny of UNPROFOR was unstudied but correct in its assessment that this was an unmitigated disaster. NATO for sure saved the day.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali was a brilliant leader and steered the UN through some difficult minefields. Nevertheless the USA never gave Boutros-Ghali a chance and despite overwhelming support for him the US vetoed his reappointment in 1996–likely another classic error of US foreign policy amidst the disastrous Battle of Mogadishu and the violent disintegration of the former Yugoslavia.

An Accelerating Rate of Change

The end of the so-called Cold War saw the world exploding into a predicted melee of sectarian disasters and the battle of the economic “haves” versus the “have-nots”. The rich and the poor seem to hate each other.

The former Yugoslav elements blew up into war and by its end, more than 400,000 Muslim-converts from the Ottoman era were slaughtered in a most disgusting rampage of Serbs led by mass-murdering psychopaths.

This massacre led directly to radical Islamist’s 2001 revenge-massacre of 3,000 people in the United States.

That attack in the United States would have to be the most colossal gaff of any large group of people in all the human experience.

9/11/2001“.  It changed the course of human development and alienated Islam’s strongest supporter and saviour.  Today, the average American is sick to their stomachs over Islam. Why?

 Missed Opportunities to broker a peace. UN Lost Relevance

Breach of the peace: An Ironic Footnote in History on Islam’s Iron Grip on Stupidity

  • The misogyny of Radical Islam is the first pillar of its existence hence radical Radical Islam is no friend of the RINJ women. It’s ideology is the enemy of human existence, for without women there will be no human species.
  • Radical Islam is a violently evil patriarchy.
  • Islam’s hatred for modernization led to the hatred of the United States.

The United States saved many hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Boznia-Herzegovina by entering the former Yugoslavia dispute with an initial 22,000 troops and air power to stop the ethnic-cleansing of Muslims by the revolting Serbs and fix the mess that Europe had allowed on its doorstep. The United States military performing in a manner never before attempted, policed and returned to normalcy the mess that every other entity had failed. Probably the Serb killing spree, supported by Russia, would have gone on and slaughtered another 500,000.

Breach of the peace: An Historic Footnote on America’s Iron Grip on Stupidity

As a supposed response to the vicious attack on New York and Arlington Virginia by extremist Islamists and based on an argument that Iraq possessed ‘weapons of mass-destruction’, U.S. President George Bush led the United States in an armed military  invasion of Iraq that would cost the lives of more than half a million Iraq civilians.  (The RINJ Foundation has asked the ICC and in the alternative the global community to indict President Bush for this crime against humanity.)

On September 14, 2004 in a BBC World Service Interview, the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan noted that, “I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter. From our point of view and from the charter point of view it was illegal.”

The “Iraq War” was both illegal and breached the UN Charter, said Kofi Anan, quietly,  in September 2004.

Little did Mr. Anan know then that this invasion would slaughter between 500,000 and 1 million innocents by the year 2011. Bush’s invasion ironically pretty much ended the existence of Christianity in its birthplace.

Americans may be Angry at The United Nations but the UN was dead right & the World Agrees.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians were killed when foolish but ambitious men were driven by their brand of religious fundamentalism and persuaded to hate beyond reason Iraq’s despotic leader, Saddam Hussein.

Mr. Hussein should have been indicted under the then new Rome Statute.

Mr. George W. Bush’s casting aside the rule of law (“in the name of God”?) plus bullying Iraq away from the ICC/Rome Statute backfired as a malfeasance that ended in a bloodshed of epic magnitude. Honest hindsight continues to condemn this misguided wilful slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents by a nation screaming for blood over an unrelated event – “9/11”. It’s either a brainwashed or a ignorant society that behaves in this manner just as can be said for those of other religions who whose conduct reflects the same scurrilous violence.

The blood from G. W. Bush’s crime continues to pour red all over the world. We sense a regret in the hearts of every American we talk to about this so many years later. Whatever could have possessed 300 million people to support such a horrible crime against humankind? Where was the sober second thought–the voice of reason. The UN should have been raising the roof but instead was stumped.

George W. Bush  must be indicted in 2017 for unlawful aggression and a crime against humanity that occurred in 2003.

Has the UN become a Pariah?

So why do we bring up this quid pro quo bloodletting based on utter stupidity and hatred?

Because the UN had its chance to be instrumental in preventing war and championing the peace. It didn’t. After the UN failed these opportunities to be relevant to the dream that created the organization, things went downhill to the point where the UN is a pariah in some quarters.

UN Mission-Impossible

It takes a certain type of mindset in a certain type of person to  foment global policy and mindset for harmony. One needs to think this way and lead unwaveringly.

Our work for peace must begin within the private world of each one of us. To build for man a world without fear, we must be without fear. To build a world of justice, we must be just. And how can we fight for liberty if we are not free in our own minds? How can we ask others to sacrifice if we are not ready to do so?… Only in true surrender to the interest of all can we reach that strength and independence, that unity of purpose, that equity of judgment which are necessary if we are to measure up to our duty to the future, as men of a generation to whom the chance was given to build in time a world of peace.” – Dag Hammarskjöld

The missions in Somalia, Rwanda, the Congo and Haiti were misadventures of an underfunded, under-equipped UN in a time when the world was boiling into a new set of adversaries in the immediate post-Cold War era.

  • The Somalia fiasco cost 800,000 lives.
  • A total loss of 500,000 mostly Muslim civilians took place in an ethnic-cleansing rampage in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
  • Over the course of 100 days from April 6 to July 16 1994, an estimated 800,000 to 1 million Tutsis and some moderate Hutus were slaughtered in the Rwandan genocide.

Can you see the trend in the numbers? Maybe global leadership has come to think these are not big numbers. Their arrogance is such that they believe they can make life and death decisions — act or ignore — a million civilians killed?

The RINJ Foundation, has warned and been fully supported in that warning by the UN, of an impending disaster in Mosul, Iraq. It is upon us.

With the experience of its hundred health care workers and volunteers inside Mosul, Iraq since 2012, RINJ has repeatedly warned about a million people in total put at risk in Mosul Iraq by the US-led Coalition’s decision: not allowing the civilians to leave the city while an alleged-100,000 troops invade and a boasted 100,000 aerial bombing missions are conducted.

The UN has erred in that aspect by appearing to support the Iraqi government order to force civilians to stay in the city (presumably because the UN is financially broke grossly inefficient and cannot sustain the refugees from Mosul, were they to leave the city.

Tens of thousands of now-dead Mosul civilians would have been better off subsisting on the plains this winter rather than being blasted to bits in Mosul.

What does the Syrian & Iraq conflagration tell you?

  1. The worst man-made catastrophe of the 21st century is under way. 
  2. Not in the concept of the United Nations and not in its amazing leadership lies the problem.  
  3. We haven’t said much about it but the ridiculous three-stooges, China-Russian-American rivalries are disabling the Security Council along with any prospect for peace all over the world.
  4. The despotic leaders of many member states should be imprisoned and not be leaders of anything. How can they be a contributor to the globe when they are slaughtering their own constituents?
  5. Remembering the right to life is fundamental as is the responsibility of all governments to care for their constituent children and their families, the leadership of non-member states or quasi-states causing human catastrophes should be globally indicted on first contraindications of their legitimacy and imprisoned long before their criminal malfeasance can take root.

Because of the times and not because of the man,  Boutros Boutros-Ghali became the most controversial UN Secretary General from 1 January 1992 – 31 December 1996.

Every time Boutros-Ghali opened his mouth to talk in the early 90s you should have known you were listening to someone in a position far beyond anyone’s  ability. Unsupported by members, understaffed, underfunded and poorly defined, the United Nations in the 1990s did not have a snowball’s chance in hell of preventing the enormous number of deaths in the period resulting from sectarian violence around the world.

“When I was elected in 1991, we thought the U.N. would be able to solve all the world’s problems with a few thousand troops. Suddenly we discovered that rather than one or two operations, we had 17; rather than a few thousand, we needed 70,000 soldiers; rather than spending $600 million for the peacekeeping, we needed $4 billion.” – B. Boutros-Ghali

These missions produced as many as one and a half  million deaths and countless human rights violations of the living.

The Brahimi Reports

On 13 November 2000, the UN Security Council welcomed the report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations “Brahimi Report”) and unanimously adopted a wide-ranging resolution containing recommendations and decisions on peacekeeping operations.

After publishing two reports in 1999 which highlighted the United Nations failure to prevent genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and to protect the inhabitants of Srebrenica (Bosnia and Herzegovina) in 1995, Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations. He asked the Panel to assess the shortcomings of the then existing peace operations system and to make specific and realistic recommendations for change. The panel was composed of individuals experienced in conflict prevention, peacekeeping and peacebuilding.

The result, known as the “Brahimi Report” after Lakhdar Brahimi, the Chair of the Panel, called for renewed political commitment on the part of Member States, significant institutional change, and increased financial support.

The RINJ Foundation agrees with the spirit of the Brahimi recommendations but not the methods. RINJ is offering to consult with the United Nations in the formation of a better UN Peacekeeping force, an all-female team for actual PeaceKeeping missions where the hostilities have concluded by treaty or by victory of one or the other sides in the conflict.

The RINJ Foundation - UN Consultation on Peacekeeping

In order to be effective, UN peacekeeping operations must be properly resourced and equipped and operate under clear, credible and achievable mandates.

The rules of conduct for peacekeepers have been lightweight window-dressing. The training of jingoistic male soldiers has yielded what should have been an expected result.

Until now, in addition to being a war-fighting soldier, to be a Peacekeeper you must:

  • Dress, think, talk, act and behave in a manner befitting the dignity of a disciplined, caring, considerate, mature, respected and trusted soldier, displaying the highest integrity and impartiality.
  • Treat the inhabitants of the host country with respect, courtesy and consideration. You are there as a guest to help them.
  • Neither solicit or accept any material reward, honor or gift.
  • Do not indulge in immoral acts of sexual, physical or psychological abuse or exploitation of the local population — especially women and children.
  • Respect and regard the human rights of all.
  • Exercise the utmost discretion in matters that can put lives at risk.
  • OK. Now you are a peacekeeper. (Not.)

Women in Policing / Peacekeeping

For most of this millennium, the global patriarchy has kept women out of both military and para-military law enforcement. In the same time the rule of law has failed more often and the spread of unfettered violence, even state-sponsored murder,  has increased.

Efforts to recruit and retain more women are thwarted by the patriarchal nature of law enforcement, and, in part, that is why numbers remain stagnant or continue to decline. And yet, recent changes in policing philosophy, emphasizing problem solving and community over intervention, have brought to light glaring inefficiencies and injustices.

Women Peacekeepers

Widespread excessive force, rape and corruption scandals, overwhelmingly attributed to male police officers, are costing cities millions of dollars a year in lawsuit payouts. The same problems exist among peacekeepers.

Because female officers utilize a different law enforcement style and rely less on physical force and more on communications skills, potentially violent confrontations and are less likely to occur, or escalate into excessive force situations. Thus citizen complaints, or civil liabilities, are substantially less likely to occur.

Moreover, women are not likely to rape the children within their protectorate as do the current male dominated peacekeeping regime members.

The UN Sex for Food Program*

UN Peacekeepers in Africa frequently demand oral sex from children in exchange for food.

RINJ Consultative Process - Peacekeeping Gender Change

The United Nations’ boys club seems ‘OK’ with its elements raping women or ignoring others who rape. In that they are just like most of the global patriarch’s shameful conduct, something we must deal with on a daily basis.

“Some U.N. leaders and most peacekeeping commanders and officers seem to have an attitude that “boys will be boys” when it comes to satisfying their sexual desires with any woman or girl available. But every year there are hundreds of allegations of U.N. peacekeepers committing sexual exploitation, rape, and abuse of women and children.” (Thomas W. Jacobson President, International Diplomacy & Public Policy Center, LLC, March 2012)

But raping children is not a “boys will be boys” thing, it is a “sick-bastard” thing.

Sexual Exploitation and Abuse of Women and Children by Peacekeepers

UN whistle blower Alders Kompass barely scratched the surface when he reported to the French government that France’s peacekeepers in Central African Republic (CAR) were raping the kids in their area of operation.

According to a report written by Secretary-General-Appointed Canadian Supreme Court Justice and released by Secretary-General Ban Ki‑moon a year ago,

“in the course of the Review it became clear that in the eyes of many UN staff, the human rights framework does not apply to allegations of sexual violence by peacekeepers. As a result, where there is an allegation that a peacekeeper not operating under UN command has sexually assaulted a civilian (and the SEA Policies do not apply), some UN staff take the view that the UN has no obligation, or indeed authority, to address the reported sexual violence. “

Read the entire report if you so desire. Download Justice-Marie-Deschamps-Independent-Review-Report

Rapists Cannot Be UN Peacekeepers

RINJ Submission: UN Peackeeping Gender Change

  1. In the United Nations & within its leadership lies the potential for peace and human development.
  2. The UN must oversee the protection of humanity.
  3. Rivalries disabling the Security Council along with any prospect for peace all over the world must be labeled as dysfunction and overruled.
  4. Remembering the right to life is a fundamental human right and considering the responsibility of all governments to care for their constituent children and their families as fundamental to human development, the leadership of member states, non-member states or quasi-states causing human catastrophes should be globally indicted on first contraindications of their criminality and imprisoned long before their malfeasance can take root and destroy another part of humanity.
  5. An all woman rule-of-law enforcement force must train and comprise the primary UN-commanded peacekeeping brigades.
  6. UN Peacekeepers will not be deployed without a resolutely defined and backed role-definition.
  7. UN Peacekeepers will not be deployed without there being a credible end to hostilities.
  8. UN Peacekeepers will be suitably equipped and supported to complete the mission.
  9. UN Peacekeepers will be under UN Command and a standing force will be maintained.
  10. The RINJ Foundation is willing to bid on a contract to train and manage the force or in the alternative or both, to provide its know-how, expertise and good counsel at cost.

Bibliography:
1 – Justice Marie Deschamps Independent Review Report Pdf Doc
Justice-Marie-Deschamps-Independent-Review-Report.pdf – 5447 kb
2 – N5902484 Pdf Doc
N5902484.pdf – 16708 kb
3 – Rinj Brahimi Report Exec Summary Pdf Doc
RINJ-Brahimi_Report_Exec_Summary.pdf – 43 kb
4 – Rinj Un Rape 13august2015 Pdf Doc
RINJ-UN-rape-13August2015.pdf – 156 kb
5 – Rinj Women In Policing Pdf Doc
RINJ-women-in-policing.pdf – 452 kb
6 – Sexual Misconduct Canadian Forces Era Final Report (April 20 2015) Eng Pdf Doc
Sexual-Misconduct-Canadian-forces-era-final-report-(april-20-2015)-eng.pdf – 623 kb
7 – Rinj Sexual Assault Report Form Pdf Doc
The-RINJ-Foundation-Sexual-Assault-Report-Form.pdf – 581 kb
8 – Working With The Icc Pdf Doc
rinj-working-with-the-icc.pdf – 469 kb
9 – Un Peacekeeping Failures Pdf Doc
un_peacekeeping_failures.pdf – 173 kb
10 – Volume 1526 I 26465 English Pdf Doc