|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 26th, 2008 Mugabe’s War - By Jacob Laksin, FrontPageMagazine.com - Thursday, June 26, 2008. Alongside death and taxes, count Robert Mugabe’s election this Friday among life’s more depressing certainties. Thus was unleashed “Operation Makavhoterapapi?” (Operation Where Did You Put Your Vote?). The question is not rhetorical. A months-long campaign of state-backed repression and mass terror, it has targeted all who dared to vote against Mugabe in March. Thousands have been brutalized; dozens, if not hundreds, are dead. Those Zimbabweans that have not fled the country have been scared into submission. Even Tsvangirai, no stranger to intimidation and worse at the hands of Mugabe’s thugs, has withdrawn from what he calls a “violent sham of an election,” despairing that he “can’t ask the people to cast their vote on June 27 when that vote will cost their lives.” In fact, it already has. The MDC says that at least 86 of its supporters have been killed since the March 29 vote. Human-rights watchdogs conservatively estimate that at least 10,000 Zimbabweans have been beaten and tortured by ruling-party militias. At least 2,000 have been jailed. Bearing the brunt of Mugabe’s vengeance are Zimbabwe’s rural provinces. Deemed a hotbed sedition and MDC support by Mugabe, they have been beset by the Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), a combination of police, army veterans and other uniformed sadists who serve, in cold-blooded fashion, as Mugabe’s henchmen. Instances of ZANU-PF brutality are too many to enumerate, but a few stand out for their sheer depravity. In one case, a man was beaten and castrated with barbed wire, dying later that day in a what Human Rights Watch describes as a “leaning position because he couldn’t lie on his stomach due to his injuries.” The victim’s crime? He had been listening to the March 29 election results on a Voice of America radio program. In another village, a 76-year old woman was dragged before a crowd and beaten with logs until residents confessed to being MDC supporters. Whether they were in fact sympathetic to the MDC is irrelevant; fear, not facts, is the business of Mugabe’s terror squads. So, too, with the “reeducation camps” that have sprung up across Zimbabwe. Intended to instill fear and root out alleged traitors, the camps are a testament to Mugabe’s murderous paranoia. Writing in the New York Review of Books, Joshua Hammer records this chilling scene: On the evening of May 5, ruling-party thugs descended on three villages in Mashonaland Central province, a former Mugabe stronghold that had turned decisively against the dictator on March 29. Repeating a pattern that has been seen throughout rural Zimbabwe, villagers were summoned to a “reeducation meeting,” where they were forced to denounce the MDC and pledge their allegiance to the ZANU-PF. Then names were called, and those singled out were hustled into the darkness. “Next we heard the whips and screams,” a witness named Bernard Pungwe said, describing a night-long rampage that left six MDC supporters dead and dozens injured. “Every time someone screamed hard the chairman of the meeting would stop his lecture and say: ‘Listen to the traitors, they are dying.’” It’s not an isolated incident. At another “reeducation” meeting, armed government soldiers dispensed live ammunition to the villagers. As they held the bullets in their hand, soldiers warned: “If you vote for MDC in the presidential runoff election, you have seen the bullets, we have enough for each one of you, so beware.” Pre-election violence is nothing new in Zimbabwe. In the past, Mugabe’s regime has been known to ratchet up its intimidation in the run up to a vote. Never before, however, has the violence reached its current scale. “What is happening now,” Human Rights Watch observes, “eclipses the violence in any previous election.” That Mugabe must rely on violence as an instrument of policy highlights just how miserably he has failed his country. The economy is a case in point. Independent estimates place inflation at over 165, 000 percent, with food staples especially hard hit. In the last year, the price of chicken has risen by 236,000 percent, eggs by 153,000 percent. A loaf of bread, now priced at over $30 billion Zimbabwean dollars, is unaffordable and, to most Zimbabweans, unavailable. Food shortages are frequent, the legacy of Mugabe’s disastrous seizure of white-owned farms in 2002, a move that crippled the most productive sector of the country’s fallow economy. Unemployment now tops 80 percent. Worse, there is no relief in sight. Western countries have passed sanctions and issued the requisite condemnations, but to little effect. An “African solution” to Mugabe’s menace, meanwhile, is not forthcoming. With a few exceptions – Botswana, Tanzania, and more recently Angola – the continent has been content to look on as Mugabe wars on his own people. Most disgraceful in this regard has been the South African government of Thabo Mbeki. As the leader of Zimbabwe’s neighbor and largest trading partner in Africa, Mbeki is ideally placed to pressure Mugabe. Instead, out of misplaced sympathy for the man he considers a hero of the struggle against apartheid, Mbeki repeatedly has given the dictator a pass. Zimbabweans have paid a terrible price for his silence. Not only will this week’s programmed election not change that, but it will likely usher in worse torments for the country. Echoing Mugabe’s preferred presidential slogan – “The Final Battle for Total Control” – one senior ZANU-PF official recently declared, “This is not going to be an election. This is going to be a war.” Let no one say that they haven’t been warned. Permalink | ### |
Printer Friendly
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 1st, 2008 nbsp;washingtonpost.com > World > Africa - looking at a new mess in the making. U.S. Africa Command Trims Its Aspirations - Nations Loath to Host Force - Aid Groups Resisted Military Plan to Take On Relief Work. The U.S. Africa Command, designed to boost America’s image and prevent terrorist inroads on the continent, has scaled back its ambitions after Africom, due to begin operations Oct. 1, will now be based for the foreseeable future in Stuttgart, Germany, with five smaller regional offices planned for the continent on hold while the military searches for places to put them. “I don’t think we should push African governments to a place they don’t really want to go in terms of relationships,” Gates said. Africa has always been an orphan in the U.S. defense establishment, divvied up among the Pentagon’s four regional “Unified Combatant Commands” — European, Central, Southern and Pacific — that manage U.S. military relationships and operations overseas. Of the four, only Eucom, established in post-World War II Germany, is based overseas. Pacom handles Asia from its headquarters in Hawaii; Southcom, responsible for Latin America, and Centcom, in charge of operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, are both in Florida. There was no Africom - period - probably Nigerian oil was left to be handled by the local ccoperative rulers. That was good until the Chinese showed up. Now the Indians, the Japanese, the Brazilians, are not far behind. www.SustainabiliTank.info comments.} Under Africom, one command will consolidate military responsibility for all of Africa, excluding Egypt. Although it encompasses the volatile Horn of Africa and the U.S. Navy’s forward operating base in Djibouti and will take over training tasks on the continent, it has no other dedicated troop components. “There are very few scenarios which would create a U.S. military intervention” in Africa, said one Africom officer who was not authorized to speak on the record. “Arguably, there are no scenarios.” “If you know the politics of Africa,” said Opande, who has headed U.N. peacekeeping forces in Sierra Leone and Liberia, “you know there are certain very powerful countries who said, no, we are not interested in having a headquarters here.” South Africa and Nigeria were among them, and their resistance helped persuade others. “I think everyone thought it would be widely greeted as something positive,” the Africom officer said. “But you suddenly have wide publics that have no idea what we’re talking about. . . . It was seen as a massive infusion of military might onto a continent that was quite proud of having removed foreign powers from its soil.” {it seems that the expectation was similar to Iraq -they will embrace the US army as liberators. ?}
“I’ll be candid with you: There was a misunderstanding of sorts,” said Ward, Africom’s commander. African governments he has visited since his confirmation last fall, he said, wanted to know “were we going to be establishing large bases, bringing in large formations of troops, naval bases and air squadrons? My answer was no.” To USAID and other U.S. government development partners, worried that the military’s vast human and financial resources would overshadow them, Ward said he has explained that “we absolutely have no intention of being the leader in doing development on the continent of Africa. It is not our job, not our lane. We have no intention of taking over.” {will next Administration be able to correct these impressions, while still be able to take a closer look at Islamic extremism ? And what is the story about Egypt?} Permalink | ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on May 26th, 2008 Defiant Mugabe threatens to expel US ambassador: “I’ll kick him out of the country.” By Cris Chinaka, for the Independent of London, as per Reuters. The Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, accused the United States of political interference and threatened to expel its ambassador yesterday, as his party, Zanu-PF, began its campaign for next month’s election run-off. Mr Mugabe also said the US State Department’s top diplomat for Africa had behaved like “a prostitute” by suggesting that the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, had won the elections on 29 March. He also promised land to Zimbabweans who returned from South Africa. Some 3.5 million people have fled the country to escape poverty in an economy where inflation is more than 165,000 per cent; four in five adults have no job; and food and fuel are in desperately short supply. ——————
Last week, a meeting of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in Harare and a rally had been planned for his return. In the end, he came back in typically low-key style, speeding off in a three-car convoy to a Harare hospital where victims of political violence were being treated. “I return home to Zimbabwe with a sad heart,” he said afterwards. “I have met and listened to the stories of the innocent people targeted by a regime seemingly desperate to cling to power.” Mr Tsvangirai faces a presidential run-off against Mr Mugabe on 27 June. Independent human rights groups say opposition supporters have been beaten and killed by ruling party thugs to ensure the 84-year-old President, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, wins the second round. He trailed the MDC leader in the first round on 29 March. “Mugabe once led our people to freedom,” Mr Tsvangirai said. “He can now set his people free from poverty, hunger and fear” by stepping down. The violence poses questions about whether the run-off can be free and fair, but the opposition candidate did not expect his supporters to stay away from the polls. “If Mugabe thinks he has beaten people into submission, he will have a rude shock on the 27th,” he said. Mr Tsvangirai said farewell to his family in Johannesburg, and said it was not clear when his wife and six children would join him. Among the assassination attempts the 56-year-old has survived was one in 1997 by unidentified assailants who tried to throw him from a 10th-floor window. Last year, he was brutally assaulted by police at a “prayer rally”, and images seen around the world of his bruised and swollen face came to symbolise the plight of the opposition in Zimbabwe. When Mr Tsvangirai left Zimbabwe early in April, he said he wanted to present regional leaders with information that Mr Mugabe planned attacks on the opposition. He then embarked on an international tour to rally support for democracy in his country. “I’m sure that we have managed to ensure an African consensus about the crisis in Zimbabwe,” he said yesterday, adding it was now time to turn his attention to rallying his supporters at home. Since the first round of voting, 42 of his party’s “most dedicated, brightest and strongest” supporters and activists had been killed. The MDC leader says he won the first round outright, and that official results released on 2 May, showing a run-off was necessary, were fraudulent. Asked whether he thought Mr Mugabe would be any more likely to step down in June than he was in March, Mr Tsvangirai said the run-off result would be “definitive”. Saying that he was looking ahead to the difficult task of healing a nation “traumatised” by political violence, Mr Tsvangirai called on Zimbabweans who have fled political and economic collapse to return. At least four million Zimbabweans are abroad, most in South Africa, where they have been among the main targets in a deadly wave of anti-foreigner violence. This could also be blamed on Mr Mugabe, he said yesterday, adding: “Our crisis in this country is impacting on [neighbours’] economies and societies. The entire… region awaits a new Zimbabwe.” ================= Mbeki says South Africa ‘disgraced’ by xenophobic riots as death toll rises to 50. President Thabo Mbeki admitted last night that South Africa had been “disgraced” by the wave of anti-foreigner violence which has convulsed the nation. Facing intense criticism over his government’s ineffectual handling of the attacks, Mr Mbeki said in a televised address that South Africans’ heads were “bowed” and reminded his countrymen that their economy rested on the work of migrants from across Africa. His intervention came as police raised the official death toll from the spree of violence from 43 to 50 and said that 35,000 people had been left homeless in the fortnight since armed gangs in the squatter camps and informal settlements in the main urban centres of Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town began killing, raping, beating, stabbing and burning nationals from other African countries. Mr Mbeki has come under fire for travelling to Tanzania for an African Union summit on Wednesday and for waiting until the same day before ordering the army on to the streets to help the police. He has also been criticised for being too out of touch to realise that the violence was in part fuelled by the lack of adequate housing and jobs for the poorest South Africans. A front-page editorial in South Africa’s Sunday Times newspaper said: “Throughout the crisis, arguably the most grave, dark and repulsive moment in the life of our young nation, Mbeki has demonstrated that he no longer has the heart to lead.” Moeltsi Mbeki, of the South African Institute of International Affairs, who is Thabo Mbeki’s brother, said the government had lost credibility. “Even a strong statement by somebody who has such weak authority will not convince the people. This crisis is the result of the failure of their foreign policy against Zimbabwe and they don’t want to admit that,” he said. Thousands of refugees and economic migrants from Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi and other countries are making their escape from South Africa from bus and train stations in the transport hub of Johannesburg. But even there, armed police are guarding them from marauding gangs armed with axes and knives. Mozambique said yesterday that 20,000 of its nationals had fled South Africa, a reverse influx which has prompted authorities there to declare a national state of emergency. In South Africa, makeshift tented refuges have sprung up in the big urban centres to take in some of those fleeing their attackers. In Cape Town alone, 10,000 people have been displaced. Some refugees have been put up at police stations, community halls and churches, also with armed police protection, but voluntary groups complained yesterday that they, rather than the authorities, were bearing a disproportionate burden of the humanitarian relief and emergency response. On Saturday, 400 people arrived at a Cape Town race track looking for a place to shelter after a nearby settlement was targeted. Hundreds of Zimbabweans and Somalis chased from Cape Town into the surrounding Cape Peninsula have been put up in giant marquees on a beach on the Atlantic coastline. Volunteers and local government workers have been providing blankets, clothing and food to the community at Soetwater, which police claim is too remote for local South Africans to attack. The violence has been waged by poor South Africans who claim the refugee population, which some estimate to be as high as five million, take their jobs and dwellings and commit crime. However, police and politicians say there is also a significant element of thuggery and criminality with shops and homes looted for personal gain. Jacob Zuma, the ANC leader and the man tipped to succeed Mr Mbeki as president, visited townships around Johannesburg yesterday. He told a rally of some 5,000 people in Johannesburg yesterday: “Fighting won’t solve your problems but will instead exacerbate them and they will therefore remain unsolved. Peace should prevail and we must engage each other on whatever issues there might be.” On Saturday, 2,000 people marched in central Johannesburg to protest against xenophobia. Risking violence themselves, the crowd held aloft posters saying “xenophobia hurts like apartheid” and “we are all Zimbabweans”. The president of the United Democratic Movement party, Bantu Holomisa, said yesterday that Mr Mbeki’s inquiry into the outbreak of violence needed to reveal whether a so-called “third force” was responsible for stoking the crisis. He said: “The key here would be to remove any kind of suspicion that this thing was unleashed deliberately and orchestrated by whoever. Ministers are already telling us there is a third force. Let them bring that evidence to the commission.” ——————— The Independent Leading article: Lessons for Mbeki. There is a terrible irony in the recent tragic events that have gripped parts of South Africa, where township residents have been turning on economic migrants, killing some and driving away thousands of others. It lies in the fact that Thabo Mbeki’s government has bent over backwards to remain onside with the Mugabe regime in Harare, downplaying its criminal folly and blunting initiatives to rid Zimbabwe of its dictator. South Africa is now suffering the consequences of Mbeki’s policy, as Zimbabwe’s misery ripples outwards to encompass its neighbours and as millions of Zimbabweans flee their country in search of jobs and livelihoods. Of course, there are other elements to this grim saga, starting with the inexcusable xenophobia of the men behind the violence. It is notable that not all the incomers who have borne the brunt of these thuggish attacks have been Zimbabweans. But the huge number of Zimbabwean migrants present in South Africa, estimated to be at least 3 million, is a factor in the bloodshed, placing enormous strain on the bonds holding the townships together and adding to the competition for resources. And when the question is asked, as it should be, about why so many Zimbabweans have left their country for its neighbour, part of the answer is that the Mugabe regime remains in power, and is busy completing the ruin of Africa’s former breadbasket, with the South African president’s apparent complicity. Loath to bow to the former colonial powers, Mbeki has shielded Zimbabwe’s venal and selfish old leader from criticism, blind to the consequences. Now that the wretched condition of Mugabe’s dissolving state has been brought to his door, one must hope the president sees this as a reminder of the need for South Africa to play a more constructive role in helping its once flourishing neighbour get back on its feet. It is especially urgent that South Africa changes its tune on Zimbabwe now, as Mugabe heads into a run-off presidential election with his nearest rival, Morgan Tsvangirai. The leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change returned to Zimbabwe for the campaign yesterday. Arguably, this election should not be taking place; because Tsvangirai appeared to win the first round. But we are where we are. As Zimbabwe prepares to vote a second time, Mbeki must stop making excuses for his ally and start expediting rather than blocking change in Harare. If he does not, the impact of Zimbabwe’s collapse will continue to have repercussions for South Africa, and we may see more shameful scenes in South Africa’s already fragile, hard-pressed townships. At www.SustainabiliTank.info we saw all of this coming when we watched that May 2007 Friday night, in Room #4 of the UN New York Headquarter’s Basement how South Africa led the Africans to self-immolation and the tearing down of the UN Commission for Sustainable Development by fighting for Mugabe’s Zimbabwe to take over the CSD Chairmanship for one year. Now that year is over. The CSD is still in the pits, Mugabe is on the roll - but South Africa is in deep …. and my friends tell me that it will only get worth. They did not like what Thabo Mbeki did to it, and say that Zuma will be worse. They even told me that the Soviet Union under Stalin will be the model for next phase of the SA - that will still be led by this intermediate generation that did not study leadership through the academy of Robin Island - but still is not led by people that are true Nationalists. The problem is called corruption.
Permalink | ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on May 25th, 2008 For Immediate Release by Geneva Based Human Rights Watch: Angola: Resume Negotiations with UN Rights Body - Government Seeks to Avoid Scrutiny Before Elections. “Angola is going back on its word to support a constructive dialogue and increased cooperation with the UN human rights office,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The government made that commitment in writing to the president of the UN General Assembly before joining the Human Rights Council in May 2007. Angola should keep its promises.” The closure of the OHCHR field office in Angola comes three months ahead of Angola’s parliamentary elections scheduled for September 5-6, 2008 – the first to be held in the country since 1992. “The Angolan government’s decision to shut down this important human rights office signals growing government intolerance of human rights scrutiny and other criticism in the run-up to September’s elections,” said Gagnon. “It’s worrying that the already limited space for human rights defenders could be restricted further.” The government issued its order shortly after the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the UN Special Rapporteur for the Freedom of Religion or Belief made public their Angola mission reports at the 7th session of the Human Rights Council in March 2008. Angolan officials rejected out of hand many of the working group’s findings, denying there had been any case of torture and claiming excessive pre-trial detention in Angola had stopped by the end of 2007. The Angolan government has sought to justify its decision to close the OHCHR office on the grounds that the presence of the office in Angola is no longer necessary now that peace and democratization has been consolidated and functioning national human rights institutions established. The government has also stated that the office had no legal status in the country and as such never existed. Moreover, in March 2008, the minister of justice suggested at the Human Rights Council that the UN high commissioner for human rights’s criteria for establishing field offices were not transparent and may have “political motivations.” As Human Rights Watch has found, peace has still not taken root in the enclave of Cabinda, and national human rights institutions such as the Provincial Human Rights Committees are yet not fully operational. The government continues to restrict the activities of independent media in much of the country. The government’s argument that the OHCHR had no legal status is not convincing since it had agreed that the office should continue technical cooperation in Angola after the departure of the UN peacekeeping mission in 2003. The OHCHR field office has played an important role, assisting the government in establishing national human rights institutions and alternative justice mechanisms, drafting reports to UN human rights bodies and training the police to be more aware of human rights. It also facilitated access for Angolan nongovernmental organizations to UN human rights mechanisms. In 2007, the OHCHR tried to persuade the government to permit the office to operate with a full human rights protection mandate. This would have been a major step toward sustaining ongoing reform efforts and ensuring an open environment for human rights defenders in the country. Human rights defenders told Human Rights Watch how the OHCHR’s presence in Angola guaranteed them some degree of protection from government intimidation. This is particularly important as civil society organizations are increasingly worried about the government’s ongoing revision of the legal framework governing civil society, which could again threaten their existence. In 2007, government officials publicly accused several organizations of illegal activities, without ever substantiating such claims, and threatened to close the organizations. Human Rights Watch called on the government of Angola to immediately reestablish dialogue with the OHCHR and quickly negotiate a solution that strengthens human rights capacity and allows for effective UN human rights monitoring to be resumed in the country. Human Rights Watch also urged the government to guarantee space for national and international civil society to operate freely in Angola before and after the upcoming elections in September. For more of Human Rights Watch’s work on Angola, please visit: For more information, please contact: ———————————— Hallo Zimbabwe - here we come. Yours truly, Angola Remember - We Have Oil and Oil Industry Will Help Us - We do not relly on God. ———————————— And yes - what is the story about those two UN votes that were invalidated in the contest between the UK and Spain - where the UK won by one vote but the UN is keeping the names of the two countries that their votes were invalidated as a UN top secret. They do not even say why they were invalidated. Was there some nusty thing said on the ballot about Spain or the UK? Some other slur? See the Inner City report. Don’t you think this is even strange by the UN standards of deffining democracy?
Amid Mysterious Invalid Ballots, France and UK Squeak By Spain on Human Rights Council. Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
Following the vote, UK Permanent Representative John Sawers extended his hand with a smile to Spain’s Ambassador, who bristled, shook and walked away. A single vote…
Permalink | ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on March 9th, 2008 GENERAL ASSEMBLY AGREED TO HOLD TOP-LEVEL MEETING ON AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT IN SEPTEMBER. The General Assembly today agreed to convene a high-level meeting this September, on the eve of its annual general debate, on how to better meet the development needs of Africa, which is struggling to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the target date of 2015. In a resolution adopted without a vote, Assembly members agreed both to hold the meeting on 22 September and that it should result in a formal political declaration on the issue.
* * * COMMUNITIES NEED MORE SOPHISTICATED METEOROLOGICAL SERVICES, SAYS WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION (WMO). Governments, businesses and the general public need more sophisticated information from their national weather services if they are to prepare adequately against natural disasters and better adapt to the threats posed by climate change, the head of the United Nations meteorological agency says. Michel Jarraud, the Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), told a workshop yesterday in Cape Verde that there is “a vital need to better understand the linkage between environmental protection and sustainable development.” “There are also raised expectations and demands for newer and more sophisticated types of services by most sectors of the economy, all of which are highly relevant to your respective societies,” he said. The workshop, help on Sal Island on Cape Verde, runs until Friday and is aimed at helping Portuguese-speaking countries develop greater partnerships between government and civil society on environmental and climate issues. Permalink | ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on February 27th, 2008 Subject: Women In Great Numbers Descend On The UN for CSW 52 - that is the yearly take-over of the UN by the Commission on the Status of Women. EXXONMOBIL Takes A Ride. ============================================= The Commission on the Status of Women is Having its meeting at the UN - and the UN wants to have us believe that it is all about “Violence Against Women.” The reality is that for the week, a yearly event, women’s organizations take over the UN; the UN will be used for many other purposes, besides the one expressed by the UNSG, as well. This article picked up first the official statement by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and the very good reporting by Edith Lederer from the Associated Press - based on that UN official position. But then we wish to single out one “Parallel Event” held on February 25, 2008, at the Church Center across the UN. We went to that event because we were sent a flyer that mentioned as a panelist: “EXXON MOBIL CORPORATION - Speaker to be announced.” This was enough to trigger our curiosity and the appetite to devour that unnamed speaker for a named company - this while all other members of the panel were right there named in the open. The title of that event was - “CORPORATE FEMINISM: ENHANCING CORPORATE INFLUENCE THROUGH WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT.” The Conveners of the event were The International Council of Jewish Women and cosponsored by: Soroptimist International. The first body is represented in the US by the National Council of Women, the second body came to CSW 52 with the theme - “Financing for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women.” We will have much more about all of this, but as said, we will first introduce the two postings we mentioned in the previous paragraph.
—————————– CSW 52 had nothing to do with the will of the UNSG. As said this is an event organized by the Commission on the Status of Women - though, clearly, it is highly possible and we would say probable, that the UNSG has suggested a topic for this years meeting of the CSW. This is clearly a very welcome move on his part and it comes after we saw so many cases when even UN Peacekeeping forces are accused of rape - not just combatant forces that had to be kept apart by these UN forces. So, besides the global humanitarian problem, there is here also a UN problem - and it could not be soon enough for the UNSG to step into this breach of confidence in the UN. Further - the UNSG in the words of his Spokesperson:
——————— Further, the press conference, as well as the main meeting itself, included male witnesses talking freely about their own experience of having attacked women. Specially was impressive in his presentation one male from the US that after 20 years of counseling came to the conclusion that the three cases of him attacking women were based on the male culture in his neighborhood. A man is supposed to be aggressive he said, and this translated in the way he dealt with women. Men go to war - successful - they become heroes. He finally recognized that this was his personal problem and now he counsels other delinquent males so they recognize the wrong motivation them act the way they do. But then the UN has not reached yet the level of self criticism reached by above man who by now is rather a gentleman. The question of rape in the field, and exploitation of women and girls in the field, by UN personnel, was never raised at this event - not even the fact that the UN building itself harbors soft porno and smut. So, the only remaining good investigative journalist at the UN - the man called by all - Matthew - did bring this up. Please his post:
|
