More On UN Scandals

More corruption from the UN Oil-for-Food program with this week's revelation that Benon Sevan, its administrative head, illegally made up to $1.2 million according to documents released Monday by a U.S. Senate committee. Also named were Kofi Annan's son Kojo for alleged influence peddling, and Armando Carlos Oliveira, an inspector for Holland's Saybolt International for pocketing a suspicious $100,000.

But far more sordid news surfaced from the Heritage Foundation regarding barbarity perpetrated by UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: "widespread and ongoing" rape and forced prostitution of women and young girls. Kofi Annan has acknowledged "acts of gross misconduct." Annan's special representative to the Congo added, "We are shocked by it, we're outraged, we're sickened by it." That abuses of this magnitude are perpetrated by UN personnel is astounding.  Worse yet, experts believe it's not credible that UN officials were unaware of the problem early on.

This is just the latest in a string of sex scandals involving UN peacekeepers. Observers speculate that "UN peacekeeping missions may encourage a predatory sexual culture" in which staff prey on refugees and demand sex in exchange for food, and troops rape women at gunpoint. Sadly, such grotesque occurrences are nothing new to the UN and, in fact, stretch back at least a decade -- to Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

Beyond the perfunctory step of condemning these atrocities, Congress must seriously reconsider U.S. support of UN missions. At present, the U.S. contributes 27% of the total UN peacekeeping budget and is the largest contributor to the UN mission in the Congo. We believe this funding should cease immediately, as regional operations can replace the UN. We also believe that the new House International Relations Subcommittee on International Oversight and Investigations and the Senate and House Committees on Appropriations should launch probes at once.