Johanneswburg - The defence ministry says it has no knowledge of a United Nations report detailing sexual attacks on minors by South African soldiers stationed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).As always, whether we're looking at Catholic priests, bad service by an airline, the Waco massacre, Ruby Ridge, or Abu Ghraib, the thing to focus on is not the evil or incompetence of those doing the bad things, since all large organizations will contain bad people. Rather, we should focus on the response of the organization-- whether it punishes the evildoers, rewards them, or does nothing. South Africa and the U.N. are looking bad in this respect.There have been allegations of 50 cases of sexual attacks on minors carried out by Monuc, the United Nations mission to the DRC, in Bunia in the north-east of the country over the past year.
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The Star newspaper reported on Monday that a South African colonel in Goma allegedly sexually molested his young male interpreter. Investigations by the UN found that he had requested male interpreters under the age of 18 since the start of his mission.
He was repatriated to South Africa, but there was no indication that he was investigated or prosecuted on his return.
The UN probe follows an investigation by The Independent in London, and a cable sent last month from the Monuc office in Kinshasa to the UN headquarters in New York detailing sexual abuses against minors.
Remember all this next time you hear someone treat any ICJ decision as something to respect.Of its fifteen "judges," seven come from nations which have no rule of law and allow their citizens no rights of self-determination or due process of law. These stalwarts -- all of whom joined in the condemnation of Israel -- come from Communist China, Madagascar, Sierra Leone, Russia, Egypt, Jordan, and Venezuela. Two more come from France and Belgium, two of the worst Israel-haters and Arafat-lovers of the European Union. Another comes from the Netherlands, ever- willing to join the EUnuchs in making U.N. mischief. That makes ten of fifteen, more than enough to predetermine the outcome of any issue, be it one of Israel or the United States.
Another measure is set by the "court's" own procedures. One of the judges, Elaraby of Egypt, used to be an Egyptian diplomat, assigned to the U.N. to join in any Israel-bashing nonsense in the General Assembly.
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As a matter of international law, such as it is, the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. One of the basic principles that the court is supposed to follow is that it can't decide "contentious" issues when one of the parties to it -- in this case Israel -- has declined to submit the matter to the court to decide. The "court" blew past this restriction by saying that it had jurisdiction -- despite Israel's objection -- because the U.N. General Assembly is dealing with the overall issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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All you really need to know about the ICJ decision is that nowhere does it even recognize the fact of Palestinian terrorism against Israel. The whole decision talks about the "occupied" territories as if they were pacific realms, of no danger or even inconvenience to the Israelis. It concludes -- without factual predicate -- that the wall is not necessary for Israel to defend itself. The entire 65-page decision talks in terms of the Palestinian territories as if they were an ancient British forest or a modern Canadian city.
Now, in a more recent U.N. visit, the The NR Corner reportsMs. Redgrave is making her first-ever visit to Palestine, after nearly 30 years of campaigning for peace and justice in the Middle East, as a guest of UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, and as a Goodwill Ambassador of UNICEF , the United Nations’ children’s agency.
The venue for this bizarre and spine-tingling charge was the colorful American Colony Hotel, where Palestinian politicians and propagandists prefer to meet foreign correspondents. ''Any Palestinian mother or schoolchild knows that a schoolchild who is dressed in the uniform can be and is frequently shot in the head -- not in the chest, not in the legs, in the head.''That an actress believes anti-semitic canards is unremarkable, but that the United Nations sponsors her is another mark against that organization. It's not a surprising mark, of course-- a little more black on an already black wall.
I've noted before that if you believe that the United States ought to defer to the United Nations in foreign affairs, you pretty clearly accept that Israel ought to be destroyed. You may not favor that directly yourself-- you probably don't, if you're typical-- but you are saying that you will give up your own desires in favor of what the U.N. wants, and who would deny that the United Nations takes a dim view of Israel? An even more painful situation would arise if the U.N. took a position favoring seizing all Jewish property in Israel and allowing Arab militias to rape and kill freely. Someone who believes in multilateralism would have to accept that, and object to any attempts by individual countries such as the United States to stop the killing. Indeed, wouldn't you have to take the position that it would be immoral to stop killing that the U.N. has said is acceptable?
You may think I have gone over the top with the example of Arab militias killing Jews. But think for a minute. What is happening in Sudan's Darfur province right now? Arab militias are killing blacks, with the implicit approval of the Sudanese government. What is the United Nations doing? It is congratulating the Sudanese government on its human rights record by putting Sudan on the Human Rights Commission.
So, with regard to Darfur, the U.N. rewards the mass killing of black Moslems, a group that the U.N. doesn't particularly dislike. What, then, would the U.N. do to an Arab militia that kills white Jews? It seems the U.N. would have a hard time thinking of high enough praise for such an action.