Some bloggers
have been discussing the alleged sexual misconduct of the Jordanian peacekeepers in East Timor for a while now and I must admit I’m extremely embarrassed and shamed by the scandal. I just hope these soldiers will be harshly punished for tarnishing the reputation of our country and people.
There is a follow-up by the same Aussie author to an article I posted here regarding this terrible and disgusting behavior. The full article is here. This is an excerpt:
The deployment of Jordanian peacekeepers to East Timor was probably one of the most contentious UN decisions to follow the bloody independence ballot. It was eclipsed only by the cover-up and inaction that followed when the world body learned of their involvement in a
series of horrific sex crimes involving children living in the war-battered Oecussi enclave. Children were not the only victims — in early 2001, two Jordanians were evacuated home with injured penises after attempting sexual intercourse with goats.
Meanwhile, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein, recommended an overhaul of a tattered U.N. military system in the world body’s 17 peacekeeping operations of some 64,000 personnel.
"The reality of prostitution and other sexual exploitation in a peacekeeping context is profoundly disturbing to many because the United Nations has been mandated to enter into a broken society to help it," Zeid wrote after visiting Congo and interviewing officials and victims.
The Washington Post has a feature examining the situation from a different angle here.
“Unfortunate” is putting it lightly
Well, that’s unfortunate, but at least it was discovered and stopped. I think it’s important to note that there are people in the U.S. Army who report misconduct by other soldiers and that those reports are acknowledged and acted upon. Also, the officer who reported this incident has had his name blacked out of documents concerning the matter, to protect him from retribution of any kind. Such treatment encourages others to do the right thing, as well.
I found it interesting, further down in the article, that a U.S. Army squad that caught looters in Baghdad made them strip and walk home naked as punishment. The NCO in charge of that squad was given a less-than-honorable discharge and sent home. Which means he’s marked for life, probably excluded from obtaining a job with 50% or more of potential employers, including federal, state and local governments, most large corporations and any kind of bonded or fiduciary entity.
I actually thought it was a clever solution, making them go home naked. But I understand that the Muslim taboo against nakedness is very strong, so maybe he was punished for offending those sensibilities.
You wouldn’t know it from our movies, but Americans also have a fairly strong taboo against nakedness – at least much stronger than most of Europe. My sister is nursing her baby right now, and she covers herself when he’s feeding even in front of other family members. Whereas in Europe I’ve seen women whip out a teat in public and let the kid suckle. I always avert my eyes and blush when it happens, to the delight of my European friends.
Foreigners get a lot of false notions about the U.S. from American TV & movie output. Especially regarding sex and crime.
Sterling: “If they hadn’t been stopped when they were…who knows where it would have ended?”
…Not in Mosul
Nas is right – there’s no country on Earth that’s only got decent people living in it.
One of the things I’ve read is that Arab militaries tend to have weak NCO corps, and so there’s poor interchange of information and sense of purpose between the officer corps and the enlisted men. Young men will go off, corrupt themselves and do bad things when no one is really guiding their conduct, especially when they’re far from home. A professional NCO corps that is respected by the officer corps is often a hedge against this. The U.S. Army is trying to build a strong NCO corps in the new Iraqi Army, but there are cultural problems with it – it’s basically a social status/mixing issue.
I put Abu Ghraib in the same category – an Army Reserve unit from a rural part of the U.S. lacked discipline and began to descend into barbarism. We’re lucky the Army found about it when they did (months before the media got hold of those pictures) and began disciplinary procedures. The soldiers took one step across the line, and then another, and then another, and pretty soon they were doing things that were abhorrent. If they hadn’t been stopped when they were…who knows where it would have ended?
I think there have been 38 or 39 “suspicious deaths” of prisoners in U.S. custody investigated by the U.S. military since operations began in Afghanistan through the current campaign in Iraq. From what I’ve read, about 40 soldiers, marines or sailors have been referred to the authorities for criminal prosecution, and it looks like prosecution has begun or will go forward in about half of them. In the remaining cases, there was insufficient proof or conflicting evidence, and the suspected offenders were either not punished at all, or were dismissed from service without a good conduct discharge.
lol why does everyone come down on us like this. fine, it was a terrible act (if it ever happened for that matter), but it has nothing to do with Jordan or it’s people. they are simply sickos who have a passport.
are we really going to compare paedophiles in Jordan to Australia as countries?
In light of the goat incident, you might want to change the thumbnail you’re using for the “A window on Jordan” photo gallery. 😉
Yeah i have seen meany reports about this in the west on television and this is actually the first time i hear about jordanians. this is not limited to jordanians but its a whole mess of people and its about time the UN does something.
Natasha, please! Littlegreenfootballs?
Just to clarify, the rape allegations extend from East Timor to Congo and Haiti and are by no means restricted to Jordanian soldiers. When Prince Zeid spoke, he spoke as an appointee from the secretary general to investigate these allegations – He is Jordan’s permanent representative to the UN. The UN has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to such things. However, and I am not entirely sure about that, the task to disciplining the soldiers falls on their respective countries and not the UN. This has been echoed recently in Butros Ghali’s testimony in “Witness to the Century” on Al Jazeera, in which Ahmad Mansour’s, the dick, theme was “You suck because you are Christian who is married to a woman with Jewish roots not because you simply suck”. I digressed.
No reason for shame. And hopefully an unauthenticated story does not become any more popular then it already is.
So, you are saying you expect 6 million Jordanians to behave and give Jordan the reputation it deserves ! Otherwise you feel the shame and guilt ! You are being unfair to yourself, and unrealistic. Whoever does whatever is responsible to his action. Afterall, Jordanians are a mix of this and that. I understand that those peeople are outside representing their country; but for me this kind of action tells me they are mercenaries; go there for money and rape; and their governments cash mony in return for jeopordizing their safety and the country’s reputation.
Hopefully we can find another source for this story besides this Aussie author. There’s something inherent in both of his stories that strikes me as bias. It’s as if he’s writing not just about these peacekeepers, or perhaps even a few of these peacekeepers, but about all Jordanians. His second report makes that more evident than the first.
Regardless, it’s a terrible story and a terrible situation that is pulling in peacekeepers from around the world, not just Jordan, as evidence by the Washington Post story. It makes one worry about the state of the world today