[Senate Hearing 114-777]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 114-777
DO NO HARM: ENDING SEXUAL ABUSE
IN UNITED NATIONS PEACEKEEPING
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 13, 2016
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
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Available via the World Wide Web:
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U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
30-299 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
BOB CORKER, Tennessee, Chairman
JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland
MARCO RUBIO, Florida BARBARA BOXER, California
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
CORY GARDNER, Colorado CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware
DAVID PERDUE, Georgia TOM UDALL, New Mexico
JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut
RAND PAUL, Kentucky TIM KAINE, Virginia
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
Todd Womack, Staff Director
Jessica Lewis, Democratic Staff Director
John Dutton, Chief Clerk
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Corker, Hon. Bob, U.S. Senator from Tennessee.................... 1
Cardin, Hon. Benjamin L., U.S. Senator from Maryland............. 2
Coleman, Amb. Isobel, U.S. Representative to the United Nations
for U.N. Management and Reform, New York, NY................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 6
Jacobson, Amb. Tracey, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of
State for International Organization Affairs, Washington, DC... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Rothstein, Major General Michael, Deputy Assistant Secretary for
Plans, Programs, and Operations, Bureau of Political-Military
Affairs, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC.............. 11
Prepared statement........................................... 14
Miranda Brown, Former Chief of Africa I Section, Office of the
High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations, Geneva,
Switzerland.................................................... 35
Prepared statement........................................... 37
Peter Yeo, President, Better World Campaign, and Vice President
for Public Policy and Advocacy, United Nations Foundation,
Washington, DC................................................. 43
Prepared statement........................................... 45
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Responses to Questions for the Record Submitted to Ambassador
Coleman, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Jocobson, and
Deputy Assistant Secretary Rothstein by Senator Corker and
Senator Boxer.................................................. 55
Responses to Questions for the Record Submitted to Peter Yeo,
President, Better World Campaign, and Vice President for Public
Policy and Advocacy, United Nations Foundation, by Senator
Corker......................................................... 57
(iii)
DO NO HARM: ENDING SEXUAL ABUSE IN UNITED NATIONS PEACEKEEPING
----------
Wednesday, APRIL 13, 2016
U.S. Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations
Washington, D.C.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:16 p.m., in
Room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Bob Corker,
chairman of the committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Corker [presiding], Flake, Gardner,
Isakson, Cardin, Shaheen, Coons, Murphy, Kaine, and Markey.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BOB CORKER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM TENNESSEE
The Chairman. The Foreign Relations Committee will come to
order.
I want to thank both of our panels for being here and for
your service. As a courtesy, and I guess as protocol, the way
these hearings go is we have government witnesses typically
first and then we have other outside witnesses second.
Today, not to show any disrespect in any way to those
panelists who are going first, I wish the second panel was
going first, so that you could hear the testimony, especially
because of its nature.
My staff generally prepares comments for me to make on the
front end, and I generally, with a couple of alterations, stick
to them. Today, I want to be very brief and just say that,
look, we understand the importance of U.N. peacekeeping
missions. We thank you for being here to tell us a little bit
about some of the progress that may being made.
But I think all of us understand the terrible, horrible
things that U.N. peacekeepers are doing to the people they are
supposed to be protecting. The sexual abuse, what they are
rendering to the populations that are in this helpless
situation, is beyond belief.
And I think all of us, on both sides of the aisle, get very
frustrated with the process focus that takes place at the U.N.,
but the lack of results that occur.
And again, I understand you guys are working hard. You are
working within an environment that I find less than satisfying
on every level, whether it is at the Security Council and
keeping agreements intact, or whether it is this kind of thing.
Let me just make a statement. Based on what I know, and
maybe I do not know everything I should, if I knew right now
that a U.N. peacekeeping mission was going to go into North
Chattanooga today, which is where my wife is, I would be on the
first plane out of here to go home and protect her from the
U.N. peacekeepers, especially if they came from certain
countries.
I am just telling you, so here I am as chairman of the
Foreign Relations Committee, and if I knew that the U.N. was
sending peacekeepers into my neighborhood, I would leave here
immediately. I would drop what I was doing. I would catch the
next flight home. And I would go home and try to protect my
family from the abuse that they put forth on the very people
that they try to protect.
And that is in North Chattanooga. You think about it in
some of these isolated places where people are held up in
camps, where young girls are subjected--and young boys are
subjected to this sexual violence by people that we are paying,
the United States of America is paying. We are the largest
contributor, and this is taking place.
So look, I know you are here today to share with us some of
the progress that is being made. This is not you doing this. I
got it. This is not directed at you.
But I can just tell you, I am disgusted--disgusted--by the
reports, by the actions of U.N. peacekeepers that U.S.
taxpayers are paying for.
And I hope that somehow, out of this hearing and other
hearings and other actions, that somehow we will figure out a
way to reel this in.
Again, if I knew it was happening, if I knew they were
going to Chattanooga, I would leave here immediately to protect
my family.
So with that being said, I look forward to this hearing. I
want to thank our ranking member for his desire and cooperation
in having this.
I thank you for your service to our country, but I hope,
out of that service, we, as a Nation, will figure out some way
of ensuring that the very people that are sent to protect
people are not doing the dastardly, terrible things that they
are doing to populations that are very vulnerable.
Again, thank you, and I will turn it over to our ranking
member.
STATEMENT OF HON. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MARYLAND
Senator Cardin. Well, Mr. Chairman, thank you for your
passion on this issue.
It is not the first time we have dealt with problems such
as this. This committee has taken, I think, the right position
on trafficking in persons, where the United States' leadership
has been instrumental in changing attitude of so many places in
the world, where young people were trafficked for sex or for
labor abuses. And this committee came in very strong on
oversight to make sure that the integrity of what we do in
evaluating countries' progress on trafficking is not
compromised by politics.
And when you look at the United Nations, we will not
tolerate the United Nations, under the auspices of the United
Nations, perpetrating these types of violence against young
people, against anyone. So I agree with you completely.
I first want to underscore the importance of the U.N.
peacekeeping missions--120,000 military and police personnel,
an overwhelming number performing their professional
responsibilities in the appropriate way with commitment and
honor, protecting vulnerable citizens from the South Sudan to
the Golan Heights, 16 missions around the world, four
continents.
Ambassador Power pointed out that the United States not
only has a direct security interest in the U.N. peacekeeping
missions, and we contribute, as the chairman pointed out, to
these missions at a greater percentage than any other country
in the world, but it is value for the United States. I think
Ambassador Power pointed out it is like an eight-to-one savings
to U.S. taxpayers to be able to use the international United
Nations peacekeepers rather than the United States having to
fulfill that function.
So, there is certainly a very important benefit to the U.N.
peacekeeping missions and the overwhelming majority of those
who are doing the work are doing it properly. But the sexual
abuse perpetrated by U.N. peacekeepers must end--must end.
Those who are perpetrators need to be held accountable.
There can be no exception to that. Zero tolerance.
And I must tell you, Mr. Chairman, you are right to be
outraged, because we are talking about young children who are
very vulnerable, who are poor, who have been subject to the
most difficult lifestyles, being enticed by food or money to do
horrible things under the United Nations.
That cannot continue. So there has to be accountability
here.
The thing that gets Chairman Corker and me so concerned are
the reports that, at least initially within the United Nations,
the response was fragmented and bureaucratic, that it was not
treated with the seriousness that it should have been treated.
That is hard for us understand, the entity that is supposed to
bring world peace and stability condoning, through their
inactions, those types of activities.
So, the United Nations passed a U.N. Security Council
resolution last March. I have read it. It looks like an
appropriate response. Will it be enforced? Will we be prepared,
in fact, to repatriate all of the uniformed personnel from
countries that are not doing what they need to do in training
their personnel before they are in theater to deal with sexual
abuse issues, holding those who violate accountable, including
prison time. If not, they should not be part of the U.N.
peacekeeping mission.
Are we prepared to implement to that? And I say that
because, Mr. Chairman, there are shortages of personnel. There
are more countries that are now participating in U.N.
peacekeeping missions, including those from developing
countries, that may not have the same access to training. So,
will the United Nations compromise the safety of young people
in order to meet the numbers in the peacekeeping mission?
If they do, the chairman and I are going to do everything
we can to make sure they do not have the resources to do that.
We are not going to support that type of activity.
So there can be zero tolerance.
And I really do look forward to the discussion we are going
to have with our two panels today. And I do know that the
people that are in front of us are working every day to make
sure that the United States leadership makes it clear that we
will not allow, or tolerate, that type of conduct, and we will
demand that, particularly under the U.N. banner, that there be
total accountability and no tolerance for this type of
activity.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Cardin. I very much
appreciate your service here, too, very much.
Our first witness is the Honorable Ambassador Isobel
Coleman, U.S. Representative to the United States for U.N.
Management and Reform. Our second witness today is the
Honorable Tracey Ann Jacobson, Principal Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State, Bureau of International Organization
Affairs. Our third witness is Major General Michael D.
Rothstein.
Did I pronounce that correctly?
General Rothstein. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. Deputy Assistant Secretary for State for
Plans, Programs, and Operations, State Department, Bureau of
Political-Military Affairs.
Again, we thank you all for your service to our country.
I think all of you know that, without objection, your
written testimony will be entered into the record, if you could
summarize in about 5 minutes.
And I would say that I know you all are very busy. To the
extent you could hear the testimony of the second panel, it
might be beneficial to you.
But we thank you for yours here now, and if you could just
start in the order that I introduced you, I would appreciate
it.
Again, thank you for taking the time to be with us today.
STATEMENT OF HON. ISOBEL COLEMAN, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE TO THE
UNITED NATIONS FOR U.N. MANAGEMENT AND REFORM, U.S. MISSION TO
THE UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Ambassador Coleman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking
Member Cardin and other distinguished members of the panel, for
inviting me here to testify today on this urgent and shameful
issue of sexual abuse and exploitation by U.N. peacekeepers.
Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to travel with
Ambassador Power to the Central African Republic to witness the
peaceful transfer of power to the newly elected President of
that country. And in many ways, the trip underscored both the
best and the very worst of U.N. peacekeeping.
The presence of U.N. peacekeepers has been critical to
staunching the ethnic violence in that country, violence that
has led to the deaths of thousands of people and displaced
hundreds of thousands of people. But as we all know, some
MINUSCA troops have also been implicated in allegations of
horrific sexual abuse, preying on the very people that they
were sent to protect.
During my time in CAR, Ambassador Power and I had the
opportunity to travel to Bambari and meet with the families of
victims. And their descriptions of the violence that their
loved ones have suffered at the hands of U.N. peacekeepers were
really powerful personal accounts that, for me, cut through the
handwringing, frankly, the excuses for why this scourge has
been allowed to persist for just too long.
Sexual exploitation and abuse by U.N. peacekeepers is not a
new problem. It has plagued missions from Bosnia to Haiti to
the Democratic Republic of Congo to the Central African
Republic.
Let me read you just a short passage from an internal U.N.
report documenting sexual abuse among peacekeepers. I am
quoting, ``Some girls talked of rape disguised as prostitution,
in which they said they were raped and given money or food
afterward to give the rape the appearance of a consensual
transaction.'' These words, I am sorry to say, come from the
Zeid report in 2005.
We know from the scope of current allegations now, more
than a decade later, these very same offenses are still
occurring. And despite years of U.N. leaders insisting on,
quote, ``zero tolerance,'' a culture of impunity has been
allowed to fester.
When Ambassador Power asked me last year to lead our
mission's efforts to establish a new paradigm for really
tackling this scourge, it was clear that an unacceptable lack
of transparency and accountability were at the heart of the
issue.
Yes, the U.N. published an annual report, tallying the
numbers and types of sexual abuses by mission, by peacekeepers.
But under pressure from the troop-contributing countries
themselves, it withheld the nationality of the alleged
perpetrators. And that made it difficult for member states to
take collective action on tracking the status of investigations
and the outcome of disciplinary action to hold perpetrators to
account.
In short, without transparency, real accountability was at
best--at best--inconsistent.
And this, finally, is changing.
And, Senator, I share your outrage on this. To look back
over so many years of words, of rhetoric, that has not resulted
in true accountability is simply unacceptable.
Last year, USUN led negotiations in the General Assembly
for what I view as a breakthrough, finally, on transparency. We
gained consensus among member states to support the Secretary
General in his intent to name countries in his annual report,
those countries whose troops have allegations against them, a
long overdue step.
As of early March this year, the U.N. is now reporting on
its Web site. In real-time, it is posting credible allegations,
along with the nationality of the alleged perpetrators. And
with this information, we are pursuing a comprehensive approach
to track individual cases and follow up with the appropriate
authorities.
In March, USUN brought the issue of sexual abuse, as you
know, to the Security Council with Resolution 2272, another
significant step forward for accountability. The resolution
endorses the Secretary General's decision to repatriate
peacekeeping units that have demonstrated a pattern of abuse,
which is a clear indication of insufficient command-and-
control. And the Secretary General is empowered to repatriate
all the troops from a mission from a particular troop- or
police-contributing country, if it is not taking appropriate
steps to investigate allegations against its personnel or has
not held them accountable.
Our goal is to see Resolution 2272 implemented fully as a
means of powerful prevention by ending once and for all the
culture of impunity that has persisted for too long.
The other part of the strategy is to increase the overall
supply of peacekeepers such that when military units or
contingents are repatriated, there are others that are well-
trained and vetted, able to deploy quickly to take their place.
The U.N. has come a long way in responding to this scourge
of sexual abuse. With strong support from the United States, it
has built up its investigative capabilities, increased training
and vetting of troops, implemented greater community outreach
to increase awareness about sexual abuse, instituted penalties
for offenders, and is improving victims' assistance.
But clearly, given the shocking scale and gravity of the
sexual abuse incidents being reported from the Central African
Republic and other missions, these actions by themselves are
not sufficient to address the crisis.
The U.N.'s recent commitments to greater transparency and
accountability must, absolutely must, result in a long overdue
sea change that ends impunity.
Our work is not done. We continue to make it our highest
priority, both in New York and bilaterally, to see perpetrators
held to account and sorely lacking integrity restored to
peacekeeping.
Thank you.
[Ambassador Coleman's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ambassador Isobel Coleman, U.S. Representative to
the United Nations for U.N. Management and Reform, New York, NY
Thank you Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Cardin and distinguished
members of the Committee for inviting me to testify today on the
urgent, and shameful, issue of sexual exploitation and abuse by U.N.
Peacekeepers.
Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to travel with Ambassador
Power to the Central African Republic to witness the peaceful handover
of power to the country's newly-elected leader, President Touadera. In
many ways, the trip underscored both the best, and the very worst, of
United Nations peacekeeping operations. The presence of U.N.
peacekeepers has been crucial in stanching the ethnic violence that has
wracked the Central African Republic, which has resulted in thousands
of deaths and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people.
Today, the U.N.'s peacekeeping mission, MINUSCA, is not only keeping a
fragile peace, but working with the new government to extend state
authority, prepare for the demobilization and disarmament of militias,
and build local capacity so that CAR can begin the long process of
standing on its own feet.
Yet as we all know, some MINUSCA troops have also been implicated
in allegations of horrific sexual abuses, preying on the very people
they have been sent to protect. During my time in CAR, Ambassador Power
and I traveled to Bambari and visited with the families of some of the
victims of that abuse. Their descriptions of the violence their loved
ones have experienced at the hands of peacekeepers were powerful
personal accounts that, for me, cut through all the statistics, the
handwringing and frankly, the excuses about why this scourge has
continued to happen. On that very same day, a host of additional
allegations from the 2013--2015 time period came to light of abuses in
Kemo prefecture--allegations that can only be described as gut-
wrenching and sickening.
Sexual exploitation and abuse by U.N. peacekeepers is not a new
problem. It has plagued missions from Bosnia to Haiti, to the
Democratic Republic of the Congo to the Central African Republic. Let
me read to you just one passage from an internal U.N. report
documenting sexual abuse among peacekeepers:
Sexual exploitation and abuse mostly involves the exchange of
sex for money (on average $1-$3 per encounter), or for food
(the report notes as little as two eggs from a soldier's
rations) . . . Some young girls . . . talked of ``rape
disguised as prostitution,'' in which they said they were raped
and given money or food afterwards to give the rape the
appearance of a consensual transaction.
These words, I'm sorry to say, are from the Zeid Report, published
by the U.N. in 2005. We know from the scope of current allegations that
now, more than a decade later, these very same offenses are still
occurring. Despite years of U.N. leaders insisting on ``zero
tolerance,'' a culture of impunity has been allowed to fester.
When Ambassador Power asked me last year to lead our mission's
efforts in helping to establish a new paradigm for tackling this
scourge, it was clear that an unacceptable lack of transparency and
accountability were at the heart of the problem. Yes, the U.N.
published an annual report tallying the numbers and types of SEA
incidents by peacekeeping mission, but under pressure from the troop
contributing countries themselves, it withheld the nationality of
alleged perpetrators. That made it difficult for Member States to take
collective action on tracking the status of investigations and the
outcome of disciplinary action or other actions to hold perpetrators to
account, and assessing the appropriateness of steps taken by the U.N.
to address the issue. In short, without transparency, real
accountability was at best, inconsistent. But that, finally, is
changing.
Last year, USUN led negotiations in the General Assembly for a
breakthrough on transparency, gaining consensus among Member States to
support the Secretary General in his intent to name countries in his
annual SEA report--a long-overdue step. As of March, the U.N. now posts
credible allegations on its website, along with the nationality of the
alleged perpetrators. With this information, we are pursuing a
comprehensive approach as outlined earlier by PDAS Jacobson, to track
individual cases and follow up with the appropriate authorities,
including through engagement in capitals, to determine the status of
investigations and encourage effective judicial proceedings where
appropriate. This is part of our broader interagency effort to improve
peacekeeping performance and accountability per the Presidential Policy
Memorandum on U.S. Support to U.N. Peace Operations.
In March, in an effort to broaden responsibility within the U.N.,
USUN brought the issue of SEA to the Security Council, which adopted
U.N. Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2272--another significant step
forward for accountability. The resolution endorses the Secretary
General's decision to repatriate peacekeeping units that have
demonstrated a pattern of abuse--which is a clear indication of
insufficient command and control. Going further, UNSCR 2272 empowers
the Secretary General to repatriate all troops from a mission from a
particular TCC or PCC whose personnel are the subject of an allegation
if that TCC or PCC is not taking appropriate steps to investigate SEA
allegations against its personnel or, when warranted, has not held the
perpetrators accountable or has not informed the Secretary General of
the progress of its investigations or of other actions taken. In such
situations, it requests the Secretary-General to seek replacement of
those troops or police with personnel from another contributing
country.
Our goal is to see UNSCR 2272 implemented fully as a means of
powerful prevention by ending once and for all the culture of impunity
for SEA in peacekeeping that has persisted for too long. Already, we
are seeing positive signs of change, with the U.N. having repatriated
military units from MINUSCA for SEA. It has alerted the relevant
contributing countries that the U.N. is conducting its review of these
most recent additional allegations against U.N. peacekeepers in CAR to
repatriate peacekeepers if there is a pattern of abuse.
The other part of this strategy, as also noted earlier, is to
increase the overall supply of peacekeepers such that when military
units or contingents are repatriated, others that are well trained and
vetted are available to deploy quickly to take their place. President
Obama's Peacekeeping Summit at the U.N. last September resulted in new
pledges to peacekeeping of over 40,000 military and police personnel--
an increase in supply that over time will allow the U.N. to more
aggressively address a broad range of performance and peacekeeping
issues, in addition to SEA.
The U.N. has come a long way in recent years in responding to the
scourge of SEA, with strong support from the United States. It has
built up its investigative capabilities, increased training and vetting
of troops, implemented greater community outreach to increase awareness
about SEA and reporting mechanisms, instituted penalties for offenders,
and is improving victim's assistance. Clearly, given the shocking scale
and gravity of the SEA incidents being reported from CAR and other
missions, these actions are necessary but by themselves are not
sufficient to address the crisis. The U.N.'s recent commitments to
greater transparency and accountability must result in a long-overdue
sea change that ends impunity. Our work is not done. We continue to
make it our highest priority both in New York at the U.N. and
bilaterally to see perpetrators held to account and sorely lacking
integrity restored to peacekeeping.
The Chairman. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF HON. TRACEY ANN JACOBSON, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY
ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION
AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, DC
Ambassador Jacobson. Mr. Chairman, members of the
committee, I am honored to be here with you today to talk about
this horrific issue that demands urgent, meaningful, and
sustained effort.
Sexual exploitation and abuse by U.N. peacekeepers is a
cancer that demands the most comprehensive treatment possible.
And our well-justified collective outrage is only useful if it
is paired with action.
I begin by noting that the United States has long been a
vocal advocate for increased transparency and accountability as
it relates to allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse by
U.N. peacekeepers. We are pleased that this push for
transparency is finally starting to find its first traction.
And while it is clear, as you note, that the actions taken
so far by the U.N. and member states have fallen far short of
the mark, certain recent actions taken by the Secretary General
reflect a new seriousness and create important new avenues for
member state engagement.
Some of these steps include improved reporting systems for
victims and their communities, the creation of immediate
response teams to collect and secure evidence for use in
investigations, withholding of payments to troop- and police-
contributing missions for their staff that have been sent home
under allegations of misconduct, and the creation of task
forces in all peacekeeping operations on sexual exploitation
and abuse.
And I will also note that, in February, the Secretary
General took the unprecedented step of sending home an entire
contingent from the Democratic Republic of Congo who had been
working in Central African Republic based on credible
allegations of exploitation and abuse. This is the first time
that the Secretary General has taken such a step. It sets an
important precedent and we believe it sends an important signal
to troop- and police-contributing countries.
We particularly welcome the Secretary General's action to
identify the nationalities of those uniformed personnel who are
accused of committing sexual exploitation and abuse, including
this information online in near real-time.
Troop- and police-contributing countries have the ultimate
responsibility for the discipline of their personnel. And by
providing this information publicly, the U.N. can motivate
these countries to do much better.
It also allows member states to track performance, to
recognize serious patterns of abuse, and to use our diplomatic
weight to urge the U.N. to repatriate units that have a
systemic pattern of misconduct, and to ban countries from
peacekeeping where appropriate.
This new level of information has also allowed us to direct
our bilateral engagement where it is most needed. Last month,
we launched an effort to reach out to every country on the
U.N.'s list in the Secretary General's report at senior levels
to accomplish three goals: first, to make sure that they were
aware of the report and the allegations concerning their
troops; second, to demand credible action in terms of
investigation and holding those responsible to account,
including through prosecution when appropriate where crimes
have been committed; and thirdly, to identify those areas where
the United States might provide capacity-building assistance to
help these countries better investigate and prosecute crimes
involving sexual exploitation and abuse.
I would also note that the Secretary General's report
included allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse against
civilian personnel of the U.N. and different agencies. Based on
that information, we are following up directly with those
agencies to make sure that they take all necessary action.
Mr. Chairman, any instance of sexual exploitation and abuse
does very real damage to the credibility of the institution of
peacekeeping, a tool that has never been more important for
global peace and security, and one on which the United States
relies to stabilize conflict situations that could otherwise
spiral out of control.
Last year, the President hosted the Leaders' Summit on
Peacekeeping and issued a new presidential memorandum
reaffirming our strong support for U.N. peace operations and
directing new efforts to strengthen and modernize these
operations. These efforts are well-timed to bolster our actions
on sexual exploitation and abuse.
For example, new commitments in the President's summit last
year included 40,000 troops and police, and this should send a
message to troop- and police-contributing countries that peace
operations are no longer a sellers' market.
This increased capability should allow the U.N. to
prioritize better performing troops in its deployments and also
give it the flexibility to replace units potentially withdrawn
for misconduct.
Mr. Chairman, my colleagues with me today are well-placed
to speak specifically to issues of the reforms we have pursued
at the U.N. and the training that we provide and capacity that
we provide to peacekeeping troops in the field.
I will conclude by saying that, by their very mandate, the
vast majority of U.N. peacekeepers are serving under a mandate
to protect civilians who are under threat of physical violence.
Exploiting or abusing these same vulnerable people is appalling
and an unconscionable breach of trust. And we greatly
appreciate the attention this committee is bringing to the
issue and share your outrage at what has been allowed to occur.
[Ambassador Jacobson's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ambassador Tracey Jacobson, Principal Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify today on an issue that demands urgent,
meaningful, and sustained action. Sexual exploitation and abuse by U.N.
peacekeepers is a cancer that demands the most comprehensive treatment
possible, and while our collective outrage is well justified, that
outrage is only useful if it is paired with action.
As you know well, in early March U.N. Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon
released his annual report on SEA detailing a shocking number of
allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse by U.N. civilian and
uniformed personnel in 2015 alone. While we welcome the Secretary-
General's efforts to improve transparency on these matters, the report
also illuminates an important truth--that the steps the U.N. and its
member states were taking to address this crisis were falling far short
of the need.
However, we believe certain recent actions taken by the U.N. not
only reflect a new seriousness, but also create important new avenues
for member state engagement.
For example, we're watching closely the Secretary-General's efforts
aimed at strengthening the U.N. system's capacity to respond. These
include steps to leverage the international presence in any post-
conflict environment, improve reporting systems for victims and
communities, the creation of immediate response teams to gather and
preserve evidence for use in investigations, suspending reimbursement
to troop- and police- contributing countries for uniformed personnel
who are sent home for alleged misconduct, and the establishment of
sexual exploitation and abuse taskforces in U.N. peace operations.
I will also note that in February the Secretary-General took the
groundbreaking action of repatriating an entire contingent of
peacekeepers from the Democratic Republic of Congo from the U.N.
peacekeeping mission in Central African Republic largely due to
credible allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse. This contingent
was replaced by troops from another country. Although this was the
first time the Secretary-General had taken such a step, it sets an
important precedent and we believe it sends a strong message to other
troop and police contributing countries.
And we particularly welcome the Secretary-General's action to begin
identifying the nationality of military and police personnel alleged to
have committed sexual exploitation and abuse as well as judicial or
administrative actions taken by their governments.
This is an important step. Troop and police contributing countries
are responsible for the discipline of their personnel. Public
identification can motivate countries unwilling to take appropriate
steps to prevent and respond to SEA to change the way they do business.
Transparency can also help to identify which countries may require
further capacity building, including training to prevent SEA, to
investigate and prosecute criminal SEA in their national military and
civilian justice systems, and general professionalization. As
importantly, the identification of countries will also allow Member
States to identify serious patterns of misconduct, so that we can use
our diplomatic muscle to urge the U.N. to repatriate units and
contingents and when necessary suspend these countries from
contributing uniformed personnel until they can demonstrate they have
taken adequate corrective actions.
According to the Secretary General's annual report released in
March, there were 69 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse in
U.N. peacekeeping operations and special political missions from 21\1\
countries in 2015. Since then, there have been additional reported
instances in 2015 and 2016--we know this because in another welcome
development, the U.N. has started posting allegations in near-real time
on their website.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Burundi, Cameroon, Congo-Brazzaville, Democratic Republic of
the Congo, Gabon, Morocco, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Benin, South Africa,
Tanzania, Slovakia, Niger, Moldova, Togo, Canada, Rwanda, Madagascar,
Senegal, Ghana, and Germany.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Although the State Department and our mission to the U.N. in New
York have a long track record of using diplomatic engagement to jolt
the U.N. and troop and police contributing countries into action on
this issue, this new level of information has allowed the United States
to focus our efforts where most needed. Last month we launched an
effort to approach all the countries on the U.N.'s list at senior
government levels to accomplish three goals:
First, to ensure their full awareness of the report and
allegations. Second, to seek their firm commitment to investigate
credibly and hold those found responsible to account, including through
prosecution where appropriate when crimes have been committed. And
third, to discuss potential areas of cooperation where the United
States might support improved capacity to investigate and prosecute
crimes involving SEA.
Our ongoing effort includes asking other countries to be similarly
engaged with troop and police contributing countries.
I will also note that the Secretary-General's report detailed
allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse by civilian personnel
serving in other U.N. entities. Based on that reporting, we have
approached relevant U.N. agencies to ensure they are taking needed
action.
Mr. Chairman, any instance of sexual exploitation and abuse does
very real damage to the credibility of the institution of
peacekeeping--a tool that has never been more important to global peace
and security, and upon which the U.S. relies to stabilize conflicts
that might otherwise spiral out of control.
It is our goal to bring these practices to a definitive end in
order to ensure U.N. peacekeeping remains an available, effective
tool--and one that operates to the highest standards of
professionalism, capacity, and conduct.
It is exactly that goal that prompted the President to host the
Leaders' Summit on Peacekeeping at last year's U.N. General Assembly
and to issue a new Presidential Memorandum reaffirming our strong
support for U.N. peace operations and directing new actions to
strengthen and modernize these operations.
These efforts are well-timed to bolster action on sexual
exploitation and abuse. For example, the Leaders' Summit resulted in
commitments from more than fifty countries of nearly 150 new military
and police contributions to U.N. peacekeeping, amounting to more than
40,000 troops and police.
We are pushing pledging countries to realize these new commitments,
which will send a message to other troop and police contributing
countries that this is no longer a seller's market. New capacities
should allow the U.N. to prioritize better performing troops and police
for deployment if a new mission is stood-up or if new gaps arise in
existing missions, and they provide the U.N. with flexibility to
replace contingents potentially withdrawn for misconduct.
The Presidential Policy Memorandum has changed the way the
interagency works on peacekeeping. In the six months since it has been
issued, the State Department and the Department of Defense have begun
to work more closely and collaboratively on U.N. peacekeeping.
Although the U.S. Mission to the U.N. takes the lead on diplomacy
and outreach in New York, the interagency contributes to their
strategies and we send interagency delegations to New York to deliver
clear messages about the actions that should be taken by the
Secretariat and by the Permanent Missions to prevent and respond to
SEA. Our colleagues in the bureaus for African Affairs, Political-
Military Affairs, and International Narcotic and Law Enforcement work
in partnership with the Department of Defense (DoD) to take the lead on
strengthening U.S. peacekeeping capacity-building programs, but we all
contribute to important aspects of their planning.
At State, we continue to do targeted outreach through posts and in
multilateral dialogues, often with DoD standing alongside, to deliver
tough messages and requests on performance and SEA. We are leveraging
all of our tools, and by doing it jointly we have greater impact. The
current nature and intensity of interagency collaboration on U.N.
peacekeeping reform is unprecedented and we will continue to focus our
efforts to improve peacekeeper performance, including ending the
current scourge of SEA.
Mr. Chairman, my colleagues with me today from the U.S. Mission to
the U.N. and from the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs are well-
placed to flesh out their efforts to promote oversight and reform,
training, capacity-building, etc.
I will conclude by noting that by their very mandates, the vast
majority of U.N. peace operations are intended to protect civilians
under threat of physical violence. Exploiting or abusing these same
vulnerable people is appalling and an inexcusable breach of trust, and
we greatly appreciate this Committee's attention to the issue.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Ambassador Jacobson. Thank you.
The Chairman. General?
STATEMENT OF MAJOR GENERAL MICHAEL D. ROTHSTEIN, DEPUTY
ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR PLANS, PROGRAMS, AND OPERATIONS, BUREAU
OF POLITICAL-MILITARY AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
WASHINGTON, D.C.
General Rothstein. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Ranking
Member Cardin, members of the committee.
Thank you for letting me speak today. And I, too, like my
colleagues, am very deeply troubled by what brings us here
today and the things we have to discuss about these events and
incidents.
Among my duties at the State Department, I am responsible
for providing executive leadership for the Global Peace
Operations Initiative. I will take just a moment to give you a
little bit of background on that, and then I will discuss its
intersection with preventing sexual exploitation and abuse.
GPOI, the Global Peace Operations Initiative, is our
flagship security assistance program that focuses on building
capacity for other countries to deploy peacekeepers to support
United Nations or other regional missions. For the most part,
it is a training and equipping kind of admission, although we
also focus on building their self-sufficiency to do training
for themselves. And importantly, of note, one of our key
program objectives is to promote the role of women and to
promote better gender integration into their operations.
GPOI has been very successful in helping other countries
step up to their responsibilities for international security.
It also allows us, and our own U.S. forces, to focus our
military on other priorities besides peacekeeping.
To date, the program has facilitated the deployment of more
than 200,000 personnel to 29 different operations around the
world.
And today, GPOI partners, although they only comprise 40
percent of the troop-contributing countries, punch well above
their weight class by providing more than 70 percent of the
troops that are forming those missions.
Through GPOI and through our diplomatic engagement, as my
colleague mentioned earlier, we are working to expand the base
of the number of countries and the number of troops that are
available to the U.N. to support these missions. And I would
echo what my colleague said, that we think this will help by
having more troops out there raise the standard not only for
mission performance but also for conduct and discipline.
Now let me be clear for the record. I think I share the
sentiment of everyone in here that each and every instance of
sexual exploitation and abuse by any peacekeeper is absolutely
unacceptable, not only for the harm it causes directly, but it
also fundamentally undermines the mission and legitimacy of
what it is trying to occur.
Now GPOI is very deliberately structured to try to
proactively address sexual exploitation and abuse. In program
execution, we direct that all appropriate individual and unit
training has elements of academics and things that go against
sexual exploitation and abuse built into their training.
We start in the classroom. We move on to scenario- based
training. And then we move on in exercise-related training at
both the individual unit and leader level.
We pay particular attention to training leaders, because we
are keenly aware of the very important role that leadership
plays and how significant a positive impact of effective
leadership can have downrange once they are in mission.
And then GPOI also works to promote the role of women and
to promote gender integration. We specifically seek out women
as trainers, because we understand the positive impact that can
have. And over the past 5 years, the 50 active countries that
are GPOI partners, they have nearly doubled the number of women
that they deploy in mission for U.N. peacekeeping. And to give
you a point of contrast, the 71 countries that are not GPOI
partners that participate in peacekeeping, they have actually
had a decrease of 16 percent of the number of women that are
being deployed.
So I am very comfortable that GPOI is having a positive
impact in this area and through that influence.
Now while we are proud of GPOI's efforts to address this
issue, and I do believe we are positively shaping behavior and
outcome, no amount of training, no better gender integration,
is a panacea.
As we know, there are far too many serious instances that
still occur. And I, like my colleagues, am hopeful that recent
U.N. policy changes to promote transparency will help. They
have to continue to follow through.
And if a GPOI partner fails to follow up on those
allegations, if they fail to take responsible action through
their jurisprudence system, then we have to be ready as a
Nation to consider suspending our security assistance. We have
to take a very deliberate decision on how we do that.
In the end, well-trained, well-disciplined, well-equipped
units, they are the very building blocks to effective
peacekeeping. And while there are many GPOI success stories out
there, we are also very well aware that the track record is not
perfect by any means.
And so, whether it is directly or indirectly, through
ongoing training, through expanding the role of women, we
remain committed for improvement overseas with the U.N., with
our partner countries, to rid us of this scourge of sexual
exploitation and abuse.
Thank you for your time. I stand by for your questions.
[General Rothstein's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Major General Michael Rothstein, Deputy Assistant
Secretary for Plans, Programs, and Operations, Bureau of Political-
Military Affairs, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC
Good morning Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Cardin and members of the
committee. I am U.S. Air Force Major General Michael Rothstein, here
before you in my capacity as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Plans,
Programs, and Operations in the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of
Political-Military Affairs.
Among my duties at the State Department, I am responsible for
providing executive leadership and guidance for U.S. government global
security assistance programs and policies, such as the Global Peace
Operations Initiative (GPOI)--which I look forward to discussing with
you today. As an active-duty member of the armed services on detail to
the State Department, one might say I am ``living proof'' of State and
DoD's commitment to coordination and collaboration.
gpoi as a flagship program for building global peace operations
capacity
Peacekeeping missions are a critical tool for promoting peace and
reconciliation in some of the world's most troubled countries. As
Ambassador Power highlighted to this committee in December of last
year: ``Even when the United States has an interest in seeing conflict
abate or civilians protected, that does not mean that U.S. forces
should be doing all of the abating or the protecting.''
While the U.S. cannot and should not send the U.S. military into
all of the world's conflict zones, we have a compelling interest in
curbing violent conflicts and preventing suffering around the world,
and we need international peacekeeping to work. GPOI serves as our
flagship program for building global peace operations capacity, and is
one of the key ways the United States advances its vital interest in
strengthening peacekeeping.
GPOI works to strengthen international capacity and capabilities to
implement United Nations (U.N.) and regional peace operations. It
builds the capacity of our partners and enhances their capabilities to
meet the growing global demand for specially trained personnel required
for peace operations. GPOI supports not only military peacekeeping
activities, but also contributes to the development of formed police
units (FPUs), complementing the efforts of our colleagues in the State
Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement
Affairs.
In addition to being the world's leading financial supporter of
U.N. peacekeeping, the United States is also the largest trainer and
equipper of military and police contingents deploying to peacekeeping
operations in the world. Programs like GPOI have played a pivotal role
in meeting the expanding need for well-trained, adequately equipped
peacekeepers capable of responding to evolving mission requirements. To
date, the program has facilitated the deployment of more than 200,000
personnel to 29 peace operations around the world. Moreover, assistance
and engagement through GPOI have directly advanced the will and ability
of partner countries to deploy key enabling capabilities essential to
mission success, such as aviation, engineering, or medical units, as
well as to deploy more basic units to higher risk missions. GPOI is
further working to expand the base of troop and police contributors and
help create a surplus of peacekeeping forces. Importantly, this will
allow the international community to be more selective in choosing
which forces will deploy for which missions and help both raise and
enforce standards.
how gpoi works directly to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse (sea)
Let me be clear: each and every instance of sexual exploitation and
abuse by members of any peacekeeping force undermines the force's
mission and legitimacy. Given the strategic importance of multilateral
peace operations to U.S. national security and foreign policy
objectives, we strongly believe contributing countries must take steps
to ensure that personnel assigned to peacekeeping missions are properly
trained, vetted, scrupulously professional in their conduct, and held
to account when their actions fall below those standards. GPOI and our
broader security assistance and security cooperation programs play a
key part in supporting the efforts of our partner countries to
professionalize their security forces and enforce stringent conduct and
discipline standards.
GPOI is consciously structured to proactively address these serious
issues. GPOI training and support programs must adhere to the GPOI
Strategy, which includes prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse in
one of its seven program objectives. Additionally, all GPOI training
must follow specific training requirements identified in program
guidance to our implementers and trainers in the field--guidance that
is emphasized and reemphasized throughout the year at regional and
global roundtable consultations to address best practices in
identifying and addressing this critical issue.
In 2015, GPOI funded 130 training events and courses around the
world. These programs explain the U.N.'s zero tolerance policy against
sexual exploitation and abuse and emphasize the critical role that
individuals, units and leaders play in preventing sexual exploitation
and abuse. Where appropriate, GPOI-funded training incorporates
instruction on human rights, conduct, and discipline, including the
preventions of sexual exploitation and abuse; protection of civilians,
including the prevention of sexual and gender-based violence, and child
protection.
At the individual level, such training includes examples,
perceptions and definitions of sexual exploitation and abuse, in order
for prospective peacekeepers to fully grasp its impact on individuals,
the population, and the peacekeeping mission. These lessons outline
peacekeeper standards of conduct including individual and leadership
responsibilities for preventing, responding to and reporting sexual
exploitation and abuse, as well as discussingthe consequences of sexual
misconduct. This training is further reinforced as part of unit level
trainings.
While preventing sexual exploitation and abuse is the
responsibility of every peacekeeper, GPOI training places particular
emphasis on the critical role that unit leaders play in this task. For
example, this topic is stressed as part of battalion-level pre-
deployment training we provide through the GPOI-funded Africa
Contingency Operations and Training Assistance, or ACOTA, program, as
well as the Contingent Commander courses we sponsor in Africa, the
Asia-Pacific regions, and elsewhere. This training places a focus on
commanders' responsibilities to enforce conduct and discipline among
their troops, including sexual exploitation and abuse and other forms
of misconduct.
how gpoi helps prevent sea by promoting the role of women and
enhanced gender integration into peacekeeping operations
Working to include women as equal partners in preventing conflict
and building peace in countries threatened and affected by war,
violence, and insecurity can also help reduce instances of sexual
exploitation and abuse and gender-based violence. This is why, in
addition to direct support for this specialized training, GPOI
consciously works to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse by promoting
the role of women and influencing partner countries to increase gender
integration into U.N. and regional peacekeeping operations, including
specifically seeking out women to serve as trainers for foreign
military or police units.
Over the past five years, the 50 active GPOI partner countries have
nearly doubled the number of female military peacekeepers deployed to
2,539 and more than doubled the number of female FPU officers to 513.
Additionally, GPOI has provided more than $3 million specifically for
women, peace and security and related protection of civilian
initiatives in support of the U.N. and partner countries across the
globe. As a point of contrast during this same period, the 71 countries
that are not GPOI partners actually decreased the number of deployed
females from 604 to 508, a loss of 16%.
GPOI also provides funding assistance for gender-specific
facilities refurbishment to enable gender integration and more systemic
training of female peacekeepers, such as the establishment of female
barracks, latrines and showers at peacekeeping training centers.
broader efforts required to prevent and respond to sea
Training and gender integration initiatives, such as efforts the
U.S. Government implements through GPOI and complementary security
assistance and cooperation programs are foundational to sexual
exploitation and abuse prevention efforts. We will continue to actively
explore ways in which we can strengthen training and reinforce
messaging on these critical issues.
However, it is important to note that training is only a small part
of a broader, holistic effort required to more effectively prevent
sexual exploitation and abuse in U.N. and regional peace operations.
Many factors beyond training underlie sexual exploitation and abuse and
other conduct and discipline issues. Individual morals, cultural
values, unit professionalism, leadership, and education among other
considerations, can contribute to conditions that foster peacekeeper
conduct and discipline problems.
While we commit to objectively examining the effectiveness of our
GPOI training activities, training is but one piece of the solution to
this pervasive problem. We must also continue our work with the U.N.,
troop and police contributing countries, and other international
stakeholders to examine and address issues underlying the prevalence of
sexual exploitation and abuse in some peacekeeping missions and to work
together to implement more effective prevention measures.
Moreover, greater efforts must be undertaken. We must continue to
push the U.N. for greater transparency and accountability in
allegations and investigations and for the U.N. to clarify roles and
responsibilities for conducting sexual exploitation and abuse
investigations. Additionally we must engage diplomatically and consider
security assistance to troop or police contributing countries to
strengthen both their political will and their actual capacity to
respond effectively to allegations.
In some cases, troop or police contributors demonstrate the will to
pursue allegations but lack the institutional capacity to conduct
timely, effective investigations or, where appropriate, to prosecute
cases through either a military or civilian justice system. In other
cases, countries' leaders may view sexual exploitation and abuse
allegations less seriously than warranted and be reluctant to take
appropriate action. Accordingly, we must continue to work
collaboratively within the interagency and with the U.N., U.N. member
states, including troop and police contributors, and other
international stakeholders to develop the investigative, prosecution,
and other mechanisms to hold perpetrators accountable, as well as to
pressure those countries reluctant to take appropriate action when
necessary. If countries fail to respond appropriately, we are and must
be willing to deliberately consider withholding further GPOI
assistance.
the presidential policy memorandum on u.s. support to u.n. peace
operations
Although GPOI has long been invested in efforts to prevent sexual
exploitation and abuse, the issuance of the Presidential Policy
Memorandum on U.S. Support to U.N. Peace Operations in September 2015
has broadened and strengthened our efforts. We are working closely with
the International Organizations Bureau, INL and others at the State
Department, the U.S. Mission to the U.N., and the Department of Defense
to implement the policy. Together, we are taking steps to address a
broad range of peacekeeping performance and accountability issues, with
particular attention to sexual exploitation and abuse by coordinating
and complementing how we use our programming and influence as the
largest trainer and equipper of peacekeeping troops, our direct
personnel contributions to U.N. peacekeeping missions, and our
diplomatic influence at U.N. headquarters.
conclusion
Ultimately, the building blocks of an effective peacekeeping force
are well-trained, disciplined and properly equipped security forces.
Through GPOI and other security capacity building programs, the United
States works to help our partners field peacekeeping forces of which
the vast majority live up to high standards of professionalism,
discipline and conduct. While there are many success stories, the track
record is certainly not perfect. Whether it's directly or indirectly,
through ongoing training or through expanding the role of women in
peacekeeping and society, we are committed to helping prevent and
combat sexual exploitation and abuse among peacekeeping forces.
I look forward to your questions. Thank you.
The Chairman. We thank you all for your testimony.
Look, my guess is that you all are as upset about this as
we are. You work in an organization that, whether it is at
State, certainly at the U.N., where trying to make something
happen is almost impossible. And my sense is you probably do
welcome a hearing like this to highlight the problems that
exist.
My understanding is that the level of violence, sexual
abuse, the kinds of things that are happening to vulnerable
people that we are supposed to be protecting, is actually much
higher than is reported, because the very people that are out
there, quote, ``protecting'' populations are also protecting,
in many cases, the human rights workers who may, in fact, be
reporting this.
So would that assumption, Ambassador Coleman, be
appropriate that, in fact, the reporting levels are far lower
than they otherwise would be because people are out in the
field. These peacekeeping folks are there to protect them, too,
and there are concerns about when they are in the field making
reports.
Ambassador Coleman. Thank you, Senator, for that question.
I think that you are absolutely correct to make the assumption
that levels of reporting are below what they actually are.
I think it is for variety of reasons. I think that what we
are seeing in the Central African Republic with a lot of the
allegations coming to light now in particular parts of the
country are because the security situation is improving, and we
are now able to send more people out to some of these remote
areas where you have had a single-country contingent, which in
and of itself is a risk factor, which the U.N. is now
recognizing, that in remote areas we should not have single-
country contingents.
So I think you are seeing an improvement in security, which
is allowing people from the community to feel more safe and
comfortable to come forward and report abuses. And what I can
tell you, Mr. Chairman, is that I think, in the coming months,
we are going to see more allegations coming to light. I do not
think we have nearly seen the end of this problem.
As the U.N. shines a spotlight on this issue, we are going
to see more allegations, not fewer.
The Chairman. Which countries are the ones that are the
worst? Name them.
Ambassador Coleman. You know, I wish I could say that this
was just a couple of countries, but what we are seeing is that
it runs the full gamut of countries, from countries with
seemingly very well-trained and equipped and disciplined
troops. I mean, the French forces, the Sangaris forces have
been named, two countries, Burundi, Gabon, the Tanzanians in
the DRC, the DRC troops themselves, the Moroccans.
There are many, many countries that have these allegations.
So I cannot point a finger at one being particularly bad. We do
know that in the Central African Republic, the contingents that
have been repatriated were the troops from the Republic of
Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo and they were
repatriated because there was----
The Chairman. I got it. I apologize. I have to get things
in within a certain time.
Ambassador Coleman. Yes.
The Chairman. I have a whole list of countries here that it
is beyond belief that some of them--Germany, other countries.
Let me ask you this. If I could ask a personal question,
have you all had kids? You all have family?
If you knew a U.N. peacekeeping mission was going to your
neighborhood right now, would you not have the same response I
had, that you would rush home to protect your family from the
peacekeepers? Would that be your response, honestly? Would you
please tell me?
Ambassador Coleman. Mr. Chairman, I have five kids. And
when I was preparing for this testimony today, last night, and
I had to talk with my daughters about what I was doing and what
I would be talking about, it was a very difficult conversation.
What I can also tell you is, having just recently returned
from the Central African Republic, I am so thankful that my
children are being raised in the United States and in an
environment where rule of law is primary.
And in the Central African Republic, I met people who are
the victims of sexual exploitation and abuse. Their families
have suffered it directly. And I asked them that question,
would you prefer that there were no peacekeepers here? And I
actually did not know what the answer would be. Ambassador
Power and I sat together with them. Would you prefer, given
what you have experienced, that peacekeepers return home? And
all of them said, ``No, what we want is we want accountability.
We want justice to be served.''
The Chairman. Let me ask you this. What is wrong with the
Secretary General of the U.N.? This report, the one that you
referred to, is 10 years old. What is wrong with him? What is
wrong with him? I mean, is he just so inept--inept--that he
cannot cause a body like this to keep this from happening over
and over and over again? And we are just now beginning to put
processes in place? What is wrong with him?
Ambassador Coleman. What I would say, Mr. Chairman, is that
those processes have been put in place coming out of that
report a decade ago, but they have never been acted upon in a
way that they must be acted upon.
The Chairman. That is my point. How do we put up with such
inept leadership at the United Nations? How do we do that?
Ambassador Coleman. I do not think it is ineptitude. I
think it is a reluctance to take on the opposition of troop-
contributing countries that do not want to deal with this issue
in the transparent way that it must be dealt with, and with
accountability.
The Chairman. Let me ask you that. We have a law here
called the Leahy Act, which says when we know of things like
this, we withhold money. Have we withheld money?
General Rothstein. So, Mr. Chairman, I cannot give you an
example where we have withheld money for these things.
The good news is, up until recently, we did not have the
kind of visibility that we needed to be able to pursue these
things.
Now, certainly, with the Leahy law, when we have credible
evidence of individuals or units, then we go forth not to do
security assistance with them anymore, and that is out there.
And all the units that we train already, we vet through that
process. So any of the training that we have done has been
vetted through that Leahy-vetted process.
What is good about what is happening now, and should have
been happening sooner I think we would all agree, is that now
we are starting to get more information coming in from the U.N.
that we did not have access to before. And that is going to
allow us to do this better than we have done it before.
The Chairman. We may go to a second round with you all, but
I look at the list of countries that are violators. Most of
them--many of them, let me put it this way--are countries that
receive aid from the United States in other forms. I do not
understand why we continue to send money to countries outside
of the U.N. that allow this type of abuse to take place. So I
do not think we are using the leverage that we have.
We, I think, should be withholding payments to the U.N.
until this ends or doing some level of reductions, but it seems
to me that this is not that important to the U.N., or they
would have done much more about it over the last 10 years.
By the way, those people you talked to I would say were
somewhat fearful to tell you they did not want them to be
there, with U.N. officials being in your presence.
But I just do not think the United States is using the
leverage that we have, not at your level, at other levels, to
stop this. And I think the U.N. is, I think, in great jeopardy
of building enough critical mass around here where severe
penalties should be taken against them with withholding of
funds from them, because of their ineptness, their lack of
concern, their lack of care after 10 years to continue to allow
this to occur.
So I hope actions and I plan to be a part of actions being
taken against them, because it is obviously something that is
not very important to them. Otherwise, this could have been
stopped a long time ago--ineptness, lack of a moral compass,
lack of concern for vulnerable people.
Senator Cardin?
Senator Cardin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, thank you all, and I mean that. This is not easy
work, and we appreciate your commitment and passion to get this
right on behalf of vulnerable people globally. So, thank you
for your commitment.
And, I do acknowledge the fact that we now have more
information than we had a year or 2 ago. My staff has given me
a copy of what is on the U.N. Web page, those who have had
allegations of sexual abuse. It looks like approximately, since
beginning of 2015, 100. I am rounding. It could be 90, but
somewhere in that range, specific episodes involving about the
same number of victims.
And of all those cases, I went through it quickly, only
four have been penalized with any jail time.
And I also point out what the chairman said, that these are
the reported cases. We know that in some countries the
seriousness of this issue, even though it is globally
acknowledged of being the worst types of conduct, but in some
governments and some countries, it is not considered to be a
serious issue. And that means that the reporting is going to be
spotty in some of the missions, and then the pressure that is
on the command structure that has always been there.
We saw that in the U.S. command structure when we were
dealing with trafficking with military facilities located in
other countries not participating. It took some while before we
were able to change the culture. So we know that also is a
problem.
But my specific question to you is, it is one thing to get
the Secretary General to withdraw the mission, if they do not
do certain things, and I am all for that. The two sections that
I see in U.N. Security Council Resolution 2272, which was just
passed last month--so the chairman is absolutely right. This
has been going on for a long, long time, and we finally got a
U.N. Security Council resolution passed last month.
Section 4 deals with gathering evidence, but most of that
section deals with how you deal, rightly so, with victims and
making sure the mission is well-trained, et cetera.
And then Section 9 says, ``Urges all member states to take
concrete steps aimed at preventing and combating impunity for
sexual exploitation.''
What are we doing? What is the United States doing? What is
our leadership doing to make sure that those who have
perpetrated these horrible acts are going to end up in jail?
Ambassador Jacobson. Thank you for your question, Senator.
It is a very important topic, and I think you have hit on
something that is key here.
We have talked a lot about what the U.N. is or is not
doing, but the crux of the matter is what are the troop- and
police-contributing countries doing to hold those who have
perpetrated these horrendous crimes accountable.
Based on the new reporting that we have of nationalities,
we finally have a tool that allows us to go to those countries
to see what they are doing, to urge them to do better.
I think you have mentioned the four cases from last year
that have gone through the whole process. There are at least
another 20 where trials are occurring now, 20 trials in the
Democratic Republic of Congo that that government is conducting
against peacekeepers who have been accused of this. Also the
Republic of South Africa has an onsite court-martial that is
going on right now.
So we are starting to see the actions taken that these
countries know now that we know what they are doing. We know
where the troops are coming from and that we are going to
continue to shine a spotlight on these issues.
We have sent in our missions to all of these countries just
last month. This was a subject of high-level discussion with
our Ambassadors who were all back here in Washington last month
for the Chief of Mission conference.
And we have been very clear with countries that we have
gone out to that this is not just one sort of discussion, that
we are going to be coming back regularly to determine what they
are doing and holding their feet to the fire.
Senator Cardin. So let me just underscore the point that
the chairman made.
I support U.N. peacekeeping. A lot of taxpayer money goes
into U.N. peacekeeping. U.S. taxpayer money goes into it. I
have a right as a Senator to know that Section 9 of the U.N.
Security Council resolution is being enforced. I do not believe
that the countries that have people who have perpetrated this,
some of the countries, will follow through with this
requirement of combating impunity and making sure that the
perpetrators are held accountable and are serving prison time.
So what are you going to do to provide me with information
on how we are doing in every one of these countries that have
perpetrators, as to how their system of justice is handling
this acceptable to international standards?
Ambassador Jacobson. Senator, it is very important that we
continue to follow up with each of these countries in a
repeated way. And we are doing that, and we are happy to
provide you at any time with the results of our conversations
with these countries.
Senator Cardin. I want to be a little more proactive. I
want to know what you plan to do, working with the Members of
Congress, to keep us informed in a timely way as to how every
country that sends peacekeepers to countries, the systems that
they have employed to deal with those who have perpetrated
these types of acts.
First of all, I do not think we have enough. I think we
have to be more proactive, the United States, in making sure
those who are victimized have an opportunity to come forward. I
think we have to be more direct with the political structure in
the United Nations to make sure that every country's
perpetrators are identified, so that we have, by country what
is happening, and that we follow every particular case,
because, quite frankly, I do not have confidence in their
system to provide justice--international justice, not U.S.
justice. And I think the more transparency you can put into
this, the more important it is.
So I want you to come back to me, this committee, and tell
me what we are going to be receiving on a regular basis as to
what is happening in every one of these countries in holding
the perpetrators accountable, and how those trials are going
forward, and whether, in fact, you can say with confidence that
they have taken steps to prevent impunity for those who have
committed these crimes.
Will you do that?
Ambassador Jacobson. Yes, Senator. Thank you.
In fact, we have already started an exercise to do just
this. There is a whole team of people behind me that are
engaged in this every day.
Essentially, what we want to do is combine the new
transparency that we are getting from the U.N. with our own
information that we get from our Embassies in the field. And we
are preparing what we call a data call, that is actually an
effort to go out to all of our Ambassadors in every country
that hosts a peacekeeping mission to answer a series of
questions based on our own observations, our own engagement,
our own analysis, so that we can bring that information back to
Washington and do exactly what you say to make a determination
about whether the countries are doing the right thing or not.
Senator Cardin. So Senator Corker and I, we need to talk a
little more about this. But the Leahy rule, which is one that I
support, indicates that we do not give aid to countries that do
not adhere to basic international standards. And to me, holding
those accountable for these atrocities--these types of
activities would be contrary to international norm.
So you are going to have to help us draft the appropriate
type of oversight that will make sure that countries understand
that they must act to prevent impunity for the perpetrators of
these crimes. Understood?
Ambassador Jacobson. Yes, Senator. Understood.
Senator Cardin. Otherwise, we will draft it, and you may
not like the way we draft it, so I will just warn you.
Ambassador Jacobson. Understood. For example, in the
current year's appropriations language, which does require the
kind of certification that you are describing, we are looking
forward to working with you to put that information together.
Senator Cardin. Thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Isakson?
Senator Isakson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate both
you and the ranking member focusing on this.
And I appreciate your compliments to the U.N. about
transparency and finally making some moves. But putting in a
year-end report on how many violations of human rights there
were, in terms of rape against women, is not much transparency.
And putting it on the Web site is pretty good, but a lot of
these people who are victims would not know a Web site if they
saw it, because they are in very remote parts of the world.
I want to echo what Senator Cardin and Senator Corker have
already said. I completely come from where they are coming
from, in terms of us in the United States holding these people
accountable in some way, if not at least by withholding funds
or withholding funds until they comply with human rights.
But here is the question. When Senator Corker and I went to
Darfur, and Senator Coons and I went to the Congo, one of the
many things I learned is that rape is a military tactic in
Africa. It is not a violation of law. They teach it.
The Chairman. That is right.
Senator Isakson. When we went to Darfur, you did not see a
man older than 12 or younger than 72, because they all had
fled. Every woman had a baby, and I am talking about women who
were 45 or 50 or 60 years old, or at least had weathered and
endured so much pain they looked like they were that old,
because the armies that came in to invade the towns raped the
women to break up the family unit. The men leave. They take the
son with them, or the son is conscripted into the army. It is
an ongoing process.
I mean, this is a big practice, and I am not just picking
on Africa, but it is one place I know where it takes place so
much.
And unless there was a significant consequence of United
States funds--this may address your organization, General, that
you work on--we are just whistling in the wind, because these
people are taught to do it.
That was not a question. That was kind of a statement of
awareness, which brings me to the question.
General, is there any status of forces agreement that you
know that is required or otherwise puts the burden of any
country that supplies peacekeeping troops, any status of forces
by which those peacekeeping troops will be held legally
accountable in the event they commit a felony or a crime?
General Rothstein. Thanks for the question. I am going to
have to defer a little bit.
I know there is a memorandum between the country and those
countries that go to a certain mission and the country that
they are working in, but I do not know the details of that, to
be able to unwrap that further for you.
So I do not know if I could turn it over to you,
Ambassador?
Ambassador Coleman. There is a memorandum of understanding,
and there is a model memorandum of understanding that is
negotiated every 3 years. That negotiation is coming up in
2017, and strengthening the provisions to be very explicit and
incredibly direct on sexual exploitation and abuse is one of my
goals for that upcoming negotiation.
Off of that model MOU, then there are specific MOUs that
are negotiated between the troop-contributing country and U.N.
Senator, what I can tell you is that this is not a problem
at its core of lack of words on paper. This is a problem of
political will. And it is a problem that has persisted for too
long, where words on paper have been ignored. Words on paper
have been disregarded.
So even within the existing MOUs, the TCCs have not abided
by that. And now, we will not tolerate that going forward.
Senator Isakson. It underscores the point I want to make.
As long as these troops, many of whom are in an army that was
trained to use sexual violence as a tool of war, are deployed
as a peacekeeper, if they realize they are exempt from any
accountability for legal enforcement of the law in the country
that they are in or anywhere else, then there is nothing to
thwart or hold them back.
However, if all of a sudden, because of initiatives the
United States takes and other peace-loving countries take, we
start holding people accountable, sentencing people, and people
start serving punishment and time for rape or violence against
women or whatever it might be, then the word will get out
really fast.
I mean, governments are great, and U.N. is the best, in
making agreements, putting words on paper, but not the very
best at putting those words to work in life.
So my point is, if we can get to some sort of status of
forces agreement between countries that supply U.N. troops and
the U.N., or require an agreement between them and the country
that they are deployed in, not a ``you must in 90 days
establish a pattern or practice,'' a status of forces that says
you will be liable and you will be punished for rape, for
murder, or whatever capital felonies we want to include in
there, and then do our best to aggressively make a couple
people an example of it.
Until that sort of thing is happening, that and withholding
money are the two things that will get these guys' attention.
We do not have anybody's attention right now, none whatsoever.
And it is a frightening, frightening thing.
And I think the GPOI, which is a division of the State
Department, right?
General Rothstein. Yes, sir. That is a division under my
leadership.
Senator Isakson. I would hope you would meet with
Ambassador Froman, the Trade Representative for the United
States, and start finding out whether or not there are some
ways you could tie a country's compliance with fighting
violence against women with the agreements we make with them in
trade and commerce.
Senator Coons and I opened the markets in South Africa for
U.S. poultry, which they were being blocked from, by just
enforcing the terms of the African Growth and Opportunity Act,
which is a trade preference program between the two countries.
People do not like rape and they do not like violence, but
they sure do like to eat and they like to have commerce and
they like to have trade. And if you predicate participating in
those things with the United States with them being committed
to ending violence against women, sexual violence as a
practice, then we can start going a long way toward making
something happen.
That is the kind of leverage that really makes a
difference. I am not belittling the annual report. I am not
belittling the Web site. But I am telling you it is one thing
to tell them your name is on the Web site; it is another thing
to tell them that you cannot trade anymore.
We have gotten countries in Africa to change their labor
laws, in order to get into compliance with a goal. We had them
start importing chickens from the United States in order to
participate in trade through the AGOA agreement.
It would seem like to me the State Department ought to try
to find ways they can leverage what you are trying do in GPOI
with some of the benefits we do on a daily basis with countries
around the world who may provide peacekeepers, to see where you
could tie the two together.
Then all of a sudden, you have a big stick. And until you
have a big stick in some of these countries, you ain't got
nothing, pardon my English.
So I would just suggest that would be one way to look at
making an economic impact in return for better behavior by some
of these host countries.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Before going to Senator Coons, you mentioned the political
resistance. What kind of political resistance exists to keep
soldiers from raping and abusing young girls and young boys?
What kind of resistance do you face at this United Nations
body?
Ambassador Coleman. The resistance, Mr. Chairman, is over
giving up any control or jurisdiction with respect to how
issues of conduct and discipline are handled by TCCs
themselves, by the troop-contributing countries. They have
resisted our efforts to increase transparency on these issues
out of fear that it would dishonor their troops, that it would
dishonor peacekeeping.
But what I can tell you, and what I say to them, is the
dishonor is in not being transparent. The dishonor is in not
prosecuting credible allegations of sexual exploitation and
abuse to restore integrity to peacekeeping.
And so I think what you are seeing in a positive way today
is that there is no longer a monolithic resistance on these
issues. I think there are troop-contributing countries that
recognize that we face a crisis, and they recognize that simply
circling the wagons and saying no to transparency and no to
accountability is actually undermining peacekeeping, is
undermining their own integrity.
And so we have seen some progress recently on that front.
The Chairman. I would just point out on the list, I know
most members have seen the list, but a large number of the
people that are violators are in the peacekeeping mission to
make money. I will say this one more time. They are in the
peacekeeping mission to make money.
So, I am sorry, I cannot imagine how political resistance
could keep us from enforcing against these countries that make
money off doing this in this particular situation.
Senator Coons?
Senator Coons. Thank you, Chairman Corker and Ranking
Member Cardin, for both convening this hearing and for your
persistence, your voice, your engagement, both of you, in
fighting human trafficking, in fighting to end human slavery,
and for the passionate engagement you bring to making sure that
we do not just hold hearings on the deplorable conditions of
the victims of sexual abuse and violence around the world but
that we actually do something and get something done.
In this particular instance today, we are talking about
U.N. peacekeeping, and I want thank all of our witnesses for
your testimony today of both panels, but especially Ambassador
Coleman, who I know is working hard to try and institute real
reforms in the U.N. to make it a more effective institution.
I, just last week, went to U.N. headquarters in New York
and met with the U.N. Under Secretary General for Peacekeeping
Operations, Herve Ladsous, and was struck by the daunting
challenges that peacekeepers face in the 21st century, by the
number of countries where we have U.N. peacekeepers deployed,
and by the possibilities of peacekeeping in terms of protecting
fragile countries from falling into being failed states.
I have strongly supported U.N. peacekeeping efforts in
terms of appropriations support, and I view it as a cost-
effective and a positive way for us to not just keep peace but
build peace.
But the allegations that have been made not just in CAR
but, Ambassador Coleman, as you have outlined, across dozens of
different U.N. missions, across decades now, are simply
shocking and unacceptable.
And it is the United States that is footing most of the
bill for most of the peacekeepers who are committing these
atrocities against men and women and children. And if the very
people who we are funding, training, equipping, supporting to
be peacekeepers cannot be trusted to keep the peace and instead
are committing crimes, then our support for U.N. peacekeeping
is at risk of doing more harm than good.
So I think we all agree we have to act, not just listen,
not just take notes, but act to bring an end to sexual
exploitation and abuse on a wide scale by U.N. peacekeepers.
But simply providing peacekeepers and police does not
fulfill a member state's obligation for the U.N. community of
nations. It is the responsibility of member states to select
and train and oversee appropriate units.
And it is a struggle. As the chairman was just recognizing,
many of the peacekeeping contributing countries are deploying
peacekeepers, at least in the countries that I have traveled to
with Senator Isakson, in part in order to get their troops
paid. We are not attracting the best and most capable and most
trained peacekeeping forces from around the world. We need to
strengthen that.
But before we make progress in that, I think we first have
to institute meaningful accountability for nations and their
peacekeepers who commit these kinds of crimes.
So I look forward to exploring together ways this committee
can help Ambassador Power and her team at the U.N. push for
accountability that is meaningful and that can work together to
end these crimes and to change peacekeepers from perpetrators
of violence to protectors against violence.
So if I could, Ambassador, just tell me what peacekeeper
training methods have proven most effective so far? In fact, I
would like all members of the panel to answer this question, if
you could.
What has been successful in terms of training to reduce
what Senator Isakson I think correctly recognized is the
training, whether intentional or by experience, of many of the
troop-contributing countries that sexual violence is being used
as a weapon of war? What is the training that is most effective
at preventing that? And what can we do to strengthen that
training in combination with accountability?
Ambassador Coleman. Thank you. Well, I will allow General
Rothstein to answer the specific training question, but if you
would allow me just to say I want to reiterate a point that
General Rothstein made earlier, which is this is not
fundamentally about a training issue. I mean, there is no
training that is going to guarantee that this problem will not
occur. And when you look at the troops that have committed
these abuses, some of them are among the best-trained troops in
the world. And we know that they have explicit components of
sexual exploitation and abuse prevention in their training
methods.
So ultimately, I come back to this as an accountability
issue. There is no troop-contributing country that is immune
from these types of abuses. It is how they deal with them and
how they deal with it in a fulsome way that provides prevention
going forward.
Senator Coons. Before we turn to the training question,
since we have you, Ambassador Coleman, on this, how effective
is naming and shaming, since a number of the countries involved
and implicated are close allies of ours who have troops that
are trained and perform at the highest level?
Then we will talk about training for those who lack
operational excellence or efficiency.
You are right. I think accountability matters first before
training. How effective is the naming and shaming that we are
advocating and that we may work together to strengthen?
Ambassador Coleman. Well, thank you, Senator. And I like to
avoid the phrase ``naming and shaming,'' because I see no shame
in being named. The shame is in not following through with
accountability.
I think it really is a watershed for us to be able to
identify the countries and then to be able to follow up
directly with them, and not tolerate, not allow, the passivity
that has existed, the sweeping under the carpet that has
existed, frankly, the lack of accountability, to not allow it
anymore.
And Senator Isakson earlier talked about having a big
stick, and Mr. Chairman, you have talked about money. The money
is a big stick.
And to be able say that you will not participate in
peacekeeping any longer if you do not hold your troops
accountable, if you do not report back to the Security Council,
to the Secretary General, on what you are doing, if you do not
prosecute these allegations in a full and sufficient way, that
is ultimately the U.N.'s big stick, because the troop-
contributing countries will retain jurisdiction over their
troops. They can either choose to have a full, appropriate
response or not. And if they do not, then, frankly, they should
no longer be part of peacekeeping.
Senator Coons. I could not agree more. And as someone who
has fought for the appropriations for peacekeeping, I am
ashamed that we have been supporting peacekeepers who are doing
horrible things. I want to make sure that, working together, we
find a mechanism for accountability that is appropriate and
that uses the fact that we are one of the principal
contributors to peacekeeping support to ensure that this comes
to an end.
General, what sorts of engagements accountability are most
effective for troops, whether training or prosecution or other?
General Rothstein. So let me start by echoing what
Ambassador Coleman said.
My perspective is that training is absolutely necessary,
but, make no mistake, I do not think it is sufficient. This is
a problem that is much broader than training, and I believe we
have to train. Through the training we provide through our
security assistance, we think it is pretty good.
And as far as best practices, what we work to do in our
training, we start in the classroom. We move to scenarios. We
move to including exercises. And we also focus very much on
unit leadership. And we draw on the best of breed. We work very
closely with the United Nations to find the best practices that
work well. We make sure they understand their policy. But all
that, no matter how well you do it, will not be sufficient.
And so I would echo what Ambassador Coleman said. We have
to focus on accountability.
I also echo that we have to focus on how the country is
following up. Just because you have a rotten individual or
maybe even a rotten unit does not mean you necessarily want to
disengage from the whole country, because as we remain focused
on future outcomes, if that country is still going to deploy to
U.N. peacekeeping, and we want to affect it for the better,
then we probably want to be involved in their training and help
make it better and not walk away and let it deteriorate.
Those are the difficult decisions we have.
Senator Coons. I am past my time. I just want to say I am
looking forward to the second panel where we are going to hear,
frankly, about U.N. suppression of whistleblowers and the real
likelihood that these abuses are far more widespread than has
so far been reported.
Thank you for your testimony and your hard work on this
topic.
The Chairman. I would just say that on this issue there
ought to be some way for us to figure out a way to surgically
deal with this in a bipartisan manner that gets at this issue
and not bring in a whole host of other issues, but we ought to
be able to figure out a way to do it.
Senator Flake is going to go ahead and ask Senator Shaheen
to ask her questions.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you all very much for your testimony
today and for the work that you are doing on a very difficult
issue.
I want to follow up, Ambassador Coleman, with what you said
about how important it is for the U.N. to actually hold
countries accountable and to ask, has that ever been done? Do
we have any examples where that has actually occurred and we
have seen a change in behavior? And if that is the case, why
have we not instituted a process whereby that is done on a
regular basis?
Ambassador Coleman. Thank you, Senator Shaheen.
The U.N. has, I think, consistently followed up with the
troop-contributing countries. When allegations have come to
their attention, they have documented them. They have presented
evidence that they have collected to the troop-contributing
countries. They have followed up with the troop-contributing
countries, and too often have been met with silence and,
frankly, have acted with timidity in pushing back on the TCCs
in demanding action.
Senator Shaheen. That is the question that I am really
asking. Can you cite a time in the past when the U.N. has
demanded action, if the troop-contributing countries have
failed to act, where we have denied them funding or continuing
to contribute to peacekeeping efforts?
Ambassador Coleman. I know of a number of examples, and
some of them have happened, frankly, with U.S. urging.
I can tell you that the Uruguayans in Haiti had sexual
exploitation and abuse allegations. We knew about them at the
time. There was not a Web site. This was not published. But we
did learn about it. We engaged bilaterally. We also engaged at
the U.N. And the Uruguayans did take action. They, in fact,
held quite a public trial in Montevideo. They flew victims from
Haiti to the trial.
We know that the U.N. has engaged with a number of member
states who have been responsive.
When I was in MONUSCO last year, in the Democratic Republic
of Congo, I learned about the South Africans and how one of
their force intervention brigade had had a number of
allegations. The U.N. brought it to the highest levels of
attention in the South African Army, and they dealt with it.
They had court martials.
So it does happen. The issue is that it does not always
happen. And too often, they simply get no response from a TCC.
And when that happens, if we do not know about it or if another
member state does not know about it, it falls through the
cracks. It is totally unacceptable.
Senator Shaheen. One of the issues that has been raised is
that there is no person or agency that is responsible just for
this. And is it the assessment of the panel that if we had a
person in charge of just making sure that when there are
allegations that troop-contributing countries are taking action
to hold people responsible, would that help solve the problem?
Ambassador Coleman. The independent CAR panel report, in
excruciating detail, catalogued how information was diffused,
fragmented, the bureaucratic response that so appalled us. In
response, the U.N. has appointed Ms. Jane Holl Lute as a
special envoy to deal with this issue of sexual exploitation
and abuse.
We welcome that appointment. We think that will certainly
help provide a focal point within the U.N., so that there can
never again be an excuse that the diffusion of responsibility
allowed critical information to fall through the cracks and
inaction to occur.
So we absolutely welcome that.
Senator Shaheen. And has she taken any action yet?
Ambassador Coleman. She is just recently appointed. I know
that she right now is traveling. She has been in the Central
African Republic. She is in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
And I think you will see action coming out of her office in
short order.
Senator Shaheen. Senator Cardin and Senator Corker both
mentioned the Leahy legislation that would have the United
States deny assistance. Is this something that has been done in
particular instances where there have been documented cases of
sexual exploitation and abuse? Have we actually seen the United
States deny aid to those countries who have failed to take
action?
General Rothstein. Certainly, when we have credible
evidence, those things have fallen under the Leahy laws. At the
individual and unit level, when we have that information, that
goes into our database that we work both through the mission at
post in country when those individuals need it to potentially
come up for security assistance with the United States, as well
as the databases back here at State main.
So I do not have a specific example, but if there is
someone who has those credible allegations against them, they
would go in that database, then we would not work with that
unit or individual. And that process is in place and has been
in place.
Senator Shaheen. Well, I guess I am asking a broader
question, and that is not just about the unit or individual but
have we actually denied aid to countries that have contributed
troops to peacekeeping missions who have failed to take action
with those troops on allegations that have been shown to be
true?
General Rothstein. At the overall country level, we have
not suspended, to my knowledge, an overall country.
Senator Shaheen. Should we? Should we consider that kind of
action, if we see repeated abuses and failure to take action?
I would like each of you to respond to that, if you would.
General Rothstein. Sure. I think we absolutely have to be
ready to consider that. I think it is important we take that on
a case-by-case basis.
And as I said earlier, from my perspective, it is not so
much that an incident happens. It is what the country does
about it. And if the country lacks the will to try to follow
through on that, because like I said earlier, incidents are
going to happen. We are not to stop that. And so if the country
takes reasonable action to follow through, then we probably
ought to continue working with them.
Senator Shaheen. Right. No. I am actually asking if they
fail to take action.
General Rothstein. Right.
Senator Shaheen. Should we then look at suspending aid? Ms.
Jacobson?
Ambassador Jacobson. Thank you very much, Senator Shaheen.
It is an important question, because we do have to think about
the leverage that we have in our bilateral relations with
countries, but I think we have to look at it in a holistic way.
For example, most of the assistance that we provide to
countries in Africa is in the health area. We are not in the
business, as you know, of giving out freebies, because we want
to feel good. We are in the business of providing assistance
that meets critical U.S. national security needs.
So you would have to weigh whether or not it makes sense to
cut the assistance that we are providing to prevent the spread
of pandemic disease in response to a country's inability to
deal with sexual exploitation and abuse.
In other areas, we are providing assistance directly to
support the rule of law system and the development of
capacities to enforce law. I would not want to cut that. I
might want to sort of redirect how that is used.
So it is a tool. It is not necessarily the tool of first
resort. You have to look at what the assistance is directed to
and then make the best determination. We are trying to do that
now on a case-by-case basis through our engagement with the
countries that have been named in the report, and that is an
ongoing conversation that we will have in conjunction, of
course, with all of you.
Senator Shaheen. Ambassador Coleman?
Ambassador Coleman. I would just say that if countries are
not responding and not taking appropriate action, they should
not be included in U.N. peacekeeping. And therefore, our
contribution through our peacekeeping assessments should not be
going to those countries.
So I completely agree that U.S. engagement to strengthen
these countries and make them better--improved capacity-
building, training, vetting, all of these things are great. But
if there is a willful nonresponsiveness, they should not be
part of peacekeeping, and our money should not be going to
them.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you.
Thank you all very much.
The Chairman. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Senator Markey?
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much.
Can I ask you, General, how we deal with the countries from
which these soldiers come?
On the one hand, we are talking about training of the
soldiers. But does the country itself need training? Does their
judicial system need training? Do we need to have a program
that goes a step before these young men who are the soldiers
and get to the adults who are in these countries, ensuring that
they have the proper training so that they are taking the
intervention steps necessary early on, or else those people are
made accountable in their country? Those are the people who we
have given the training to and have not acted.
What is that program that we may or may not have in place,
in order to ensure that the proper training back in the home
country is adequate?
General Rothstein. Senator, thank you for that. You raised,
I think, what is both important and a very hard topic.
So as a general rule, I think in our security assistance,
in my experience, doing tactical training, training units, pre-
deployment training, is hard, but we are pretty good at it, as
a country. Helping to build those institutions that backstop
all of those tactical operational units is much more difficult.
It is intellectually more difficult, I would tell you.
And I will remark, I just came out of a year in Afghanistan
where my job was to build the Afghan Air Force. So I was living
on an Afghan airbase, trying to build their institutions, so I
have lived a little bit of this myself, and it is hard work.
And we do have some programs out there where we are trying to
get after that.
Within the State Department, we have a program called the
Security Governance Initiative that is taking kind of a pilot
level, looking at some of these countries, how we get after the
institution-building that has to backstop this, the rule of
law, some of those things.
The Defense Department, I do not want to speak too much for
them, because I certainly do not know, but I know they are also
working some of the defense institution-building programs.
So those are some of things we are trying to work, but it
is difficult. It will take a long time, because change in our
own bureaucracy, think how hard it is to make change happen,
much less when you are trying to work through a foreign
government through their cultural norms and values. So we are
going to have to stay at this for little while.
Senator Markey. Right. But I do not think you can solve the
problem until those leaders in the justice system in the home
countries have the proper training and gumption to enforce the
laws. These are just young men on the prowl in a foreign
country, and that is a dangerous thing without proper
supervision back home.
So let's just talk then to whatever, from your perspective,
you would like to see put on the books. What programs would you
like to see funded, short of defunding of programs, I guess, in
those countries to teach them with a stick what we could
potentially try to have them accept as a standard by the proper
educational standards, the proper accountability standards,
that are put in place without us having to punish the country?
Ambassador Jacobson. Thank you very much, Senator, for that
important question.
I just wanted to include the thought that when we started
our effort last month to go out to every country on the U.N.
list, this is part of what we were asking them. First, we
wanted to make sure that they understood the gravity of the
allegations against them. Second, we wanted to impart on them
the critical importance of actually following up on these. And
third was to open a dialogue about what that country needs in
terms of assistance to build up its own ability to investigate
and respond.
Now those conversations are at an early level. We only got
the country-specific information last month. But we are going
to build on that, and those conversations that our Ambassadors
in the field are having now are going to feed back into our
decisions about what kind of assistance we can provide,
including in the rule of law area.
But I would like to echo what my colleague Ambassador
Coleman said, that while we have an open door and a willingness
to engage in this, we should do it. Hopefully, we will be
funded to provide that kind of assistance. Where countries are
not willing, as you say, where they do not have the gumption,
those countries should be barred from peacekeeping altogether.
I believe that the resolution in the Security Council that
our New York team fought so hard for last month, 2272, provides
for that kind of banning from peacekeeping of those countries.
Senator Markey. Okay. So, great.
So let's talk, then, about the countries that you think are
the worst. Give us the worst three countries, any one of you,
so we can just get an idea of what we are talking about in
prioritizing, not alphabetically but in terms of their complete
and total lack of regard for these human rights violations.
How would you list those countries? Can you give us the
three worst?
Ambassador Jacobson. I will refer to my colleague,
Ambassador Coleman, who previously said it is really hard to
say who is the worst and who is not the worst, because we are
only now in a world where we can identify what countries are
doing. Before, we did not have that information.
Ambassador Coleman may disagree with me, but I----
Senator Markey. We have countries here--Congo, Morocco,
South Africa, Cameroon, Tanzania, Benin, Burundi, Nigeria,
Togo, Rwanda, Ghana, Madagascar, Senegal, Canada, Germany,
Slovakia, and Moldova.
Do you want to pick three? And if you do not want to do put
in Canada, you do not have to, or Slovakia, perhaps, of the
shorter list that is left.
You might want to just give us an idea of where this
problem is, and then it will focus our attention much more
precisely, laser-like, on what we should start with. We should
probably start with the worst, and then we can all know what we
have to have as a project in order to teach that country how
much they should care about the issue.
So would you like to try that, Ambassador?
Ambassador Jacobson. What you are saying is very important.
We need to identify where the problems are, and we are just
starting to be able to do that.
We are looking at a case like Democratic Republic of Congo.
Obviously, the allegations against that particular contingent
in MONUSCO are absolutely horrific. We think the Secretary
General did the right thing by sending them home. They are not
in peacekeeping anywhere else, nor should they be.
But at the same time, as part of this new focus on these
issues, we have seen now that the Democratic Republic of Congo
has detained 20 of their peacekeepers and has started trials
against them. So what we need to see before we can make a
judgment is where do those trials go.
Several of the countries that you mentioned have started
judicial processes or, in some cases, actually finished
judicial processes against those peacekeepers who were accused.
So I would say it is too early to answer the question as to
who is the worst because we haven't seen----
Senator Markey. Well, you are saying Congo is there as a
country that has already received special attention.
Ambassador Jacobson. Yes.
Senator Markey. Are there two other countries that you
might want to tell us, if you are going to prioritize as a
country, where we should be focusing that you think have been
particularly bad in this area.
Ambassador Coleman. Senator, maybe I can just comment,
adding to what Ambassador Jacobson has already said.
Congo, the DRC troops were repatriated because of a pattern
of abuse. There were so many abuses that they were repatriated.
In addition, the Republic of Congo, so not only the Democratic
Republic of Congo but the Congo Brazzaville, the Republic of
Congo, troops were also repatriated, again, because of a
pattern of abuse.
There are two different things going. One is a pattern of
abuse, which speaks to a lack of command-and-control, and the
other is a pattern of nonresponsiveness.
On the pattern of abuse, I think as allegations become
apparent, and we are tracking those allegations, it is easy to
see when there has been a pattern or it is easier to see when
there has been a pattern of abuse.
In terms of nonresponsiveness, we are only now
understanding which countries, because they are only recently
being named, have allegations that have been pending for a long
time, where there has been inadequate follow-up, inadequate
accountability.
And so in that process, we are also looking at which are
those countries, and we do not have an answer for you, and we
will get back to you with that answer.
Senator Markey. Okay. I think it is important for us to
know. When you are looking at--there are 100 nuclear power
plants, and these 10 are the least safe. Well, we are going to
focus on those.
Ambassador Coleman. Yes.
Senator Markey. Of course, right? So you have to narrow it
down for us, because, as Senator Cardin is saying over here, we
have an ability to begin to think creatively about all of the
other relationships that we have with that country that can
help to get the leaders who General Rothstein is saying may be
reluctant right now to have their judicial system fully engaged
to make sure that they are accountable, that these soldiers are
accountable, that the military officers are accountable.
Ambassador Coleman. And we look at it very much in the same
way. That is the analysis that we are doing.
Senator Markey. When will you have that list put together,
as to who are the worst? Because that would be a great hearing
to just have those worst offenders focused upon by the
committee.
Ambassador Coleman. When you are asking worst offenders,
are you talking about highest incidence or nonresponsiveness?
Senator Markey. Well, I suppose it is going be a
combination.
Ambassador Coleman. I think it is a combination.
Senator Markey. Because the ones who are least responsive
are the ones that are just turning a blind eye to the
atrocities being committed. So I am sure it is one and the
same, for the most part.
Ambassador Coleman. Not necessarily, and that is exactly
what we are trying to untangle.
I mean, there are some countries that have had pretty
significant allegations against them. As Ambassador Jacobson
said, you now see the Democratic Republic of Congo putting 20
people on trial, and so taking quite an aggressive action about
that. It is very early stages of that. A lot of times it takes,
in fact, quite a long time for these things to work their way
through their judicial system.
But the point that I want to emphasize is that having a
weak judicial system, having a judicial process that perhaps
does not meet our standards, our rule of law, is no excuse for
not taking action. There is not one TCC that has deployed to a
U.N. peacekeeping mission that does not have the ability to
impose discipline on their troops.
Senator Markey. No. And we are agreeing with you. And I
think what Chairman Corker and Ranking Member Cardin are saying
is we want to help you. There is no excuse, so just tell us who
they are, what their excuses are, and then we will try to
reinforce it, because there is the power of the purse, which
the Congress does have, that I think can help to focus their
attention on issues that we would like to see them work on.
Ambassador Coleman. Thank you.
Senator Markey. So we thank you very much.
Senator Cardin. Mr. Chairman, if I could, just to clarify,
and I think this has been a very helpful exchange.
If I understand Ambassador Coleman, the United Nations can
discipline a country that does not take appropriate steps by
denying them the right to be a TCC, and that has been done, and
the U.N. resolution speaks directly to that.
The problem is if they are nonresponsive on impunity, there
does not appear to be any direct remedy that the United Nations
can take, other than the peer pressure or public information
that is made available. And that is why I think we are looking
for ways in which we can help in regards to getting action
taken in regards to impunity.
I just really wanted to clarify that, because I think they
are the two points that you had raised before.
The Chairman. I still say it is pretty unbelievable that we
had a report in 2005 and you just now, not you, the entity we
are trying to reform, the U.N., just now is publishing
information.
I think it speaks to, I am sorry, terrible leadership, lack
of concern, unwillingness to deal with tough issues. And I do
not think it speaks very favorably of the leadership at the
U.N.
Senator Kaine?
Senator Kaine. Just really one line of question. In the
Security Council resolution from last month, and I applaud the
U.S. and the other nations for taking it seriously in the
council, were there provisions dealing with redrafts of the
MOUs with the TCCs? So should there be a standard feature of
the memorandums of understanding that talk about training,
recognizing training is not sufficient, but then what the
accountability provisions would be in the kind of complaint?
And if that is not part of the Security Council resolution,
is that a profitable area that we should focus some time?
Ambassador Coleman. Thank you, Senator. It is not part of
the Security Council resolution because those decisions are not
taken up in the Security Council. They are taken up in the
General Assembly.
And I mentioned earlier that the model MOU on which all the
MOUs are based is renegotiated every several years. It will be
up for review coming in 2017, and it is absolutely an area that
is ripe for review, for making stronger and more explicit
actions regarding sexual exploitation and abuse.
Senator Kaine. As we work on maybe a bipartisan and focused
strategy, strong demand that that MOU when it is renegotiated
includes very significant provisions around this is something
that I think we would all probably agree with.
That is the only question I have. I appreciate it.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Do you want to follow up with this panel?
Listen, we are all very upset. I think you are, too. I know
that, typically, the administration does not particularly
appreciate input from folks who sit on this side of the dais. I
think, in this case, maybe they would welcome that. And I do
look forward to working with members on both sides of aisle to
figure out a way to put additional pressure on.
I have to tell you, if I had to go to work every day and
deal with the morass that exists at the United Nations, I think
I would have to find other lines of work. So we thank you for
attempting to deal with this morass that is so ineffective in
so many things but particularly this.
But we thank you for your efforts. We appreciate your
efforts in trying to make sure that training is done on a
better level. I appreciate the work you are doing at the State
Department.
We do want to assist you in penalizing countries that
tolerate this and do not take the appropriate action. So we
will be working with you very closely over the next several
weeks.
With that, we hope you have an opportunity to hear what the
witnesses say on the next panel.
We will hold the record open until the close of business
Friday, if you could fairly promptly respond to questions that
may come your way in writing.
But we thank you for your service to our country and for
being here today. Thank you.
All right, so we are ready for the second panel. I know we
have all been looking forward to your testimony. Most of us had
a chance to read it last night or this morning.
But we thank you all for being here, and I would like to
recognize the witnesses, Dr. Miranda Brown, who has very
powerful testimony, and Mr. Yeo.
Did I pronounce that correctly? Yes. Thank you.
And if you could just begin, Dr. Brown. And then, Mr. Yeo,
if you would move on. We thank you both for being here and for
the strength of your testimony here today. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF MIRANDA BROWN, FORMER CHIEF OF AFRICA I SECTION,
OFFICE OF THE HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, UNITED
NATIONS, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
Dr. Brown. Good afternoon. My name is Miranda Brown, and I
am a former Australian diplomat.
I joined the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights as the chief of the Eastern Southern Africa Section in
December 2012 and occupied this position until December 2014.
I have firsthand experience of monitoring and reporting
human rights violations, including sexual abuse in a
peacekeeping environment. I am going to give you an insider's
perspective.
From my experience in the field as the chief of the Eastern
Southern Africa Section at OHCHR, I know that sexual abuse in
peacekeeping missions is vastly underreported with bottlenecks
for reporting at various stages. There are multiple barriers to
reporting sexual abuse.
Victims, many of whom are minors, know that there is a high
likelihood that perpetrators will go unpunished, and fear
discrimination, stigmatization, and retaliation if they report
abuses.
U.N. human rights officers in peacekeeping missions are
usually the first responders and, hence, the internal reporters
of the sexual abuse. They have their own fears, both about
their physical safety, as well as their own job security.
Overall, my view is that there are significant structural
barriers to reporting sexual abuse by peacekeepers and U.N.
personnel.
The current setup, which relies primarily on U.N. human
rights officers assuming the role of reporters of these
violations, is inadequate, poses risk to the victims and staff,
and is inherently biased against reporting. Such barriers are
exacerbated by the wholly inadequate U.N. internal justice
provisions or protections to whistleblowers.
An example of these structural barriers is the case of Mr.
Anders Kompass who disclosed sexual abuse by peacekeepers in
the Central African Republic to the French authorities on the
basis that the abuse was ongoing and the U.N. leadership in
Bangui had not taken any steps to stop it over a period of many
months or, if they had, these steps had been ineffective.
The abuse continued until July 2014 when Mr. Kompass
disclosed it to the French authorities. In April 2015, Mr.
Kompass was suspended and placed under investigation for his
disclosure.
Shortly after, I blew the whistle to U.S. officials of the
Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva about the
child sexual abuse in the Central African Republic and the
apparent abuse of authority by the U.N. leadership in respect
to the treatment of Mr. Kompass.
Despite the fact that his suspension was deemed unlawful
and an external panel established by the Secretary General
exonerated him, Mr. Kompass remained under investigation until
January 2016.
These actions are having and will continue to have a
chilling effect on the reporting of abuses in peacekeeping
missions and have badly damaged the reputation and stature of
the United Nations.
While the U.N. Secretary General has announced measures for
tackling sexual abuse in peacekeeping, these do not address the
structural barriers to reporting, nor provide protections for
U.N. staff who report wrongdoing by the institution. These
measures do not address the U.N. internal accountability for
abuse of authority.
Ambassador Coleman has referred to the dishonor in not
being transparent. This should apply to the U.N. leadership.
Many of the measures that you have heard today should apply to
the U.N. leadership, because 70 percent of the abuses appear to
have been committed by U.N. or nonmilitary personnel.
I recommend the committee consider the following.
From the U.N. leadership, demand that all victims of sexual
abuse by peacekeepers are offered immediate protection, which
is not currently the case; recognize and address the barriers
in reporting sexual abuse by peacekeepers and U.N. personnel;
issue U.N. systemwide procedures and provide meaningful
training to all U.N. staff working in peacekeeping missions on
reporting sexual abuse by peacekeepers and other U.N.
personnel; institute mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse
to the appropriate authorities; recognize and address the
inadequate whistleblower protections afforded to U.N. staff;
institute zero tolerance for all U.N. officials whose conduct
fails to meet the highest standards of ethics and integrity;
and apologize to Mr. Kompass.
From the U.S. State Department, demand the above reforms
from the U.N.; demand zero tolerance for and call for the
removal of all senior U.N. officials whose conduct fails to
meet the higher standards; recognize that U.N. staff are not
adequately protected from retaliation for reporting sexual and
other abuses by peacekeepers or U.N. personnel; seek amendments
to the U.N. frameworks for the administration of justice and
whistleblower protections as detailed in my written statement;
implement the provisions of the U.S. Consolidated
Appropriations Act 2016 Section 7048 on whistleblower
protections; and ensure that the next Secretary General is
committed to eradicating sexual abuse in peacekeeping and is
committed to protecting whistleblowers from retaliation.
Finally, I would like to emphasize that my motive for
testifying before you today and for blowing the whistle on the
abuse of authority and the sexual abuse is to protect the U.N.
as an institution and to uphold the principles on which it was
founded.
This has come at a considerable personal sacrifice. I lost
my job at OHCHR, but I remain hopeful that the High
Commissioner for Human Rights will reinstate me in my position.
I hope that my testimony today will not impact on the High
Commissioner's decision.
Thank you.
[Dr. Brown's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Miranda Brown, Former Chief of Africa I Section,
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations,
Geneva, Switzerland
Good afternoon Chairman Corker, Ranking Member Cardin, and members
of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to address you today. My
name is Miranda Brown. I am a dual Australian and British national, and
a former Australian Government official. I joined the Australian
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) in 2001 and occupied a
number of positions in the Department before being appointed as the
Deputy Permanent Representative at the Australian Mission to the United
Nations in Geneva, in January 2008. I hold a PhD in Science and a
Masters of International Law.
I must inform the Committee at the outset, that as a former
Australian Government official, I am bound by certain confidentiality
obligations towards the Australian Government. I have informed the
Australian Foreign Minister about my presence at the hearing today.
I have consistently maintained close relations with the U.S.
Mission in Geneva, built on the foundations I formed during my time as
the Deputy Permanent Representative of the Australian Mission to the
U.N.. As you know, the U.S. and Australian Governments enjoy the
closest of relations.
I joined the U.N.'s Office of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights (OHCHR), as the Chief of the East and Southern Africa (Africa I)
section in December 2012, on leave of absence (Leave without Pay) from
the Australian Government. I occupied this position until December
2014. The East and Southern Africa section covers several countries
with peacekeeping operations including in Sudan (UNAMID), South Sudan
(UNMISS) and Somalia (AMISOM). I undertook regular missions to the
field, including to Somalia and South Sudan, at the height of the
crisis. I regularly acted as the Director (Chief) of the Africa Branch
at OHCHR, which covers the entire continent. I have first-hand
experience of monitoring and reporting human rights violations,
including sexual abuse, in a peacekeeping environment.
My testimony will focus on:
my experience working at OHCHR with sexual abuse in peacekeeping
missions,
the allegations of child sexual abuse in the Central African
Republic and Anders Kompass' disclosure of same, and
my experience as a U.N. whistleblower reporting abuse of authority
by the U.N. leadership in response to the CAR allegations and
my attempts to support U.N. staff who report the abuses.
From my experience in the field and as Chief of the Africa I
section at OHCHR, I know that sexual abuse in peacekeeping missions
(including U.N., hybrid and other missions) is vastly under-reported,
with bottlenecks for reporting at various stages, inside and outside
the U.N.. There are multiple barriers to reporting sexual abuse.
Victims fear discrimination, stigmatization and retaliation if they
report abuses by peacekeepers or civilian and military police (recent
figures show a significant number of civilians are involved in the
abuses). Victims also fear losing benefits (such as security for their
families or humanitarian assistance) either through retaliation or
removal of peacekeeping troops and they know that there is a high
likelihood they will not receive justice and the perpetrators will go
unpunished. The cost benefits do not add up in favour of reporting.
Many of the victims are minors, who are unaccompanied, separated or
orphaned through the conflict. U.N. human rights officers located in
the human rights components of peacekeeping missions are usually the
first responders, and hence the internal ``reporters'' of the sexual
abuse. They have their own fears, both about their physical safety as
well as their own job security.
I would like to describe a typical situation in a U.N. peacekeeping
mission. Most peacekeeping missions include a ``human rights
component'' with a mandate to monitor and report on human rights
violations in the country. The head of the human rights component, has
a dual reporting responsibility, reporting to the head or deputy head
of the peacekeeping mission, as well as to the High Commissioner for
Human Rights.
The majority of the human rights officers working in missions are
relatively junior (at the P3 level, out of seven professional and
higher ``non-political'' grades). The human rights officers are often
deployed to remote peacekeeping sub-offices or camps where there is
little institutional support and the living conditions are extremely
harsh. The camps often house significant numbers of internally
displaced persons (IDPs) in overcrowded conditions. Security within and
outside the camps is often maintained by the peacekeepers. In such
cases, the human rights officers are therefore dependent on the
peacekeepers for their physical protection. The security situation
outside of the camps may be so dire that the human rights officers are
either unable to leave the camps, or have to be accompanied by the
peacekeepers, in order to interview victims of human rights violations.
This creates an inherent conflict of interest for human rights officers
in terms of reporting misconduct and human rights violations by the
peacekeepers. In South Sudan, one junior human rights officer reported
to me her experience of working in one of the remote camps which was
frequently cut-off by the conflict. She spent significant periods as
the only human rights officer in the remote camp. The camp was
frequently cut-off from the UNMISS headquarters in Juba. This human
rights officer described the terrible human rights violations inflicted
on the civilian population, which included torture, mass killings,
sexual and gender-based violence, forced marriage and abortion. She
provided timely reports of these violations to her supervisors, who
reported the figures to headquarters in Geneva and New York on a
regular basis. When I visited her in the camp, she also told me about
the abuses committed by peacekeepers. She said she had been too scared
to report them. The victims were IDPs. She worried that the alleged
perpetrators might find out about her monitoring and reporting the
allegations and she feared the victims might be subject to reprisal by
the peacekeepers. She also feared for her own physical safety due to
possible retaliation, directly or indirectly by the peacekeepers.
Once U.N. human rights officers' reports of sexual or other abuses
by peacekeepers reach the Head of the Human Rights Division in the
Mission, he or she should immediately report to the Mission leadership
for it to inform the highest level of the troop contributing government
involved--this with the aim to preserve the victims' safety, as well as
the human rights officers', through the swift removal of alleged
perpetrators from the site. Because the reporting by human rights
officials to the Mission leadership has often led to friction, human
rights staff may prefer to rely on the alternative reporting line to
OHCHR headquarters to report the peacekeeper abuses to the relevant
authorities. The Mission leadership has frequently ignored the human
rights officers' reports of sexual abuses by peacekeepers for political
reasons--following-up on the reports can upset the troop contributing
governments and lead to the withdrawal of troops that are needed by the
mission. Thus human rights officers have often appeared as trouble-
makers to the Mission leadership.
The U.N.'s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) expressed
concern about the lack of assistance to victims of sexual abuse:
Lastly, remedial assistance to victims is very weak. Very few
victims have been assisted due to lack of dedicated funding and
the slow enforcement process. Mapping of remedial assistance
services has not been undertaken in all missions and informal
immediate assistance has been required to partially bridge the
gap.
The situation is further complicated by the different types of
peacekeeping missions and reporting lines. For example in Somalia, the
peacekeeping mission AMISOM is run by the African Union and in Darfur,
Sudan the UNAMID mission is a hybrid U.N. and African Union mission.
Newly recruited human rights officers in peacekeeping missions
receive basic training on monitoring and reporting human rights
violations, conducted by OHCHR. The duration of the training courses
vary, but are typically of five days' duration. The OHCHR guidelines on
monitoring and reporting, which are available on the OHCHR website,
include general guidance on monitoring and reporting sexual abuse, but
the guidance provided for reporting sexual abuse by peacekeepers or
U.N. personnel is scant. The guidelines are frequently not implemented
at the Mission level. The guidance on reporting child sexual abuse does
not include mandatory reporting. Nor does it adequately address the
issue of `informed consent'' when the victim is a child without parents
or a guardian. The general training provided to human rights officers
is focused primarily on monitoring and reporting for accountability
purposes, and not on the U.N.'s protection mandate and the need for
intervention to stop ongoing abuses.
Additionally, most junior U.N. human rights officers hold temporary
or ``fixed-term'' contracts of one or two years' duration. Their
contracts can be non-renewed or they can be deployed to another duty
station (location) with little notice. The temporary and insecure
nature of their employment situation creates further conflicts of
interests for U.N. human rights officers and other U.N. staff, when
determining whether to report wrongdoing by U.N. peacekeepers or U.N.
personnel. A U.N. human rights officer who suffers adverse employment
consequences and loses his or her job after exposing sexual abuse or
other wrongdoing, by peacekeepers or U.N. personnel, is unlikely to be
compensated or reinstated for two reasons. Firstly, the tribunals that
rule on such appeals have long been reluctant to intrude upon the U.N.
Secretary General's prerogatives in contract renewal. Secondly, the
U.N. Tribunal statutes grant the Secretary General discretion on
whether to reinstate the staff member or provide compensation even
after the dispute tribunal has adjudicated the case and found the
impugned adverse employment action irregular. In practice U.N. staff
members are rarely reinstated and if not, only a small amount of
compensation is paid.
Overall, my view is that there are significant structural barriers
to reporting sexual abuse by peacekeepers and U.N. personnel. The
current setup, which relies primarily on U.N. human rights officers
assuming the role of reporters of these violations, is inadequate,
poses risks to victims and staff and is inherently biased against
reporting. Such barriers are exacerbated by the wholly inadequate U.N.
internal justice system provision of protection to whistleblowers.
It is against this backdrop, that I would now like to describe to
you the events that transpired after the disclosure by Mr.Anders
Kompass (Director of the Field Operations and Technical Cooperation
Division at OHCHR) to the French authorities, of the MINUSCA report
Sexual Abuse on Children by International Armed Forces in the M'Poko
IDP camp in Bangui, Central African Republic. MINUSCA is a
multidimensional U.N. peacekeeping operation in the CAR, established by
the U.N. Security Council on 10 April 2014.
I was the Acting Director of the Africa Branch at OHCHR in early
August 2014 during the period shortly after the MINUSCA report came to
OHCHR's attention in Geneva. Mr. Kompass was my direct supervisor at
the time. Emails document my involvement and I was the key contact
between OHCHR and MINUSCA during the period immediately following the
disclosure. I supported Mr. Kompass' decision to disclose the
allegations of child sexual abuse to the French authorities. The abuse
documented in the MINUSCA report was horrific, ongoing and no attempt
had been made to stop it. Young boys were allegedly being subjected to
rape and other forms of sexual abuse by peacekeepers from France,
Equatorial Guinea and Chad, in exchange for food. The abuse appears to
have continued until Mr. Kompass disclosed the MINUSCA report to the
French authorities in July 2014. Mr. Kompass made his report discreetly
yet openly, and the French Government expressed its thanks in writing
through officially registered correspondence. French law enforcement
received the disclosure immediately and a team of investigators was
dispatched to Bangui.
Nine months later, I learned that [the new High Commissioner for
Human Rights, Mr. Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein had ordered that Mr. Kompass be
suspended and the U.N. leadership had decided to place Mr. Kompass
under investigation by OIOS, for his disclosure of the MINUSCA report
to the French authorities. Mr. Kompass was escorted out of his office
on 17 April 2015.
I was appalled by what appeared to be the deliberate targeting of a
U.N. staff member, who had taken immediate action to stop child sexual
abuse by peacekeepers, and was simply doing his job. Mr. Kompass was my
supervisor and I had supported his decision to disclose the MINSUCA
report to the French government, on the basis that the abuse was
ongoing and the U.N. leadership in Bangui had not taken any steps to
stop it over a period of many months, or if they had, these steps had
been ineffective. I decided to blow the whistle to the U.S. Government
about my concerns of the apparent abuse of authority by the U.N.
leadership in respect of the treatment of Mr. Kompass. On 22 April
2015, I wrote to U.S. officials at the U.S. Permanent Mission to the
United Nations in Geneva, outlining my concerns and providing relevant
documents, including the MINUSCA report. I marked these documents as
``strictly confidential''.
In the absence of appropriate guidelines for situations of ongoing
child sexual abuse, Mr. Kompass, whose terms of reference allow him
reasonable flexibility in acting to address immediate abuses, followed
the best practice established in many U.N. member states, including
Australia, Canada, the U.S., most European Union member states, Brazil
and South Africa, which have implemented specific mandatory disclosure
and reporting requirements for child abuse. In these countries, there
is a legal obligation placed on certain citizens, usually professionals
working with children, or on issues relating to children, civil
servants and other categories to report without delay child abuse,
including child sexual abuse, to the authorities or law enforcement
agencies. In some countries, these laws extend to all citizens and are
not limited to professionals working with children or civil servants.
The disclosure must include the full name of the child suspected of
being abused, or at risk of abuse, and as much information as possible
about the child and suspected abusers. In some countries, the
professional may report the suspected abuse to the hierarchy in his or
her institution, but in others there is a requirement for the
professional to report directly to the relevant authorities (usually
law enforcement agencies), thereby bypassing the hierarchy. This is to
avoid a situation where the professional is placed under pressure by
his or her hierarchy not to disclose the information or to redact it.
The U.S. is a world leader on mandatory reporting of child sexual
abuse, with laws enacted in all states.
Furthermore, although the OHCHR guidelines do not adequately cover
child abuse, the U.N. overall has a clear position on reporting child
abuse, as outlined in the guidance and model legislation issued by the
U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in conjunction with UNICEF, as
well as the World Health Organization (WHO) reporting requirements. The
U.N.'s own guidance establishes the duty to report child abuse and
spells out that this duty overrides any obligations to keep reports
confidential.
In early May 2015, the U.N. Dispute Tribunal ruled that his
suspension was unlawful and Mr Kompass was reinstated in his position
as Director of the Field Operations and Technical Cooperation Division.
However, Mr. Kompass remained under investigation by OIOS.
A U.S.-based non-governmental organization (AIDS-Free World),
obtained documents showing the improper collusion among U.N. oversight
offices and top U.N. officials, and in response to public protest about
child sexual abuse in the CAR and the treatment of Mr. Kompass, at the
end of June 2015, the Secretary General was obliged to establish an
external independent panel to review the situation.
In the fall of 2015, the panel began to inquire about the legality,
rationale and best practice guidelines for reporting child abuse.
Australian Professor Ben Matthews, a world expert on mandatory
reporting, provided a submission to the External CAR Panel.
The External CAR Panel returned its report in December 2015. The
panel found gross institutional failure and abuse of authority in
relation to the reporting of sexual abuse of children and to the
investigation of Kompass (who was exonerated). Still, the internal
misconduct investigation of Mr. Kompass--by the same OIOS office whose
chief had been found guilty by the CAR Panel of abusing her authority
in investigating Mr. Kompass--continued.
Between October 2015 and January 2016, I wrote a series of letters
and emails to the U.N. Secretary General and other senior U.N.
officials calling for the U.N. leadership to desist from investigating
Mr Kompass. Mr. Kompass remained under investigation until 8 January
2016, the date on which Mr. Kompass was concluded with his
exoneration.The Kompass case highlights one of the key problems with
the U.N.'s narrow definition of a U.N. whistleblower, which only covers
staff who report misconduct by other staff members. The U.N. leadership
has made a great issue of the fact that Mr. Kompass reported misconduct
by national troops, not U.N. peacekeepers. He is therefore not
protected by the U.N. anti-retaliation policy (SGB/2005/21).
The U.N. leadership, through the U.N. Spokesperson says the fact
that OIOS investigation failed to substantiate allegations made against
Mr. Kompass shows the U.N. system of justice works. However, were it
not for the findings of the External CAR panel, convened only because
information about the improper actions of the OIOS and U.N. senior
officials leaked to the public, it is clear that the OIOS investigation
might well have found otherwise. The leaked e-mails among U.N.
oversight officials showed quite clearly that ``the fix was in,'' and
rather than proceed with such a tainted exercise, the then Director of
the Investigations division at OIOS recused himself.
There have been serious consequences as a result of the U.N.'s
actions. Firstly, Mr. Kompass has received neither an apology, nor any
sign of appreciation for what he did and what the U.N. subjected him to
as a result. Secondly, I am convinced that the very public pillorying
of Mr. Kompass is having and will continue to have a serious chilling
effect on the reporting of abuses in peacekeeping missions. Thirdly,
the reputation and stature of the United Nations, as an international
organization that promotes integrity in governance, peacebuilding and
human rights, are badly damaged.
While the U.N. Secretary General has announced an intention to
implement the recommendations made by the External CAR Panel and has
announced measures for tackling sexual abuse in peacekeeping, these do
not address the structural barriers to reporting, nor provide
protections for U.N. staff who report wrongdoing by the institution.
These measures do not address the U.N. internal accountability for
abuse of authority towards staff members.
Following a visit to the Central African Republic, recently
appointed U.N. Special Coordinator on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Ms
Jane Holl Lute, stated that ``we have to create an environment where
the victims ``can come forward when these behaviours have occurred,''
``levy allegations without fear,'' and see that ``justice is done.''
Creating an environment where victims can come forward and report
sexual abuse without fear is the first step. Where children or minors
are involved, the U.N. must implement its protection mandate and take
immediate steps to stop the abuse. Currently neither the victims nor
the reporters are properly protected and there is little accountability
for retaliation against either of them. This is a single point of
failure, which could be fixed. Securing justice for the victims and
holding the perpetrators to account is a more complex challenge as it
necessarily involves changes to existing peacekeeping structures, the
agreement of troop contributing countries and other Member States.
There is no Freedom of Information Access at the U.N. and as such
the Member States must rely on the U.N. leadership to uphold the
highest standards of conduct and management and on whistleblowers to
report wrongdoing, including sexual abuse, and abuses of authority. The
U.N. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, David Kaye (an
American Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine),
stated in his report to the U.N. General Assembly in September 2015:
Basic structural gaps in international organizations leave
whistle-blowers at risk in ways that those who report
wrongdoing in national systems may avoid. In particular, nearly
all international organizations are opaque to the public, which
has limited access to information, and few have effective
policies on access to information. As bureaucratically
dominated organizations, they avoid the strict scrutinization
by the press that is often found in national contexts, and they
are naturally isolated from direct contact with members of the
public or the press.
They are, moreover, subject to reputational demands in order to
maintain financial and political support of Governments. Furthermore,
persons who report wrongdoing have limited access to independent
systems of justice. They generally lack access to national courts when
complaining about retaliation, and the human rights bodies are unlikely
to apply protection in the face of retaliation. The immunities enjoyed
by international organizations in national and other external
jurisdictions result in minimal legal pressure on the organizations to
respond effectively to allegations of wrongdoing. The mechanisms
themselves generally face substantial problems of independence because
of those structural barriers.
The track record for whistle-blowers in the United Nations system
reinforces the difficulties. Very few whistle-blower complaints are
fully investigated. Between 2006 and 2014, only 15 cases of a total of
403 ``inquiries'' sent to the Ethics Office of the United Nations were
found to meet prima facie standards for retaliation, while only 4 were
established as retaliatory cases. The low numbers, in a system of more
than 40,000 employees, are likely to send a message to employees that
the reporting system will not provide effective protection or
redress.'' The Special Rapporteur concluded by saying:
Lastly, those who identify wrongdoing--especially evidence of
serious legal violations and human rights abuses, such as
sexual and gender-based violence--should be protected from
retaliation when they make public disclosures to the media,
civil society or Governments. To be sure, disclosures should
respect the rights and reputations of others, but in the
absence of effective internal systems, external disclosure
provides a necessary safety valve to promote accountability and
ensure that the public has information about serious
wrongdoing.
The U.N.'s whistleblower protection policy is over ten years' old
(issued in 2005). On 8 April 2015, a coalition of U.N. whistleblowers
expressed their concerns about the U.N.'s whistleblower protections in
an open letter sent to the U.N. Secretary General and U.N. agency
heads. There have been significant advances in whistleblower protection
policy and legislation around the world over the past decade, notably
in the U.S.. The U.N.'s policy must be updated to reflect these
developments.
Finally, I would like to emphasize that my motive for testifying
before you today and for blowing the whistle on the abuse of authority
in relation to the Kompass case, and prior to this in another U.N.
organization, is to protect the U.N. as an institution and uphold the
principles on which it was founded. This has come at a considerable
personal sacrifice. I lost my job at OHCHR. I remain hopeful that the
High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein will reinstate
me in my position at OHCHR in Geneva. I hope that my testimony today,
which has not held back on what I witnessed, will not impact on the
High Commissioner's decision.
In terms of reforms and recommendations, I have limited these to
issues on which I have first-hand knowledge as a senior U.N. human
rights officer working with sexual abuse in a peacekeeping context and
as a U.N. whistleblower. I respectfully request the Committee consider
demanding the following:
From the U.N. leadership:
1. Emphasize the U.N.'s protection mandate and demand that all victims
of sexual abuse by peacekeepers are afforded immediate
protection. Secure a public commitment from the U.N. leadership
that when child sexual abuse is encountered, the U.N. will take
immediate action to stop it. Monitoring and reporting for
accountability purposes is extremely important, but immediate
protection must come first.
2. Recognize that there are significant and wide-ranging barriers in
reporting sexual abuse by peacekeepers and U.N. personnel.
These must be clearly identified and addressed. Peacekeepers
are often responsible for the physical protection of their
victims (many of whom are IDPs) and for the U.N. staff who
report the abuses. An independent external review should be
commissioned to provide recommendations on addressing the
serious conflicts of interests inherent in the current
reporting of sexual abuse by peacekeepers and U.N. personnel.
3. Issue U.N. system-wide procedures and provide meaningful training
to all U.N. staff working in peacekeeping missions on reporting
sexual abuse by peacekeepers and other U.N. personnel.
Institute mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse to the
appropriate authorities.
4. Recognise that protections afforded to U.N. staff who report
externally sexual and other abuses by peacekeepers and other
U.N. personnel, are presently inadequate and that changes to
existing accountability structures are urgently needed. The
Secretary General has referred to the peacekeeper abuses as a
``scourge'' and has recognized that the U.N. has failed to
protect vulnerable people, including children, from sexual
abuse. He should now recognize that the U.N. has also failed to
protect its own staff members who reported and exposed these
failures.
5. Institute zero tolerance for all senior U.N. officials whose
conduct fails to meet the highest standards of ethics and
integrity--conduct that amounts to actionable abuse of
authority is set too high. The U.N. leadership must itself
uphold the highest standards. Recent failures to hold U.N.
senior officials to account have eroded trust in the U.N.
leadership. This negatively affects the U.N.'s image,
reputation and ability to deliver on its important mandate and
through the impunity it creates, further contributes to a
climate of fear among staff members that reduces reporting of
abuses.
6. Apologize to Mr. Kompass.
From the U.S. State Department:
1. Public confidence in the U.N. and hence its ability to deliver on
its mandate has been seriously eroded by the peacekeeper sexual
abuses and by the Kompass case. Demand zero tolerance for all
senior U.N. officials whose conduct fails to meet the highest
standards, irrespective of their role, function or nationality.
Where the State Department has reason to believe a U.N.
official has not upheld the highest standards, or public
confidence in that U.N. official has been eroded, call for the
official's removal from office. This is to protect the U.N. as
an institution.
2. Publicly recognize the serious flaws in the protections from
retaliation afforded to U.N. staff who report sexual and other
abuses by peacekeepers or U.N. personnel. As the Kompass and
other cases show, existing internal accountability structures
lack independence and afford little protection from
retaliation. Until such time as U.N. whistleblower protections
are improved, the State Department should exercise its good
offices in selected high profile whistleblower cases, such as
the Kompass case, to limit reputational damage to the U.N.
3. Seek amendments to the U.N. frameworks for the Administration of
Justice (U.N. General Assembly resolutions) and whistleblower
protections (Secretary General's Bulletin SGB/2005/21) to:
Amend the narrow definition of a ``protected activity''
and hence the definition of a U.N. whistleblower to ensure
that U.N. staff, such as Mr. Kompass who reported
allegations of child sexual abuse by foreign peacekeepers
are not excluded. Reporting of all violations of human
rights must be included under the definition of protected
activity, regardless of who commits them.
To expand the U.N. whistleblowers' access to justice,
ensure that they have access to independent external
arbitration, consistent with the provisions of the U.S.
Consolidated Appropriations Act 2016, Section 7048; such
access does not currently exist.
Institute special protection measures for whistleblowers
who report allegations of wrongdoing by the U.N.
leadership. Whistleblowers may be vulnerable to retaliation
across the U.N. system (not just in the organization where
they blew the whistle) and for the duration of their
career. Because of the political linkages at the top of the
organizations, U.N. whistleblowers can be subject to
retaliation, in other parts of the U.N. system, even many
years later. Moreover the nature of immunity of
international organizations can breed impunity at the
highest levels.
Best practice in relation to burdens of proof. Currently,
where there are adverse employment decisions taken against
a U.N. whistleblower, the onus is on the whistleblower
demonstrating retaliation, as opposed to the best practice
of placing the onus on the employer to prove that no
retaliation occurred.
4. Implement the provisions of the U.S. Consolidated Appropriations
Act 2016, Section 7048, on whistleblower protections.
5. Ensure that the next U.N. Secretary General is committed to
eradicating sexual abuse in peacekeeping and is committed to
protecting whistleblowers from retaliation. This is especially
important given the lack of Freedom of Information Access at
the U.N..
I thank this Committee for its ongoing engagement and look forward
to working with the Committee and U.S. Government to see that
meaningful and effective reforms are instituted.
STATEMENT OF PETER YEO, PRESIDENT, BETTER WORLD CAMPAIGN, AND
VICE PRESIDENT, PUBLIC POLICY AND ADVOCACY, UNITED NATIONS
FOUNDATION, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Yeo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Cardin
and the other members of the committee, for inviting me to
appear before the committee today.
I serve as president of the Better World Campaign, which
works to promote a stronger relationship between the U.S. and
the United Nations.
As the previous witnesses have made clear, there is a
cancer within the United Nations, and it must be cut out. The
scourge of sexual exploitation and abuse by U.N. peacekeepers
continues. The victims of this abuse are real, and the
consequences are as well.
Just 2 weeks ago, a 16-year-old girl was allegedly raped by
a peacekeeper from DR Congo in a hotel room. What a sickening
violation not only of an innocent girl but the trust placed in
that peacekeeper by the United Nations and the military that
sent him to help the people of the Central African Republic.
Hearing the horrendous reports emanating from CAR, it would
be natural to want to withdraw all U.N. peacekeepers before
more damage can be done, but this basic instinct to protect
needs to be balanced against the good the peacekeepers continue
to do there.
The U.N. mission has played a critical role in the conduct
of free, democratic elections, which have led to the swearing-
in of a new legitimate president committed to rebuilding the
war-torn country and to successful legislative elections, which
just concluded a few weeks ago.
Since 2014, peacekeepers have trained nearly 200,000
children on avoidance of unexploded ordnance, a macabre gift
left by the warring factions in CAR. As a result, Human Rights
Watch issued a report, which indicated that the U.N.
peacekeepers in CAR will be critical to disarming rebel
factions and reestablishing security.
So the question is, how do we support the vital work being
done by U.N. peacekeepers in CAR and elsewhere and, at the same
time, implement meaningful steps to stop sexual exploitation
and abuse by peacekeepers and ensure justice for victims?
If the U.N. is to root out bad actors, whether they hail
from France or the developing world militaries that are the
backbone of U.N. peacekeeping, it must show that new policies
just announced by the U.N. and endorsed by the Security Council
will be implemented with unshakable resolve.
The name-and-shame list issued by the Secretary General of
countries charged with sexual exploitation and abuse is
groundbreaking. For the first time in the history of U.N.
peacekeeping, transparency is now, at long last, at the core of
the U.N.'s response to SCA.
Secretary General Ban has suspended payments to troop-
contributing countries whenever there are credible allegations
against one of its troops. He has repatriated entire military
contingents to their home countries where there was evidence of
widespread and systemic abuse--again, a first. Though long
overdue, these actions are the right course.
Even so, and even though they are endorsed by the Security
Council, these measures will mean nothing unless they are
actively and consistently enforced, a posture that will anger
some troop-contributing countries. Sending home offending
contingents is not only a black eye on the global stage but a
loss in important compensation to that contributing nation.
And for those countries where there is evidence of
widespread or systematic sexual exploitation and abuse, they
should be blocked from joining new missions. The U.N. must say
no on deployment until demonstrable progress is made.
The Secretary General has the power to do that, and he must
wield it, and the Security Council must back him up.
There are certain to be consequences. One year from now,
for example, the Security Council may choose to intervene in a
country facing a crisis. With lives on the line, the
international community will rightly look to the U.N. to
quickly deploy peacekeepers. Only a few countries will offer
troops. And of those, some will have a checkered human rights
record.
While there will be justifiable demands to deploy a robust
force, the U.N. must hold firm and reject any nation with a
record of widespread or systematic abuse.
As it stands, there is a severe shortage of well-trained
troops for a growing number of increasingly complex and
dangerous missions. The U.N. is challenged to recruit the best
trained and equipped troops.
If peacekeeping is ultimately to free itself from the stain
of sexual abuse, the responsibility must not sit with the U.N.
alone. Other member states need to answer the call.
Last year's peacekeeping summit resulted in pledges of
40,000 more peacekeepers from a diverse group of countries.
Ensuring these pledges actually materialize and that troops
deployed to hardship posts such as CAR and Mali will be
instrumental in backing up the U.N.'s denial of certain
countries over their records of sexual exploitation and abuse.
In conclusion, it is absolutely shameful that it took the
high profile sexual exploitation and abuse cases in CAR and
elsewhere to grab the world's attention to this crisis and to
pull open the curtain to the culture of impunity which exists
in U.N. peacekeeping.
The U.N. and members of the Security Council are now seized
with developing and implementing solutions to this crisis. We
have to make it right, because we have no other choice.
I would be happy to answer any questions you might have.
Thank you.
[Mr. Yeo's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Peter Yeo, President, Better World Campaign, and
Vice President for Public Policy and Advocacy, United Nations
Foundation, Washington, DC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Cardin for inviting me
to appear before the committee today.
I serve as President of the Better World Campaign, which works to
promote a stronger relationship between the U.S. and the U.N.
As the previous witnesses have made clear, there is a cancer within
the United Nations--and it must be cut out. The scourge of sexual
exploitation and abuse by UN Peacekeepers continues, despite Secretary
General Ban's commitment to a zero-tolerance policy and repeated
promises from U.N. Member States to take meaningful action.
The victims of this abuse are real. And the consequences are as
well. Just two weeks ago, a 16-year old girl was allegedly raped by a
peacekeeper from DR Congo in a hotel room.
What a sickening violation not only of an innocent girl, but the
trust placed in that peacekeeper by the U.N. and the military that sent
him to help the people of the Central African Republic.
Hearing the horrendous reports emanating from CAR, it would be
natural to want to withdraw all U.N. peacekeepers before more damage
can be done. But this basic instinct to protect needs to be balanced
against the good that peacekeepers continue to do there.
The U.N. mission has played a critical role in the conduct of free,
democratic elections, which has led to the swearing-in of a new
legitimate President committed to rebuilding the war-torn country, and
to successful legislative elections which just concluded a few weeks
ago.
Since 2014, peacekeepers have trained nearly 200,000 children on
avoidance of unexploded ordinance--a macabre gift left by warring
factions in CAR.
As a result, Human Rights Watch issued a report which indicated
that the more than 12,000 U.N. Peacekeepers in CAR will be critical to
disarming rebel factions and re-establishing security.
So the question is: how do we support the vital work being done by
U.N. peacekeepers in CAR and elsewhere, and at the same time, implement
meaningful steps to stop sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers
and ensure justice for victims like the 16 year old girl in the hotel
room?
If the U.N. is to root out the bad actors--whether they hail from
France or the developing world militaries that are backbone of U.N.
peacekeeping--it must show that the new policies just announced by the
U.N. and endorsed by the Security Council will be implemented with
unshakable resolve.
The ``name and shame'' list issued by the Secretary-General of
countries charged with sexual exploitation and abuse is groundbreaking.
For the first time in the history of U.N. peacekeeping, transparency is
now, at last, at the core of the U.N.'s response to SEA. Secretary-
General Ban has suspended payments to troop-contributing countries
wherever there is a credible allegation against one of its troops. He
has repatriated entire military contingents to their home countries
where there was evidence of widespread and systematic abuse--again, a
first. Though long overdue, these actions are the right course.
Even so, and even though they are endorsed by the Security Council,
these measures will mean nothing unless they are actively and
consistently enforced--a posture which will anger some troop
contributing countries. Sending home offending contingents is not only
a black eye on the global stage, but a loss in important compensation
to that contributing nation.
And for those countries where there is evidence of widespread or
systemic sexual exploitation and abuse, they should be blocked from
joining new missions. The U.N. must say NO on deployment until
demonstrable progress is made. The Secretary-General has the power to
do that--he must wield it, and the Security Council must back him.
There are certain to be consequences. One year from now, for
example, the Security Council may choose to intervene in a country
facing a crisis. With lives on the line, the international community
will look to the U.N. to quickly deploy peacekeepers. Only a few
countries will offer troops, and of those, some will have checkered
human rights records. While there will be justifiable demands to deploy
a robust force, the U.N. must hold firm and reject any nation with a
record of widespread or systemic abuse.
At the same time, this does not mean that the international
community should accept a weak response to conflict and mass
atrocities. Rather, we must demand that more countries shoulder the
load and do so in an ethical and principled way.
As it stands, there is a severe shortage of well-trained troops for
a growing number of increasingly complex, dangerous missions. The
dramatic increase in the size and scope of peacekeeping missions
approved by the U.N. Security Council, together with the near-
withdrawal from peacekeeping by European and American forces, has taxed
the ability of the U.N. to recruit the best trained and equipped
troops. If peacekeeping is to ultimately free itself from the stain of
sexual abuse, the responsibility must not sit with U.N. alone; other
member states need to answer the call.
To its credit, the United States took some decisive steps to
improve this dynamic in chairing a United Nations peacekeeping summit
last fall. The Summit resulted in pledges of 40,000 more peacekeepers
from a diverse pool of countries. Ensuring those pledges materialize
and that troops deploy to places like CAR and Mali will be instrumental
in backing up the U.N.'s denial of certain countries over their records
on sexual exploitation and abuse.
But more can and must be done on training, investigative support,
and vetting. A few suggestions:
The State Department's Global Peace Operations Initiative has
trained over 200,000 peacekeeping troops since 2005. The U.S.
should enhance the sexual abuse and command and control
components of GPOI across all of its peacekeeping training
centers.
The U.S. and other countries should use both bilateral and
multilateral diplomacy to push troop contributing countries to
take disciplinary action against soldiers proven to engage in
sexual exploitation and abuse. DR Congo is currently trying 3
of 21 of its peacekeepers, with more trials over the next
several months. Sadly, that's the exception rather than the
rule in terms of justice.
To investigate allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse, the
U.N. has established two different mechanisms in conjunction
with troop contributing countries. The U.N. must ensure that
these investigation teams are fully trained, better
coordinated, and have the ability to not only interview
victims, but refer them to medical and psycho-social help and
access to legal counsel so they can seek justice.
The U.N. currently has a rudimentary database for vetting personnel
to make sure that those who have been kicked out of missions
cannot return. As a country with a wealth of expertise in
computing, the U.S. could help advance progress and improve the
technology, possibly by harnessing the talent of the private
sector.
In conclusion, it is shameful that it took the high-profile sexual
exploitation and abuse cases in CAR to grab the world's attention to
this crisis and to pull open the curtain to the culture of impunity
which exists in U.N. peacekeeping. The U.N. and members of the Security
Council are now seized with developing and implementing solutions to
this crisis. But we need to be invested over the long-haul--in getting
more peacekeeping troops into the system so the U.N. doesn't deploy the
wrong troops to a crisis; in ensuring that allegations are fully
investigated and justice is served by the countries who contributed the
troops; and in providing victims and their families with the help they
so desperately need.
We have to make it right because we have no other choice.
I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
The Chairman. Thank you both for your testimony.
Dr. Brown, if you could briefly share with us why you are
at present not employed?
Dr. Brown. I believe that the reason my contract was not
renewed was out of retaliation, because I am a whistleblower.
The Chairman. You said something that I think we may have
missed an opportunity with the last panel to pursue as much as
we should. You said that 70 percent of abuses actually take
place by civilians that work directly for the United Nations.
Is that correct?
Dr. Brown. That is my understanding, and I think it would
be useful to check with the U.N. on that statistic.
And if so, I would suggest that all of the measures that
are being applied to the troop-contributing countries should
also apply to the 70 percent, to the U.N. staff, as well.
The Chairman. Mr. Yeo, do you agree with the order of
magnitude taking place at the civilian level with direct
employees?
Mr. Yeo. There are definitely cases where civilian
employees are engaged in cases of sexual exploitation and
abuse. The 70 percent figure strikes me as high, but I look
forward to working with you to figure out how that number was
determined.
But I also agree with Dr. Brown's recommendation, which is,
any tools used to investigate charges of sexual exploitation
and abuse involving the military personnel and police-
contributing countries should also apply to civilian employees.
The Chairman. We spend a lot of time talking about the
sovereignty, if you will, and the countries dealing with their
own, but the fact is we should have spent more time--we are
doing it now--just on the civilian side itself.
I am looking through a list, and I may not be catching
every single one, but I think I could be. It appears to me that
in every single case relative to civilians, that I have access
to at present--here is one with suspension. But in almost every
case, it is a pending issue.
Can you share with me why that would be the case and not
yet adjudicated?
Dr. Brown. I cannot comment on this figure, but, obviously,
my perspective is that there is a lack of accountability inside
the U.N., just as there has been for the troop-contributing
countries. And that does need to be addressed.
The Chairman. Let me ask you this, I mean, you were out in
the field. I know Mr. Yeo may have a different perspective. But
what is it at the U.N. that would cause them with their own
employees that work directly for the United Nations to tolerate
this and to not be more forceful in ensuring that this is not
happening?
Mr. Yeo. I think that one thing to consider here is that
the level attention that is now being paid to sexual
exploitation and abuse, not only by police and military-
contributing countries but also by the civilian, is
unprecedented, in part because of the horrendous situation that
is coming out from CAR.
So we, as a major 22 percent contributor to the regular
budget of the U.N. and 28 percent to U.N. peacekeeping, need to
insist that any employee of the U.N. be absolutely subject to
the same forms of discipline and dismissal and justice as we
are insisting upon policing and the troop-contributing
countries.
The Chairman. If I could, before Dr. Brown responds, why
would that not just be the case? I mean, just naturally, why is
it that the United States needs to apply pressure on the U.N.
for the U.N. to want to prosecute people who work for them who
are involved in sexual exploitation? I mean, I do not get it.
Mr. Yeo. I think there are a couple of factors at work
here, none of which justifies it. One factor is that so many of
the appointments within the U.N. system are derivative of
specific countries wanting to place particular employees, and
so that creates this member-state politics within the U.N.
system, the 193 member states, that sometimes makes it
difficult for member states to want their employees to be
punished.
That is not an excuse, but I think that dynamic is
sometimes at work, and in a very unhelpful and wrong way.
The Chairman. And that is the same thing that occurs on the
troop side, right? I mean, they have member states who do not
want actions taken against their own military personnel.
Mr. Yeo. For sure, in the case of our troop-contributing
countries, it is a little bit more specific because they
specifically will not contribute troops to U.N. peacekeeping
missions if they do not have total control of the discipline of
their troops. So if we insist that all discipline cases be
adjudicated jointly, for instance, between the U.N. and the
troop-contributing countries, then, in fact, many nations that
are currently the backbone of peacekeeping may choose to
withdraw.
That may be a price that we have to pay. And then the
Security Council will have to figure out in a more systematic
way how we get more countries into U.N. peacekeeping that
actually can make sure their peacekeepers carry out their work
in an ethical and principled way. To do otherwise is
unacceptable.
The Chairman. Dr. Brown, your perspective? Why does this
culture exist? And why would the U.N. be reticent to deal with
it?
Dr. Brown. I hate to say it, but it reminds me a little bit
of the child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. I think that
there has only now been the realization of the problem at the
senior levels in the U.N. There have been cover-ups.
I hope that this sudden exposure will result in changes,
but there needs to be some structural changes, particularly in
terms of reporting, because, at the moment, you have multiple
conflicts of interest at multiple levels. Just collecting the
information is problematic.
The Human Rights officers in the field often face pressures
on them not to report. For example, in the case of U.N. staff,
they are having to report on their colleagues. They may have to
report on their supervisors. The structures are not in place to
prevent them from receiving retaliation.
Most of them are junior staff on short-term contracts.
Their contracts could be suddenly not renewed. They can be
transferred out of the location. There is no incentive for them
to report, in a way, for them to report on their colleagues.
There is no protection.
And then following on from that, the internal structures,
for example, the Office of Internal Oversight Services, lacks
independence.
There are so many problems in relation to accountability
within the U.N. Now, I think these problems can be addressed. I
really do. I think they can be addressed, but there needs to be
recognition first, and that is what I am calling for. There
must be recognition by the U.N. leadership that there are
internal problems that have to be fixed, including in relation
to, obviously, these abuses that are being committed by U.N.
staff, but also protection for the staff who report the abuses,
be it by U.N. staff or peacekeepers.
The Chairman. My time is up, but are you telling me that
with this report that came out in 2005, which apparently was
somewhat earth-shattering at the time, are you telling me that
the leadership at the United Nations has just become aware of
this problem?
Dr. Brown. No, they have not just become aware of this
problem. But rather like the Catholic Church, it has taken them
some time to actually act on it. I hope that they are going act
on it, but they must do so.
Mr. Yeo. I think the other challenge is for sure the
highest levels of the U.N. have known about this even before
2005, so an issue of whether U.N. officials knew about sexual
exploitation and abuse and were taking action. As Ambassador
mentioned earlier in her testimony, there is ongoing dialogue
for over a decade between the United Nations and troop-
contributing countries about ongoing cases of sexual
exploitation and abuse.
But I think it has taken this case to break it open and get
this high-level commitment.
I think the other thing to consider here is the U.N.
Security Council for over a decade, in both Republican and
Democratic administrations, has been pushing for increased
peacekeeping missions, increasingly complex, larger missions.
And as a result, when the U.N. comes back and says there are
not enough peacekeepers in the system, there is a real tension
between do we approve larger, more complex missions when we do
not really have enough well-trained soldiers with appropriate
command-and-control to carry out those missions.
So it is not simply a case of one individual in the U.N.
running the whole operation. The Security Council has been
well-aware of this situation for over a decade and yet
continues to approve larger and more complex missions, despite
the fact that there are not enough troops in the system. It is
complex.
The Chairman. Thank you both.
Senator Cardin?
Senator Cardin. Well, let me thank both you.
Dr. Brown, I listened to your last comment and your
prepared statement. I can assure you that we take the integrity
of our hearings pretty seriously. So we very much appreciate
you being here, and we will protect the integrity of our
committee process, so thank you for your participation.
I looked at the information provided to us by the United
Nations, at least from their public Web site. They show one
civilian episode in 2016, and then in 2015, I did some quick
math, and they showed 14, which would be about 20 percent.
Now, I do not necessarily believe these are accurate
numbers, do not get me wrong. But when you reply to Chairman
Corker that we should ask the United Nations, I am not sure we
are going to get today the right numbers. I just do not know if
that is available to us, but we will try.
I just had a conversation with my staff, and I agree with
Senator Corker. We are going to be asking the first panel some
additional questions for the record dealing with the United
Nations' accountability for, particularly, the civilian issues.
But there are two parts to the United Nations'
responsibility.
One is how they, in fact, supervise the activities of the
participating countries, what they do with the TCCs to watch
their conduct. It is not just a matter of sending them home. It
is a matter of making sure they do not do wrong when they are
in theater. That is a supervision responsibility, which falls
with the United Nations. And yes, we want to take action
against countries that are not responding correctly, but there
should be accountability within the United Nations itself.
Secondly, there needs to be a certain responsibility of the
United Nations to give clear direction to its civilian work
force as to what is expected, to give them adequate training,
but to have adequate supervision, again, so that the conduct is
clearly understood, and zero tolerance is clearly understood,
and, of course, if there are violations, that there is
accountability, accountability not only in removing those
individuals but holding them responsible for their actions.
That may very well require the United Nations to have
arrangements with the way it employs its personnel, to make
sure that there is accountability for their activities.
So I will be asking those types of questions of our first
panel in an effort to try to see how we can complete the circle
here, because I think you do raise a very valid point. It is
fine to say the TCCs are not doing what they are supposed to be
doing, and they should be removed, and I agree with that. There
are also primary responsibilities with the United Nations, and
those responsible at the United Nations for how these missions
are deployed and supervised, et cetera, and how the civilian
personnel are expected to behave, and making sure that, in
fact, they do carry that out or are held accountable.
So I guess my point is this, have either one of you seen
actions taken to deal with what I just said? Is there clear
direction given by the United Nations on civilian personnel? Is
there clear supervision? Is there clear training? Are there
clear ways of being able to get the information on those who
are violating, so that they can be removed and held
accountable? Is there a clear line of responsibility and
accountability from the United Nations to the civilians that
are in these countries in which we have the U.N. missions?
Mr. Yeo. Two quick thoughts, which is, first of all, I
think it is important to note that the Secretary General did
remove the head of the U.N. mission in CAR when these
allegations and charges first came to light, and I think that
is exactly the type of accountability that was long overdue and
necessary and will hopefully send a signal to future military
and civilian commanders that when missions that are under their
supervision--as you said, they are responsible for making sure
that the troops of the various contingents are actually
performing their duties in an ethical and principled way. If
they fail to do that, then they need to do be dismissed from
their job. In the case of Central African Republic, that did
occur.
Second of all, in terms of civilian employees, civilian
employees that are deployed to all of these missions receive
extensive training about sexual exploitation and abuse, human
rights training. But as the previous panel indicated, training
is not a substitute for appropriate supervision of work.
So in the case of civilian employees, we need to ensure
that the people that are at the highest levels within each
individual mission are fully responsible for the actions of
their employees and, at the earliest possible moment that the
allegations are raised of sexual exploitation, that they are
reported to the right authorities within the U.N. system and
action investigations are taken, in fact, the new immediate
response teams that the U.N. has established to make sure that
within 5 to 10 days that the actual evidence of crimes related
to sexual exploitation and abuse are preserved, are deployed in
the case of both civilian and military employees. So I could
not agree more.
Senator Cardin. We know that, historically, within military
command, there has always been a challenge, in particularly
colleagues reporting misconduct. We know the historic problems,
and we try to take action to deal with that.
On the civilian side, Dr. Brown, is there the same type of
inherent problems on reporting colleague's misconduct?
Dr. Brown. I believe so, yes, and I think there are a
number of other problems. For example, prosecution would
require the lifting of immunity of the staff.
Also, the way the system is currently constructed, it would
require the U.N.'s Office of Internal Oversight Services to
investigate, and we are talking there about U.N. staff
investigating other U.N. staff. There are inherent conflicts of
interests within the system that will need to be addressed.
Senator Cardin. So with the immunity, in other words, they
are immune from criminal prosecution in the host country?
Dr. Brown. In theory.
Mr. Yeo. But I would also like to make it clear that the
Secretary General, in writing, has made it quite clear that no
U.N. employee who is the subject to sexual exploitation and
abuse, if they have diplomatic immunity, it will be waived.
Most civilian employees who are deployed as part of
peacekeeping missions actually do not have diplomatic immunity.
But in either case, the Secretary General and the U.N.'s team
have made it quite clear that the diplomatic immunity will
not----
Senator Cardin. Knowing that the countries in which the
peace missions are situated, the capacity there to deal with
these types of issues are limited.
Dr. Brown. That is correct.
Going back to the point of the investigation itself, we
have an inherent problem because you have a U.N. investigative
body investigating possibly quite a senior official in a
country. You have an inherent conflict of interest there. You
still have a conflict of interest with, in my view, with the
U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services investigating a TCC,
a case of a TCC, or the discipline and conduct unit
investigating it, or even the human rights officer
investigating it.
But when it comes to actually U.N. staff, that conflict of
interest is exacerbated, and I think that will need to be
addressed, along with, if I may, the problems inherent in the
reporting lines themselves, because there are multiple barriers
to this information moving up the chain.
Senator Cardin. Well, the questions I think I would ask
from the United Nations--we do not have the right people here--
is what capacity do they build in countries where there are
U.N. peacekeeping missions to be able to have the capacity to
prosecute those who violate the laws in those countries on
sexual exploitation and abuse.
That would be an interesting point, to see how the United
Nations is helping a country to be able to hold accountable
those who violate these laws.
Mr. Yeo. Or these employees need to be repatriated to their
home countries and subject to prosecution at home.
Senator Cardin. Yes.
Mr. Yeo. So there needs to be prosecution either in
country, which is often a challenge, or back home.
Senator Cardin. But for civilians, it may be even more
complicated.
Dr. Brown. Correct. I think so.
The Chairman. Just back to the pressure, Mr. Yeo, you were
talking about earlier where you have these expanding
peacekeeping needs that are complex. You have pressure for more
of that to occur. I look at the types of populations generally
speaking that are being, quote, ``protected.'' I mean, is there
some institutional disrespect for the types of people that
these peacekeeping missions are being sent out to protect? Is
there something there that we need to understand?
Mr. Yeo. I think the disrespect that occurs is between
individual soldiers and the disrespect as a result of the
individual actions they are taking, the crimes they are
committing, as a peacekeeper.
But having visited many different U.N. peacekeeping
missions around the world, I am on honestly shocked by the
willingness of these peacekeepers to serve away from their home
for sometimes months or years on end, protecting people they do
not even know.
And they are doing it at great personal risk. When you look
at, for instance, the peacekeepers in Mali that are battling
back terrorist elements in Mali, there has been dozens of
peacekeepers killed there. Three French peacekeepers were just
killed yesterday in Mali.
So it is a complex situation. I think most peacekeepers are
absolutely committed to civilian protection.
We had a wonderful American who was deployed to South Sudan
as part of a peacekeeping mission. And the military showed up
at the gates. They demanded that he turn over all the young men
in the camp, and he absolutely refused. He stood in the gates,
and he said, ``You may not come in.'' And as a result, the
people that day were saved. Of course, he, from my perspective,
is a hero for saying that.
I recently was in South Sudan. There are 200,000 people
today living in these camps that largely owe their lives to the
fact that we have peacekeepers from around the world guarding
these camps, trying to do their best to protect the people
inside who would otherwise be killed by other elements within
the country.
So it is very complex. I do not think there is a culture
where they do not want to protect the people they are supposed
to protect. I think this is a case of individual soldiers doing
wrong, and they need to be punished for it.
The Chairman. Let me ask you this, based on what you just
said, are we do you think today in this hearing getting an
unbalanced view of this issue?
Mr. Yeo. No, I do not think so at all. I think that what
has happened in CAR, what has happened in Mali, and what has
happened in terms of the sexual exploitation and abuse in these
other countries, is absolutely horrific, and it gives the
entire concept of U.N. peacekeeping a bad name.
This hearing is absolutely well-timed. It needed to occur.
And most importantly, it needs to occur a year from now and 2
years from now. This is not going to be fixed overnight.
And we need to make sure that there is bilateral and
multilateral pressure for years to come, so that 10 years from
now, we are not looking back at this era and saying we worked
on this 10 years ago. Ten years from now, U.N. peacekeeping
needs to be the model for this.
I know this is something that Jane Holl Lute, who has been
appointed by the Secretary General, and, as you know, is a
former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security,
is looking at. What are the best practices for training and
command-and-control? How can we borrow from militaries around
the world, including the United States, to make sure that we
can work with the countries that are the backbone of
peacekeeping to improve their performance?
It is a long haul, and it is going to require a lot of
bilateral and multilateral pressure.
And, no, this hearing is not unfair.
The Chairman. Let me just ask my question, again, because
the disrespect that I was talking about is you have the
hierarchy at the United Nations that has these complex
missions, as you mentioned, and needs more in the way of
peacekeepers, and yet are sending out countries that are known
to have problems, I am sorry, where, as Senator Isakson
mentioned, in many places, rape is certainly an act of war. It
is part of war.
I was just in the Balkans. It is unbelievable to know what
and see and understand and meet women who were dealt with there
in that way. It was an act of war. It was a part of war.
So back to the disrespect I am referring to, I am talking
about not the soldiers. I am talking about, at the U.N. level,
is there a sense that there is just so much in the way of need
that, in these populations, so what? Is there something there
that I am missing?
Mr. Yeo. I think there was acceptance of what was viewed at
the time as a low-grade, ongoing problem, and that acceptance
extended for years on end not just by the highest levels within
the U.N., but by the U.N. member states, including members of
the Security Council.
I do not think that acceptance is there any longer. If you
look at what is new, as a result of what has happened, we
actually see, for the first time ever, military units being
repatriated. And you have, for the first time ever, a policy
endorsed by the Security Council saying no more units may be
deployed if they have a track record of systematic abuse, or
they refuse to get back to the U.N. as to what they have done
in terms of discipline, or they refuse to investigate.
This is the first time they have done this. This is new.
And we need to ensure that it is enforced, so that units from
DR Congo are not deployed in future peacekeeping missions
unless they fundamentally change the way they do business.
It has to change. And the U.N. is now committed to that. It
has been endorsed by the Security Council. And I think
acceptance of these practices, I think, is over.
The Chairman. Dr. Brown?
Dr. Brown. If I may, I agree entirely with what Mr. Yeo has
said. I would just add that the U.N. has failed, from what I
can see, to accept that it itself has a problem, and that is
what needs to happen. There needs to be a recognition that it
needs to reform itself. It needs to recognize that it does not
have the accountability structures internally, and most of the
measures that apply to the TCCs must apply to the U.N.
Furthermore, the staff who take great risks in reporting
the sexual abuse must be protected. We have had this terrible
case with Mr. Kompass, which has just sent a chilling message
through the system. And that must be rectified. Otherwise, we
are going to find that staff will simply not report.
The Chairman. Senator Cardin?
Senator Cardin. Well, I want to thank both of our
witnesses. This has been very helpful to us.
But, it really starts with the recognition that sexual
exploitation and abuse is not acceptable, and that message has
to be communicated by the top leaders. So it starts with the
top leadership of the United Nations.
And it has to be not just understood by everyone in the
leadership of the United Nations. It has to be enforced by
everyone in the hierarchy of United Nations, so that they
understand that it is different than it has been in the past.
It does not mean that people in the past did not look at it
as serious, but the institution did not look at it as serious.
And that has to change.
But it requires a cultural change, and without that, you
are not going to get the type of action that we want to see.
And the action we want to see is that the member countries that
are participating in the United Nations understand that that
cannot be tolerated, so their leadership impresses upon their
participants that this will not be allowed, and that if you are
involved, it is going to be very severe, and that you are
bringing disrespect to our country's participation and
jeopardizing our standing, and we are not going to allow that
to happen, and it is not allowed.
That is what you are going to have to have for there to be
the type of change that we want to see occur.
So, yes, we have seen some encouraging signs. You have
mentioned some of the encouraging signs, including the passage
of the Security Council resolution. But we are far from
declaring that that has been accomplished in the culture of the
United Nations. That is something that is still a matter that
many of us are concerned, whether that message is clearly being
broadcast the way it should.
And that is something that we are going to continue to
follow. In the meantime, I expect we are going to take some
additional action in the Congress.
The Chairman. We want to thank you both. It has been a very
powerful hearing, and I hope that your testimony is going to
end up affecting people, in that, hopefully, thousands of
people who otherwise would have been sexually abused, raped,
whatever, will not have that experience because of people like
you who have been willing to testify in this manner.
I want to build on what you just said. I mean, in essence,
because the United Nations is providing peacekeepers that in
some cases, not in every case, are sexually abusing people, our
citizens here who work hard every day to raise their families
and pay taxes, they are basically sending money, sending their
hard-earned money, to an organization that has been unwilling
to deal with a crisis within it, and that taints America. It
taints the taxpayer money that we are sending.
And I hope that, somehow, very soon, the leadership of the
United Nations will understand that the American people through
their elected representatives are not going to stand for us
sending money to an organization that is unwilling to deal with
this moral depravity that is taking place there, but not being
willing to own up to a problem and deal with it in an
appropriate way.
So again, we thank you. We appreciate very much your time
and your travel. The record will remain open through the close
of business Friday. And if you could respond fairly promptly to
questions, my sense is you will want to do that.
We thank you, again.
And with that, the meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:31 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
----------
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Responses to Questions for the Record Submitted to Ambassador Coleman,
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Jocobson, and Deputy Assistant
Secretary Rothstein by Senator Corker and Senator Boxer
Question 1. In May 2015, Rwanda hosted a conference on the
protection of civilians in peacekeeping operations. A set of principles
on protection of civilians was created including Principle 15 which
addresses the issue of peacekeeper abuse. What measures have troop- and
police-contributing countries taken to integrate the Kigali principles
into their operations? What are the consequences for TCCs and PCCs who
fail to comply with the principles?
Answer. The ``Kigali Principles on the Protection of Civilians''
are a set of best practices that were developed by Rwanda, in
consultation with the United Nations (U.N.) and peacekeeping experts,
and released at the conclusion of the High-Level International
Conference on the Protection of Civilians held in Rwanda on May 28 and
29, 2015. The Principles are framed around the active role U.N.
peacekeepers should take to protect civilians, a core mandate for a
majority of U.N. peace operations. For countries providing uniformed
personnel to peacekeeping missions, there already is an expectation
that they are trained to support protection of civilians. The
implementation of the Kigali Principles, however, could address other
areas of concern that can and often do undermine peacekeeping
operations deployed to volatile situations. For example, the Principles
were designed to address a range of issues, including having national
contingents seek to identify early-warning signs of violence and take
steps to mitigate them; ensuring that troops have the requisite
authority to use force consistent with the mandate; and, as principle
15 addresses, getting countries to vigorously investigate and, where
appropriate, prosecute any incidents of abuse.
Countries have been asked to endorse the Principles by submitting a
diplomatic note to Rwanda expressing support for the Kigali Principles
and the country's resolve to uphold the pledges contained therein.
Endorsement demonstrates a political commitment to implement them,
where applicable. Endorsement of the Kigali Principles, which is
voluntary and non-binding, could become an important part of improving
the implementation of protection of civilian mandates and emphasizing
its importance in mission design, training and other means to support
contingents in peacekeeping missions.
To date, eleven countries have endorsed the Principles: Bangladesh,
Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Italy, Malawi, the Netherlands, Rwanda,
Senegal, Sri Lanka, Uganda, and Uruguay. These countries cumulatively
have more than 40,000 uniformed personnel in U.N. and AU operations--
approximately one in three uniformed personnel across these operations.
On May 11, the Netherlands will hold a Ministerial event in New York to
encourage additional Member State endorsements and to recognize those
countries that have already done so.
The United States is actively encouraging troop- and police-
contributing countries to endorse the Principles and to develop action
plans to implement them. During his address at the September 2015
Leaders' Summit on Peacekeeping, President Obama highlighted the
importance of the protection of civilians by U.N. peacekeepers and
noted ``that's why the principles and best practices for civilian
protection laid out in Kigali are so important.''
Question 2. U.N. Security Resolution 2272 empowers the Secretary-
General to replace all military units and/or formed police units of the
troop- or police-contributing country when that TCC and/or PCC has not
taken appropriate action against its personnel subject of an allegation
or allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse. What oversight
measures will the United States take at the Security Council take to
ensure that the Secretary General is complying with the UNSCR 2272?
Answer. The United States is tracking closely the steps the
Secretary-General is taking with respect to U.N. Security Council
resolution 2272. There will be ongoing opportunities for the United
States and other Council members to review progress, in addition to
frequent informal contacts with concerned U.N. offices. The Secretary-
General reports regularly (quarterly in the case of most missions), and
specifically in advance of mandate renewals, to the Security Council on
the progress individual U.N. peacekeeping operations are making in
carrying out their mandates. At U.S. urging, mandate resolutions now
routinely include a specific request that these reports include
information on the mission's progress in ensuring full compliance with
the Secretary-General's policy of zero tolerance for sexual
exploitation and abuse (SEA). The Secretary-General's reports are
briefed to the Security Council, which has ample opportunity to ask
questions of the U.N. Secretariat and the Special Representative of the
Secretary-General heading the U.N. mission under discussion, including
about SEA, and to take appropriate steps.
In addition, the General Assembly's Fifth Committee (Administrative
and Budgetary) oversees conduct and discipline of U.N. peacekeeping
mission members as a crosscutting, organization-wide issue, as well as
approves individual mission budgets. The United States, as the single
largest financial contributor to U.N. peace operations, continues to be
a key player on issues related to conduct and discipline and
performance in general.
Since the adoption of U.N. Security Council resolution 2272, the
United States has and will continue to request detailed updates on all
outstanding sexual exploitation and abuse allegations in individual
missions, including actions taken by relevant troop- or police-
contributing countries, and will hold the Secretary-General accountable
for enforcing resolution 2272 if a contributing country has not
fulfilled the resolution's conditions. During Security Council
briefings, the United States will also continue to press the Special
Representative of the Secretary-General for information on any
overarching measures he or she has taken to prevent sexual exploitation
and abuse in the relevant mission.
Question 3. Has the United States withheld bilateral assistance for
sexual exploitation and abuse violations in U.N. peacekeeping as a
result of Leahy vetting?
Answer. The United States will not provide security assistance,
including training, to foreign security force units or individuals for
whom we have credible information of having committed gross violations
of human rights, including those involving sexual exploitation and
abuse (SEA). Individuals or units, against which credible evidence of
such violations exists, have been excluded from participation in U.S.-
funded training activities in numerous cases. However, the United
States has not systematically withheld bilateral assistance as the
result of SEA in U.N. peacekeeping due to the lack of available
information necessary to sufficiently substantiate such allegations.
Prior to the release of the U.N. Secretary General's February 16,
2016 report on sexual exploitation and abuse in the U.N. system
(``Special Measures for Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Sexual
Abuse--Report of the Secretary-General,'' released on March 4, 2016),
the U.N. declined to release the names or home countries of individuals
accused of SEA. The February report represents a significant step in
the right direction, naming the specific troop contributing countries
against which there are SEA allegations.
But the United States must continue to rely on engagement with the
host government and media reports to identify specific individuals
involved in these situations. The State Department will continue to
engage actively with the U.N. and TCCs to identify the names and units
allegedly involved in SEA. This will be done to ensure the host
government investigates and appropriately follows through on these
allegations as well to prevent the provision of future assistance to
individuals and units for which we have credible information of having
committed gross violations of human rights, including those involving
SEA.
Question 4. Is the unit that was part of the Democratic Republic of
Congo contingent in the Central African Republic included in the
International Vetting and Security Tracking System (INVEST)?
Answer. The International Vetting and Tracking (INVEST) system is
the workflow management tool and official system of record for
conducting Leahy vetting. Only cases subject to Leahy vetting are
entered into INVEST. Because no U.S. Government funds were used to
train Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) security forces for the
deployment to the Central African Republic (CAR), those forces were not
subject to Leahy vetting.
Question 5. Given that military and some police are held
accountable for allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse in U.N.
peacekeeping missions by their national governments, what is the
process by which U.N. civilian peacekeeping personnel held accountable
for sexual exploitation and abuse?
Answer. When a U.N. civilian staff member in a peacekeeping
operation is accused of any type of misconduct (including sexual
exploitation and abuse), the investigation is either undertaken by the
Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) or the mission itself,
depending on the details of the allegation. If an allegation of
misconduct against a U.N. civilian staff member is substantiated, there
is an array of administrative sanctions that the U.N. can impose
appropriate to the misconduct, ranging from withholding benefits to
dismissal.
The Secretary General is required by General Assembly resolution
62/63 to bring credible allegations that reveal that a crime may have
been committed by United Nations officials and experts on mission to
the attention of the accused person's State of nationality. While
civilian personnel enjoy functional immunity from legal processes in a
host country for actions performed as part of their official duties,
immunity should not apply in SEA cases because such behavior is outside
official capacity.
Regardless, the Secretary General can also waive immunity for
international staff in order to allow prosecution by local authorities
in the host country. In cases where the U.N. refers a substantiated
allegation of misconduct to the country of nationality, the U.N.
follows up on the case regularly and can provide appropriate assistance
requested by the country for investigation and/or prosecution.
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Responses to Questions for the Record Submitted to Peter Yeo,
President, Better World Campaign, and Vice President for Public Policy
and Advocacy, United Nations Foundation, by Senator Corker
Question 1. In May 2015, Rwanda hosted a conference on the
protection of civilians in peacekeeping operations. A set of principles
on protection of civilians was created including Principle 15 which
addresses the issue of peacekeeper abuse. What measures have troop- and
police-contributing countries taken to integrate the Kigali principles
into their operations? What are the consequences for TCCs and PCCs who
fail to comply with the principles?
Answer. The Kigali Principles are a voluntary set of principles on
the protection of civilians in peacekeeping initially agreed upon by
the governments of Rwanda, Italy, Netherlands, Uruguay and Uganda
following the High Level International Conference on Protection of
Civilians in May 2015. Since then, Ethiopia, Senegal, Malawi, Burkina
Faso, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Poland have also endorsed.
With respect to the United Nations factoring in the Principles, all
else being equal, the Secretariat is giving priority to deploying
countries that have agreed to the Principles versus those that have
not. That being said, the Kigali principles are voluntary commitments,
and, in the U.N.'s pre-deployment assessment of troop contributing
countries (TCCs), they do not hold Kigali signatories to a higher
standard than other troop contributors. Thus, all peacekeepers are
expected to implement the protection mandate, whether or not they have
committed to the Principles, and the Secretary-General has made it
clear that refusals to obey orders may result in repatriation of
contributed units. The Principles are important, however, because they
clearly lay out an approach to civilian protection to which TCCs
explicitly and publicly agree: a willingness to use force and a
commitment to train and prepare troops and invest them with the
authority to act.
Question 2. Given that military and some police are held
accountable for allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse in U.N.
peacekeeping missions by their national governments, what is the
process by which U.N. civilian peacekeeping personnel held accountable
for sexual exploitation and abuse?
Answer. For civilians, when an allegation of Sexual Exploitation
and Abuse is reported, the Office of Internal Oversight Services
(OIOS)--the internal oversight body of the U.N.--makes a determination
whether it will investigate or whether it will refer the case to the
mission for investigation. For most serious cases, OIOS will generally
take the lead, or if it grants the lead to the mission, it may request
to review the outcome of the investigation to determine if it wishes to
take any further investigative action. If an allegation is
substantiated, depending on the severity, the individual could receive
anything from written censure to payment suspension to demotion to
dismissal.
In 2015, 30 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse were made
against United Nations staff members and related personnel other than
those deployed in peacekeeping operations and special political
missions. Of the 30, 12 of the cases were unsubstantiated or closed, 3
have been substantiated and in the 15 others cases, the investigation
is continuing (as of the February 2016 Secretary-General report). Of
the three substantiated cases, the perpetrators' contract was
terminated for two of the individuals and one case is under review by
management for disciplinary action. Information on investigations and
disciplinary action is regularly updated on the U.N.'s Conduct and
Discipline Unit (CDU) website.
In terms of immunity, U.N. officials have immunity only while
carrying out their professional functions. In the case of Sexual
Exploitation and Abuse, immunity does not apply. Member States have the
authority to subject their nationals to criminal process. In several
past instances, governments have requested waivers of immunity, and the
U.N. has confirmed that no immunity applies.
United Nations officials and experts on mission also may be
referred for criminal accountability when allegations of sexual abuse
have been substantiated or a Host Country may decide to investigate
such crimes. Prosecutions by the Host Country will likely involve the
conduct of prior national investigations. Field missions may be called
upon to cooperate with the Host Country in carrying out all necessary
investigations, in accordance with the provisions of status of force
agreements or status of mission agreements.
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