U.N. discovers that some peacekeepers have disturbing pasts

A scandal of sexual abuse mars the U.N.’s exit from Haiti

THE U.N. PEACEKEEPING mission in Haiti, one of the world’s longest-running such deployments and the only one in the Americas, will end in a few months, but not before reckoning with a fresh scandal. A U.N. battalion of Nepalese peacekeepers in 2010 introduced a lethal strain of cholera  to Haiti, where it has since killed more than 9,000 people and infected hundreds of thousands. Now, the Associated Press reports that at least 134 U.N. peacekeepers from Sri Lanka took part in a sex ring in Haiti that victimized nine children, the youngest just 12, from 2004 to 2007. The report should serve notice that U.N. peacekeeping operations worldwide are badly in need of reform and oversight. The sex ring was part of what appears to have been a broader pattern of sexual exploitation and abuse, along with impunity, that has marked the U.N. mission in Haiti since it began in 2004 after an elected president was overthrown. The A.P. turned up hundreds of allegations of abuse in Haiti, many of them coldblooded and horrific, carried out by peacekeepers from Bangladesh, Brazil, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Uruguay and Sri Lanka. In very few cases did the troops face discipline. The U.N. announcement last week that the mission in Haiti would be wound down over the coming six months was unrelated to the A.P.’s nearly simultaneous revelations of sex abuse by peacekeepers. The troops’ withdrawal — they’ll be replaced by a much smaller contingent of police trainers — reflects both the country’s progress toward stabilization after successful elections and financial pressure to trim peacekeeping operations, owing partly to the Trump administration’s threat to cut U.S. contributions to the multinational organization by hundreds of millions of dollars. Even when the mission in Haiti is wrapped up, the United Nations will have more than a dozen peacekeeping missions worldwide; Haiti is by no means the only place peacekeepers have treated as a sexual playground. The United Nations must insist, as a precondition for accepting peacekeeping troops, that contributing countries will court-martial and punish soldiers who commit abuse. It should also sever payments to peacekeeping contingents implicated in sexual abuse if they fail to impose discipline. In the absence of such accountability, peacekeeping missions may do more harm than good. Haiti may have been especially vulnerable to exploitation by peacekeepers as the hemisphere’s poorest nation, leveled by a devastating earthquake in 2010 and a hurricane last year. Some children and teens reportedly were raped outright; others engaged in what victims called “survival sex,” coerced into trading their bodies for scraps of food or a few dollars. The United Nations insists it is making progress in holding peacekeeper-contributing countries to account; it said much the same thing a decade ago. **Read more on this issue:** The Post’s View: The United Nations comes clean(ish) on cholera in Haiti The Post’s View: The Herculean task facing Haiti Charanya Krishnaswami and Muneer I. Ahmad: U.N. hypocrisy in Haiti

In volatile Congo, a new U.N. force with teeth

With shells flying overhead, the Congolese soldiers pressed forward on a desolate stretch of road near the Rwandan border. Ahead of them was a rebel army, firing relentlessly. Behind them, a new U.N. combat brigade waited in white armored vehicles, ready to serve as backup. The U.N. soldiers are in Congo with an ambitious goal: to reverse the trajectory of one of the world’s most horrific and complex conflicts, one that has killed more than 5 million people since 1998, the deadliest war since World War II. They are also here to rescue the image of the troubled U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Congo. “To be a peacekeeper doesn’t mean you need to be passive,” their top commander, Gen. Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz, said hours before the offensive began. “To be a peacekeeper, you need to take action. The way to protect the civilians is to take action. If you see the history of atrocities here, it justifies action.” Inaction is precisely what the U.N. mission here has been criticized for in the 14 years since the United Nations dispatched soldiers to Congo, the first members of what has become the largest peacekeeping force in U.N. history. Now, the U.N. Security Council has launched the Forward Intervention Brigade in a bold attempt to defeat the dozens of militias that pillage this mineral-rich central African country, which is roughly the size of Western Europe. The brigade, composed of 3,000 soldiers, is the United Nations’ first offensive combat force and is seen as a possible model for defusing crises in other chaotic parts of the world. But the force is also an unparalleled gamble for the United Nations that challenges the basic principles of peacekeeping. It has orders to react offensively to enforce peace, essentially transforming peacekeepers into combatants. And it is openly supporting Congolese government forces, a move away from the principle of neutrality that has guided other U.N. missions. That could affect the United Nations’ ability to negotiate peace deals with the militias and risks deepening conflicts. Humanitarian agencies are worried that Congo’s brutal militias could see the entire U.N. mission, which also includes aid workers, monitors and civilian experts, as non-neutral potential targets. There are also concerns that the U.N. force is propping up a corrupt government and aiding an undisciplined military that has a history of human-rights abuses, including mass rapes. Many Congolese remain skeptical of the new brigade’s potential to eradicate the militias. Others have lofty expectations that could bring disappointment and further antagonism toward the U.N. mission. But senior U.N. civilian and military officials, as well as some analysts, say the brigade could be the United Nations’ best chance to help bring meaningful change, and perhaps even a sustainable peace, to Congo. This week, the Congolese and U.N. forces pushed the rebels of the M23 movement out of major towns, including their last primary stronghold of Bunagana, near the Ugandan border. The remarkably swift military defeat of the rebels, who only last year briefly seized the eastern city of Goma, represented the first significant victory for the force. “Everybody is impatient,” said Martin Kobler, the special U.N. envoy to Congo. “The atrocities going on, the rapes of women and the use of child soldiers, this is just unacceptable. That’s why it’s a good development to have the intervention brigade here. This is teeth.” Congo has been plagued by conflict since the fall of its longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997 following an ethnic rebellion triggered by the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. A succession of rebel militias have fought over the eastern part of the country, bordering Rwanda and Uganda, and its valuable resources, including vast deposits of tin, gold and coltan, an ore that yields elements used in cellphones and laptops. In 1999, the United Nations launched an observer mission here. Confronted with a bloody conflict that became known as Africa’s first “world war,” involving nine nations and dozens of rebel groups, the mission was steadily enlarged and its mandate expanded. But the peacekeepers remained unable or unwilling to prevent rebel groups from killing, raping and terrorizing the population or from seizing entire towns in eastern Congo. “The population was expecting a solution from the U.N. for many years, but there was not even the beginning of a solution,” said Gautier Muhindo Misonia, a human rights activist and president of a collection of local nongovernmental organizations. Kobler said that without the peacekeepers, the country would have been gripped by more violence and instability. The primary responsibility for bringing peace, he said, lay with the Congolese government. For more than a year, the highest-   profile rebel militia has been the M23 movement. It was launched in April 2012 by disaffected Congolese soldiers who wanted the government to honor the terms of a 2009 peace deal following a previous rebellion. U.N. investigators allege that Rwanda is financing and arming the rebels, who are mostly Tutsis, the same ethnicity as the Rwandan leadership. Rwanda has publicly denied the allegation. Last year, several hundred M23 rebels seized Goma for 10 days before withdrawing voluntarily, embarrassing the U.N. mission. That prompted France’s foreign minister to declare it “absurd” that 17,000 U.N. soldiers could not protect the city, and he urged a review of the U.N. mandate. Massive demonstrations erupted in Goma, and U.N. vehicles were stoned. On Twitter, critics began referring to the mission, whose name is abbreviated in French as MONUSCO, with the hashtag #MONUSELESS. The capture of Goma prompted the U.N. Security Council to approve the intervention brigade this year, giving it a mandate to “neutralize” all of Congo’s militias. The force, made up of troops from South Africa, Malawi and Tanzania, became operational this summer. In late August, the brigade went into action for the first time, backing Congolese government forces by firing artillery shells at M23 rebel positions a few miles north of Goma in the town of Kibati. The fighting drove the rebels back a few miles, preventing them from shelling Goma and convincing them to enter peace talks in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, in September. Still, many Congolese are unconvinced that the brigade, known as FIB here, would be different from other U.N. peacekeeping forces. Two days after the Kibati clashes, an angry crowd stormed the U.N. mission’s base in Goma claiming the United Nations had not done enough to protect them. Two protesters were killed in the chaos and a U.N. car was reportedly set on fire. During a routine patrol last week through the streets of Goma, the intervention brigade was taunted by residents: “You have no job. You have no job.” “The population is questioning whether 3,000 soldiers from the FIB can do a job that 17,000 U.N. peacekeepers have failed to accomplish,” said Danny Kayege, a historian. “The population does not have any confidence in them.” In Kilimanyoke last week, some Congolese soldiers dismissed the new brigade’s fighting capabilities. “They stand behind us and shell. But we are the ones fighting on the front line, face to face with the enemy,” said Jean Luc Basunga, a Congolese government soldier. “Even if the FIB doesn’t help us, we can defeat the enemy.” But in a visit to Kibati last week, most residents interviewed said the new brigade was more committed to protecting them than other U.N. peacekeepers have been. “The FIB is not like the other MONUSCO soldiers,” said Nsengiyunva Mudyango, 35, a farmer, standing near several destroyed houses. “I see they are strong, and here to help us.” Even with the capture of Bunagana and the possible demise of M23 as a military force, many challenges remain for the intervention brigade and the U.N. mission. The country’s political institutions are crumbling, corruption and poverty are widespread and ethnic divisions run deep. U.N. officials say a political solution is still the best path forward, but in a phone interview last week, Amani Kabasha, the rebels’ political spokesman, said his group had lost trust in the U.N. mission because it was supporting Congolese forces. “Even if they kill all of the M23, another group will rise in our place,” he warned. The intervention brigade is expected to go after more than 40 other militias who are committing atrocities, stealing Congo’s mineral wealth and preventing the government from functioning — a task that seems virtually impossible. There is also the problem of perception. The Enough Project, a human-rights group, said in a report last week that the brigade “risks being seen, or being used, as a pawn of Kinshasa,” the capital. Both Kobler and Cruz said the brigade would not work with any Congolese army units that have committed human-rights abuses. They also said the brigade would work at times on its own. U.N. and other humanitarian aid workers said in interviews that they remain worried about the new brigade. “The presence of the FIB is a problem for all the humanitarian actors,” said Francesca Mangia, the head of Doctors Without Borders France in Goma. “When the population sees a white car, they don’t differentiate between whether it is us, the U.N. or FIB. It makes us military targets. “ Near the front line, the significance of their mission was not lost on members of the intervention brigade. Maj. Vic Vrolik, their South African commander, said that eliminating the M23 was the first step to “start concentrating on the other armed groups.” “If we succeed, it will show that the U.N. can solve problems in war-torn areas,” he said.

Peacekeepers linked to grisly murders in Central African Republic

NAIROBI — Aid workers have unearthed the remains of 12 people who they say were murdered by international peacekeepers in the Central African Republic in 2014. The troops, from the Republic of Congo, were part of a peacekeeping mission — first under the auspices of the African Union, then the United Nations — aimed at ending a civil war that left thousands dead beginning in late 2012. Human Rights Watch had previously reported on the role Congolese peacekeepers played in “enforced disappearances,” but the Congolese government “has taken no action toward credible investigations or justice for these crimes,” according to a new report by the group released Tuesday. Now, new evidence has emerged in what appears to be one of the most egregious cases of peacekeeper abuse in the history of the mission in the Central African Republic. The African Union peacekeeping mission was absorbed by the United Nations not long after the incident occurred. The new Human Rights Watch report says that a local aid group exhumed the remains of a dozen people in February of this year and that “clothing and other distinctive items identified the victims as members of a group of at least 12 people the Congolese peacekeepers arrested on March 24, 2014.” Peacekeepers had previously claimed that those people had escaped from detention after the arrests — and denied any role in their deaths. “The discovery of 12 bodies is damning evidence of an appalling crime by Congolese peacekeepers, who had been sent to protect people, not prey on them,” said Lewis Mudge, Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. Peacekeepers in the Central African Republic, including those from the Republic of Congo, have more recently been accused of sexually abusing dozens of girls and women across the country. A total of 120 soldiers from the Republic of Congo have been sent home in connection with the sexual abuse scandal. The disappearance of the people in 2014 in Boali, a town in the country’s southwest, was yet another stain on the peacekeeping mission. Human Rights Watch had previously reported the “presumed location of the grave” – about 500 yards from where a U.N. peacekeeping base stands. “Yet [African Union] peacekeepers, U.N. peacekeepers, and national authorities made no effort to protect the site, or to conduct a forensic exhumation to preserve evidence for future judicial proceedings,” Tuesday’s report said. The group was arrested after a clash between a local commander from the “anti-Balaka” Christian militia and peacekeepers left one peacekeeper dead. “Angered by the death of their colleague, the Congolese peacekeepers surrounded the anti-   Balaka leader’s house, arrested him and at least 12 others, including five women, one of whom was six months pregnant, and two children, one about 10 years old and the other 7 months old,” the report said. “Later that night, witnesses heard screams and a volley of gunshots from an area near the villa on the other side of the road, followed about an hour later by another round of gunfire from the same location.” Although the United Nations acknowledged in a 2015 statement that peacekeepers were involved in “enforced disappearances, torture and extrajudicial killings,” the Congolese government has taken “little or no action,” according to Human Rights Watch.

Record number of U.N. peacekeepers fails to stop African wars

NAIROBI — The United Nations has dispatched a record number of peacekeepers in Africa in recent years, deploying soldiers to trouble spots such as the Central African Republic and South Sudan. Yet the “blue helmets” and thousands of other soldiers sent by African regional groups have failed to prevent fresh spasms of violence. The peacekeeping forces have cost billions of dollars, largely paid by the United States and European nations. But they have been hobbled by weak mandates and a shortage of manpower and equipment. Some critics also say Washington, its allies and U.N. officials are at fault in the peacekeeping failures, for not following through with enough political pressure to prevent crises. “The political and diplomatic elements of the international response to most Africa conflicts have been slow and ineffective,” said John Prendergast, a longtime Sudan and South Sudan activist with the Enough Project, a human rights group. That, he said, “has put more pressure on peacekeeping missions to fulfill objectives for which they are totally unprepared.” In South Sudan, a power struggle that U.S. and U.N. officials were aware of for more than a year has now sparked an ethnic and political conflict that has killed hundreds, raising fears of a potential civil war. On Friday, the warring sides held their first round of peace talks in neighboring Ethiopia, but the conflict showed no signs of abating. The U.S. State Department evacuated more of its embassy staff from the South Sudanese capital, Juba. Meanwhile, the rebel forces, which recently seized the strategic town of Bor, remained in a standoff with government troops, raising concerns that battles could flare up at any moment. Already, nearly 200,000 people have been displaced by the fighting. Frustration with the peacekeepers is rife. Ibrahim Muhammed, 30, fled the volatile Sudanese region of Darfur a year ago and arrived in South Sudan seeking a better future. Today, he languishes inside a U.N. peacekeeping base in the war-ravaged South Sudanese town of Malakal, living in a tent made of blankets. “The U.N. peacekeepers have not been able to stop the violence in Darfur, and so I came here,” Muhammed, a shopkeeper, said in an interview last weekend in Malakal. “But in South Sudan now, the situation is similar to Darfur. It is tribe against tribe. The peacekeepers won’t be able to stop the attacks.” Toby Lanzer, a senior U.N. official in South Sudan, conceded that there are limitations to what peacekeeping forces can accomplish in trouble spots. In many situations, including South Sudan and the Central African Republic, U.N. and African forces lack resources and a sufficient number of soldiers, he added. “There’s always a temptation when people hear of 5,000 or 10,000 peacekeepers for them to think that they can do an awful lot of good, and they can,” said Lanzer, the deputy special representative for the U.N. mission in South Sudan. “But what they cannot do is stabilize a situation in a whole country that is erupting into violence.” There are now more U.N. peacekeepers in Africa than at any time in history — roughly twice as many as in the early 1990s. As of the end of November, more than 70 percent of the 98,267 U.N. peacekeepers deployed globally were in sub-Saharan Africa, according to J. Peter Pham, executive director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center. U.N. forces have often been limited by mandates that allow them to fight only in self-defense. Shortly before genocidal attacks erupted in Rwanda in 1994, for example, U.N. peacekeepers learned that arms were being imported illegally by an ethnic Hutu militia. But senior U.N. officials ordered the peacekeepers not to seize the weapons because it was beyond their mandate, their Canadian commander, Brig. Romeo Dallaire, later recounted in a book. More than two years ago, the U.N. mission in South Sudan was authorized to have up to 7,500 military personnel and police officers. But it was unable to stop the ethnic and political bloodletting that had been occurring since the country declared independence from Sudan in 2011. In January 2012, the U.N. mission was heavily criticized by victims and community leaders for doing little to stop a wave of tribal killings in Jonglei state, the same region that is now a battle zone. It was only after violence quickly spread across South Sudan in mid-December that the U.N. Security Council unanimously voted to nearly double the force to a little more than 14,000. But the peacekeepers’ mandate is framed in terms of development, “as if the problems of South Sudan were merely due to the lack of material aid, as opposed to rooted in deeper conflicts,” Pham said. “While one has to be realistic — and acknowledge that the U.N. and the African Union are not panaceas and not every conflict can be foreseen, much less prevented — one should also ask what the purpose of deploying some 7,000 troops from more than 60 countries to South Sudan at the cost of close to $1 billion a year is, if they are not keeping the peace,” Pham said. But others say that if the peacekeepers had not been deployed, there would have been more chaos and deaths in South Sudan, the Central African Republic and other nations where poverty, poor governance and corruption have fueled violence. “I think one can legitimately criticize peacekeeping operations for not doing enough,” said E.J. Hogendoorn, deputy Africa director for the International Crisis Group, an independent organization that tries to prevent conflicts. “But without the physical intervention of either U.N. or African peacekeepers, those conflicts could oftentimes have escalated much more.” Lanzer, the U.N. official, said the U.N. forces have helped keep most of South Sudan relatively stable, noting that much of the chaos and violence is unfolding in four of the country’s 10 states. He said the U.N. mission is fulfilling its primary mandate to protect civilians and that tens of thousands have sought refuge inside U.N. peacekeeping bases. “We’ve stepped up to the plate and done the very best we could,” he said. African peacekeeping troops not under the U.N. banner often have even less equipment, training and resources. Yet they are increasingly being called upon to help contain crises around the continent. In northern Mali, an African force composed of soldiers from neighboring countries deployed too late to prevent Islamist radicals — including al-Qaeda’s West and North African affiliate — from carrying out widespread atrocities against civilians. In the Central African Republic, African Union peacekeepers have been unable to stop the brutalities committed by Muslim Seleka rebels and Christian militias in the sectarian conflict. Soldiers from Chad, a Muslim nation that is part of the peacekeeping force, have been accused of supporting the Muslim rebels. “Even with increased engagement in peace operations, questions remain about the quality and capability of African troops,” Comfort Ero, the Africa director for the International Crisis Group, wrote in a blog on the group’s Web site last month. In both Mali and the Central African Republic, hundreds of soldiers from France, the former colonial power, were sent to defuse the crisis after African peacekeeping forces failed to do so. Still, when resources, training and a strong mandate are provided to African peacekeepers, there have been some successes. The African force in Somalia, led by Uganda and Burundi and backed by the United States and its allies, is credited with driving out the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab militia from major cities, though Somalia remains far from stable. In Congo, where the U.N. mission has been widely criticized as unable to protect civilians, the recent deployment of a rapid-reaction U.N. combat brigade with a strong mandate helped defeat the M23 rebels. The crisis in South Sudan, though, threatens to weaken other peacekeeping missions in Africa. Last month’s U.N. resolution allows troops from other trouble spots such as Sudan, Liberia, Ivory Coast and Congo to be temporarily redeployed to bolster the U.N. mission in South Sudan. Even with thousands of peacekeepers, a key reason for the strife in South Sudan is a refusal by the United States and European and African powers who played a key role in creating the independent nation to acknowledge its political divides and hold its leaders accountable, analysts said. For more than a year, there were clear signs of a deep split within the ruling party, pitting President Salva Kiir against his now-former vice president, Riek Machar. Now, both men’s loyalists within the army threaten to propel the country into more violence and tragedy. “In South Sudan, there could have been a bigger international diplomatic push to address the deepening schism within South Sudan's ruling party when it began to implode in the summer,” Prendergast said. “A U.N. mission alone cannot usually address these scenarios, so the countries with leverage need to show up in a major way and work to prevent potential conflagration. This didn’t happen in South Sudan, and the result is obvious.”

Peacekeepers made major errors that contributed to South Sudan massacre, U.N. report finds

Six months after an attack on a United Nations camp left dozens dead in South Sudan, an internal U.N. investigation concluded that peacekeepers made major errors that contributed to, and exacerbated, the massacre. On Feb. 17, fighting broke out within the U.N. Protection of Civilians Site in the city of Malakal, first between young men from rival ethnic groups who had managed to smuggle guns through holes in the fence. Then the violence escalated after heavily armed government forces entered the camp. A summary of the United Nation’s “board of inquiry report,” released Friday, said the organization and its peacekeepers failed through a “combination of inaction, abandonment of post and refusal to engage.” In other words, some peacekeepers, whose most prominent mandate is to protect civilians, simply ran away once they were tested, abandoning sentry posts. Other peacekeepers demanded written permission to use their weapons, even though their U.N. mandate clearly gives them that authority. But the failure began before the attack itself, according to the report. Peacekeepers did not heed warnings that violence was brewing, it said. The perimeter fence was poorly patrolled and left with gaping holes that could be used by combatants. “Weapons and ammunition can easily be smuggled in and hidden,” the report said. The end result was tragic, “ensuring that civilians would be placed in serious risk in the very location to which they had come for protection.” It was not the first time the United Nations had failed to protect civilians, or the first time it had pointedly addressed those failings in a board of inquiry report (a list of others is below). Those investigations are meant to outline the ways the United Nations can improve its performance. But to many, they serve as reminders of how little the organization has learned from its own failures. South Sudan, though, by the United Nations’ own admission, presents a wholly new challenge. More than 160,000 civilians are living in displacement camps where those inside are often targets of armed fighters outside. And sometimes it is unclear whether all the people inside, ostensibly in search of protection, are truly non-combatants. Even if the peacekeepers had not fled, even if warnings had been heeded, could a violent clash in Malakal have been prevented? On that point, given the scale of the challenge and the limited resources of the U.N. Mission in the Republic of South Sudan, the report offers perhaps its most haunting assessment, arguing that civilians at the site “had unrealistic expectations for the protection that UNMISS could feasibly afford.” Since its inception in 1948, the U.N. peacekeeping program has seen its share of successes. Missions in Lebanon and Sierra Leone are often cited as effective, as are many of the peacekeepers' deployments before the end of the Cold War. The agency was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988 for its work. But failures, such as those in Malakal, have roiled the program in recent years. Here are three other instances in which inquiries found that the United Nations and its peacekeepers fell short of their mandate to protect civilians. The Rwandan genocide, in which more than 800,000 people were killed, began after the Rwandan president’s plane was shot down as he returned from U.N.-brokered power-sharing talks between his Hutu-led government and Tutsi rebels. In the ensuing chaos, hard-line Hutus began to massacre more-moderate Hutus and Tutsis.  More than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed in July 1995 by Bosnian Serb forces in a U.N.-designated safe area in Srebrenica, in the aftermath of the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Japan’s first gun-toting troops since WWII have deployed — to South Sudan

Eventually, lawmakers from the governing party formed a protective cordon around the chairman, and the ensuing vote at least nominally brought Japan's decades of pacifism to an end. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe successfully argued that Japan needed to flex its muscles, given North Korea's persistent belligerence and unpredictability, as well as neighboring China's intimidatingly large army.  The Japanese contingent is made up of trained engineers whose main mission is to engage in construction projects, but there are also plans for them to take a more active role in peacekeeping under an expanded mandate stemming from the security measures approved last year. Japanese troops have been deployed as part of U.N. peacekeeping missions before — starting in 1992 in Cambodia and including to South Sudan in 2012. Last year's legislation means that the Japanese troops can now use weapons, notably in rescuing U.N. staffers who come under attack and defending U.N. peacekeeping facilities. U.N. compounds and peacekeepers have increasingly come under attack in Juba and elsewhere in South Sudan, so it is not unlikely that the new Japanese arrivals may have to use their guns. In February, fighting broke out between youths from rival ethnic groups within a U.N. compound housing thousands of displaced people. The violence escalated after government forces entered the camp. Peacekeepers fled the scene, and dozens of displaced civilians were killed. An inquiry by the United Nations said the organization and its peacekeepers failed through a “combination of inaction, abandonment of post and refusal to engage.”  Peacekeepers, especially in South Sudan, have a limited mandate. They can use force in defense of civilians or U.N. personnel, but they can't use force against an opposing army — in this case, the Sudan People's Liberation Army, which is loyal to Kiir. Yet that army has perpetrated much of the recent violence against civilians, foreigners and even U.N. peacekeepers. It is the only armed force in Juba, after soldiers loyal to former vice president Riek Machar retreated in the wake of July's bloodshed. About 12,000 peacekeepers from across the world are deployed in South Sudan.

The world’s most dangerous U.N. peacekeeping mission faces al-Qaeda

Since World War II, U.N. peacekeepers have been dispatched to 69 conflicts — civil wars, border disputes and failed states. But now they are confronting an unsettling new threat: al-Qaeda. Here in the vast, lawless desert of northwest Africa, their convoys are being torn apart by improvised explosive devices and their compounds blasted by 1,000-pound car bombs. It is a crisis that looks more like the U.S. ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than the cease-fires traditionally monitored by U.N. missions. In the past four years, 118 peacekeepers have been killed — making the U.N. mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA, the world body’s deadliest ongoing peace operation. The bloodshed has raised questions about how an institution developed in the 1940s can serve a world under threat from the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. The issue is especially potent given the expectation that U.N. peacekeepers will eventually go to places such as Syria and Libya. “We are trying to learn these lessons here, rather than in Iraq, Libya or Syria,” said Dutch Col. Mike Kerkhove, commander of the U.N. intelligence unit in Mali. “This is not the end of this type of mission. It’s the beginning.” In 2012, Islamist radicals linked to al-Qaeda hijacked an uprising by ethnic Tuareg people and went on to seize cities across northern Mali, holding on for nearly a year until they were forced out by a French military intervention. When 11,000 U.N. troops arrived in 2013, they were meant to protect a fledgling peace deal and train the Malian army. But Islamist extremists regrouped across the region. It did not take long before the militants started targeting peacekeepers, whom they dubbed “Crusader occupation forces.” The United Nations was remarkably unprepared for the threat. Most of its troops from Africa and South Asia brought tanks and vehicles that were easy targets for explosives, unlike U.S. mine-resistant vehicles. The U.N. compounds, dotted with metal storage containers turned into offices and bedrooms, had flimsy perimeter security and were vulnerable to the massive car bombs used by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the regional affiliate of the extremist group. For a while, U.N. forces didn’t have a single attack helicopter. “We weren’t ready for these challenges,” said Mohamed El-Amine Souef, a native of the Comoros Islands who is the top U.N. official in Gao, a city in northern Mali. Last year, Souef’s compound was struck by a suicide bomber, the shrapnel battering his front door. But the United Nations’ dilemma goes beyond a lack of preparation or anti-   terrorism equipment. At its New York headquarters and around the world, diplomats are debating: Should U.N. forces be engaged in counterterrorism at all? “It’s time for us to realize that this kind of front-line role is central to the future of the United Nations,” said Peter Yeo, a senior official at the U.N. Foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit organization that supports the goals of the world body. Yeo and others argue that without a counterterrorism capability, U.N. peacekeepers can’t operate productively in many of the world’s war zones. But critics say that such a role would violate the peacekeepers’ core principle of impartiality and ultimately make them less effective. “Peacekeepers are only meant to use deadly force to protect civilians or to stop spoilers from threatening a peace process, not to pursue any group’s military defeat,” said Aditi Gorur, director of the Protecting Civilians in Conflict program at the Stimson Center, a Washington-based research center. If peacekeepers had a more aggressive counterterrorism mandate, she and others argue, that could hurt the United Nations’ ability to mediate between warring groups, which sometimes include violent Islamists. Already in Mali, the International Committee of the Red Cross has described the United Nations as a “party to the conflict.” In the slide-show presentation he shows to visitors at his base in Bamako, the capital of Mali, Kerkhove, the intelligence unit commander, includes an aerial photo taken last year of a compound that appeared to be used by a terrorist group. When he received the photo, Kerkhove debated what to do. The men inside might be planning an assault on U.N. personnel, he thought, or a strike against civilians. Over the past two years, extremist groups have used Mali as a staging ground for attacks on luxury hotels, beach resorts and restaurants in West Africa. In 2016, al-Qaeda and its allies and affiliates launched at least 257 attacks in the region, according to the Long War Journal. But Kerkhove knew that the nearest battalion of U.N. troops, from Senegal, didn’t have the weapons or air support to engage in a fight with transnational terrorists. Ultimately, U.N. forces decided not to approach the compound. The Mali mission is the only one of the 16 active U.N. peacekeeping operations that authorizes troops to deter and counter “asymmetric threats” — that is, terrorist groups — that could harm its work or civilians. Last year, the U.N. Security Council said the mission should become “more proactive and robust” — language that some read as encouraging more offensive operations. “We need to be able to hit the terrorists where they are, before they hit us,” said Souef, the U.N. official in Gao. But peacekeepers worry that they don’t have the tools to deal with armed extremists. “We are gathering the intelligence, but we lack the forces who can act on that information,” said Swedish Lt. Col. Per Wilson. Richard Gowan, an expert on U.N. peacekeeping at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation, said that U.N. missions lack the resources and doctrine for counterterrorism work. He noted that even well-equipped Western military forces were outmaneuvered by terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan. “It is reasonable to ask why on earth the Security Council thinks that a U.N. force can do any better in Mali, even with European reinforcements,” he said. Over the years, the United Nations has increasingly had to confront the scourge of terrorism. Militants blew up its political assistance office in Baghdad in 2003, killing 22 people, including the U.N. envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello. But the Mali mission marks the first time a significant peacekeeping contingent has been sent to help a state regain control over areas contested by terrorist groups. In a review in 2015, a panel of U.N.-   appointed experts said that peacekeeping forces were “not the appropriate tool for military counterterrorism operations.” But it noted they do deploy in areas threatened by armed extremist groups “and must be capable of operating effectively and as safely as possible therein.” On their patrols through the sandy side streets of Gao, an ancient city along the Niger River lined with mud-brick houses, U.N. convoys are greeted by throngs of residents. The locals always have the same complaint, said Senegalese Capt. Diagne Meth, standing outside his armored personnel carrier during one patrol: “They want us to do more.” Specifically, he said, they ask for more offensive operations, targeting radical Islamists as well as criminal groups. “But I have to tell them, ‘That’s not what we’re here to do,’ ” Meth said. Already, the United Nations has tried to adapt in Mali. It has a fleet of surveillance drones. It has the first U.N. intelligence cell, a Bamako-based unit with analysts spread across the country. It has counter-IED specialists. It also has thousands of European troops, including large contingents from Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, with soldiers experienced in fighting in Afghanistan. Other U.N. missions have evolved in recognition of new threats. In Congo in 2013, for example, the United Nations launched its first brigade designed for offensive operations. But the terrorism threat in Mali sets it apart. “Sending out a patrol might work to deter an armed group in the Congo from engaging in violence, but it has the opposite effect in Mali, where terrorists are specifically trying to target peacekeepers,” said Gorur, of the Stimson Center. More than a year and a half ago, Mali’s government signed a peace deal with separatist rebels in the north from the Tuareg and Arab communities. Authorities hoped the radical Islamists who had once aligned themselves with the local rebels — and later fallen out — had been driven away. But today, the terrorists appear stronger than ever. The French military continues to conduct its own counterterrorism mission across northwest Africa, including in Mali. The United Nations shares information with the French if it is deemed useful for protecting the lives of troops. On Jan. 18, Islamist extremists drove a truck laden with explosives into a compound in Gao where the United Nations was protecting Malian forces. Seventy-six men — from national forces and armed groups that had joined the peace process — lost their lives in the blast. (No peacekeepers were killed.) The attack was claimed by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which said it involved one of its allies, al-Mourabitoun. The explosion was staggering, but so was the lack of security at an installation ostensibly protected by peacekeepers. Three days before the attack, a visiting Washington Post reporter saw only a few Bangladeshi peacekeepers sitting inside a personnel carrier outside the compound. Terrorist groups had already struck U.N. facilities in the city several times, but the base was protected by only a flimsy metal gate. Souef, the U.N. official, acknowledged that his compound in the city was vulnerable. “We shouldn’t be living in a place like this,” he said.

Report: U.N. peacekeepers in Haiti had ‘transactional sex’ with hundreds of poor women

New revelations about the sexual exploitation of hundreds of women by United Nations peacekeepers have emerged a decade after the organization first identified the problem. In a draft report obtained by the Associated Press, the U.N.’s Office of Internal Oversight Services — a U.N. watchdog within the U.N. — said members of a peacekeeping mission had “transactional sex” with more than 225 Haitian women. The women traded sex for basic needs, including food and medication.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “For rural women, hunger, lack of shelter, baby care items, medication and household items were frequently cited as the ‘triggering need,’” the report said. In exchange for sex, women got “’church shoes,’ cell phones, laptops and perfume, as well as money” from peacekeepers. Women in Haiti sometimes protested when peacekeepers who said they would pay for sex did not, but most were unaware the United Nations prohibited sexual exploitation and has a hotline to report it. “In cases of non-payment, some women withheld the badges of peacekeepers and threatened to reveal their infidelity via social media,” the report said. “Only seven interviewees knew about the United Nations policy prohibiting sexual exploitation and abuse.” According to the report, investigators went to Haiti last year to shine a light on the United Nations’s persistent problem with transactional sex. Even as the organization said claims of such abuse are down across the world, the report found an issue with “significant underreporting.” It also said a third of alleged sexual abuse involves people younger than 18, that assistance to victims is “severely deficient” and that the average investigation of claims takes more than a year. While the United Nations prohibits “exchange of money, employment, goods or services for sex,” the organization’s policies on sexual relations between peacekeepers and those they serve are less stringent. Such sex, “based on inherently unequal power dynamics,” according to the United Nations, is discouraged, but permitted. The report said some peacekeepers think their right to have sex — as long as that sex is not paid for — should not be questioned. “Staff with long mission experience states that was a ‘general view that people should have romantic rights’ and raised the issue of sexuality as a human right,” the report said. There are about 125,000 U.N. peacekeepers around the world, according to the AP. About 7,000 are in Haiti — a mission that, along with missions in Congo, Liberia and South Sudan, accounts for the most allegations of sexual abuse.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico One of the U.N. staffers who produced the report declined comment to the AP, preferring to wait for the report to be released; the Office of Internal Oversight Services wasn’t immediately available for comment. The new revelations about sexual abuse by peacekeepers come a decade after Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, now U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, tackled sexual exploitation in a landmark investigation referred to as “the Zeid report.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Zeid produced the report in 2005 after an investigation into sexual exploitation by U.N. peacekeepers in the Congo revealed “‘zero-compliance with zero-tolerance’ throughout the mission.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “The record of United Nations peacekeeping and peacekeeper personnel is distinguished, and many have given their lives in the cause of peace,” the Zeid report read. “There will always be those who do not meet the established standards of conduct, however.” The United Nations, including Secretary General Kofi Annan, quickly threw itself behind change, including the standardization of rules against sexual exploitation by peacekeeping personnel, the investigation of peacekeeping operations, and filing criminal charges. “We are committed to implement the necessary reforms as quickly as possible,” Annan said in a statement.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico But 10 years later, it seems that little has changed. “Even with the implementation of stronger sexual exploitation and abuse policies and procedures, holding perpetrators accountable remains a challenge,” according to a recent report from Stimson, a Washington-based think tank. “As long as instances of sexual exploitation and abuse continue to occur the U.N. must improve upon existing efforts.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _Correction: An earlier version of this article said U.N. peacekeepers work with about 125,000 people around the world. That is not correct; there are 125,000 U.N. peacekeepers around the world._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the year of the Haitian earthquake in a photo caption. The earthquake was in 2010, not 2012._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

UN troops seized by Syrian rebels appear in video

BEIRUT — Several United Nations peacekeepers who were abducted by Syrian rebels said in videos posted online Thursday that they are safe and being treated well, even as activists reported clashes and shelling in the tense border area with Israel where the Filipino troops were being held. Opposition fighters detained 21 peacekeepers near the village of Jamlah in the Golan Heights on Wednesday — the first time U.N. troops have encountered trouble since they began patrolling an Israeli-Syrian armistice line dividing the plateau nearly 40 years ago, said Timor Goksel, a Beirut-based former United Nations official in the region. One of the videos posted online shows three men dressed in camouflage and blue bulletproof vests emblazoned with “U.N.” and “Philippines.” “We, the U.N. personnel here, are safe, and the Free Syrian Army are treating us good,” one of them says in English. “We cannot go home because the government of [President Bashar] al-Assad do not stop the bombing. To our family, we hope to see you soon and we are okay here.” The second video shows six peacekeepers sitting in a room. An officer, who identifies himself as a captain, says that as their convoy came under shelling Wednesday, “we stopped and civilian people helped us for our safety and distributed us in different places to keep us safe.” The targeting of the peacekeepers was likely to heighten Israeli jitters about the Syrian civil war upsetting the delicate balance along the frontier between the two countries. Israel captured Syria’s Golan Heights in the 1967 Middle East war, and a U.N. monitoring force, UNDOF, was sent in 1974, a year after another Middle East war, to enforce an armistice deal between Syria and Israel. A spokesman for the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigades, which is holding the peacekeepers, told the Associated Press via Skype that all 21 peacekeepers “are fine and in good health.” “We consider them guests,” he added. The U.N. Security Council has demanded their immediate and unconditional release. U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said Thursday in New York that UNDOF had been in touch with the captive peacekeepers “and confirmed that they have not been harmed.” He also said the mission was working for their release. ** — Associated Press  **

U.N. reports new rape accusations against peacekeepers in Central African Republic

NAIROBI — Investigators have discovered a string of new cases in which U.N. peacekeepers allegedly sexually abused or exploited women and girls in the Central African Republic, widening a scandal that has sent shock waves through the United Nations and threatens to undermine one of its most crucial missions. On Thursday, the United Nations reported seven new alleged victims as it responded to a Human Rights Watch report about the scandal that was released the same day. The victims were as young as 14, according to the report, which said several were raped. As in several previous cases, the abuses reportedly occurred in one of the country’s poorest and most vulnerable communities: a camp for families displaced by the country’s civil war, now entering its fourth year. The top U.N. official in the Central African Republic, Parfait Onanga-Anyanga, called the alleged abuses “a double crime that affects the vulnerable women and children you were sent here to protect.” Onanga-Anyanga announced that he would dismiss a contingent of 120 troops from Congo Republic, also known as Congo-Brazzaville, whose members were allegedly responsible for some of the most recent abuses. The troops will be confined to their barracks until they depart the country. Since the U.N. mission in the Central African Republic was launched in 2014, it has been plagued by dozens of reports of sexual violence. There have been allegations of more than 40 cases of sexual abuse perpetrated by U.N. employees in the country in the past 13 months alone, according to U.N. data. In an interview, Onanga-Anyanga said more cases were likely to be uncovered as U.N. investigators continue their work. “I’m afraid we might just be seeing the tip of the iceberg,” he said. The women and girls interviewed by Human Rights Watch said the peacekeepers responsible were from Congo Republic and Congo, the separate country formerly known as Zaire. Several victims said that the level of desperation in the displacement camps had led them to exchange sex for food or money. Others said they were raped at gunpoint. The alleged abuses occurred in the town of Bambari, in the center of the country, from this past October to December. “In a country where armed groups routinely prey on civilians, peacekeepers should be protectors, not predators,” said Hillary Margolis, a women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The men were dressed in their military uniforms and had their guns,” one 14-year-old victim told Human Rights Watch. “I walked by and suddenly one of them grabbed me by my arms and the other one ripped off my clothes. They pulled me into the tall grass, and one held my arms while the other one pinned down my legs and raped me.” At least some of the troops accused of the recent abuses had received U.N.-mandated training on sexual-abuse-related issues before their deployment — part of the organization’s attempt to curb the problem. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon recently called such abuses “a cancer in our system.” In January, The Washington Post reported that four peacekeepers had allegedly paid girls as young as 13 as little as 50 cents in exchange for sex in a different camp for the internally displaced in Central African Republic. Last week, the United Nations announced that European troops had raped two girls and paid two others for sex — all four of them ages 14 to 16. The series of abuses allegedly carried out by international troops began in 2013 and early 2014, when as many as 14 troops from France, Chad and Equatorial Guinea allegedly raped and sodomized six boys ages 9 to 15. Now, U.N. officials face the challenge of mediating a vicious civil war while also policing their own ranks. The mission includes about 11,000 peacekeepers and costs about $600 million per year. “We are conducting patrols on our own people, which has never been done before,” said a senior U.N. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal security measures. One of the problems, the official said, is that the U.N. mission had been accepting troops from the African Union who either were not aware of or were not concerned about U.N. values. “You can’t just take African Union troops, put a blue helmet on them and assume their mind-set will change overnight,” he said, referring to the color of U.N. peacekeepers’ helmets. Last year, a U.N. report by a panel that included former Canadian Supreme Court justice Marie Deschamps said that U.N. staff in Bangui, the Central African Republic’s capital, had “turned a blind eye to the criminal actions of individual troops.” The previous U.N. special representative there, retired Gen. Babacar Gaye of Senegal, was fired in August over his team’s handling of the abuse allegations. **Read more** The hospital at the center of a Muslim-Christian war in Africa Christian-Muslim marriages are the latest casualty of strife in Central African Republic The Central African Republic’s complex war, explained in the journey of a Muslim baby

The long, grim history of U.N. peacekeepers caught in the crossfire

43 Fijian peacekeepers serving in the Golan Heights along the Syrian-Israeli border were detained by Syrian rebels Thursday morning, according to the United Nations. Earlier, rebels had gained control of the border crossing between Syria and Israel while government warplanes targeted positions of the militants, who are suspected to be members of al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al- Nusra. An additional 81 peacekeepers were trapped by the fighting, the United Nations said in a statement, but it gave no details about their nationalities. The Associated Press reported that the 81 were from the Philippines, citing Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for the U.N. secretary general.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico As of October, the last time the mission's Web site was updated, the countries contributing troops to the mission were Fiji, the Philippines, India, Nepal, Ireland and the Netherlands. They were in charge of patrolling the demilitarized zone in the Golan Heights that was set up after the 1973 Arab- Israeli war.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Peacekeeping missions always come with risks. Last year, four Philippine U.N. peacekeepers in the Golan Heights were detained by a Syrian rebel group called the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade but were eventually released. Other confrontations, however, have had deadly outcomes. Here are the countries whose soldiers have suffered the most casualties while wearing the blue U.N. peacekeeping helmets:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico .      Below is a timeline of some of the darkest years in the history of U.N. peacekeeping:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **1961 —** In reaction to the Congo crisis, the United Nations adopted a resolution in 1960 allowing a large-scale peacekeeping mission. The following year, 105 international peacekeepers were killed worldwide in what the United Nations called "malicious acts," many of them in the Congo. The term broadly refers to fatalities caused by attacks.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **1974** **—** 28 peacekeepers were killed in such attacks that year, among them nine Canadians whose plane, headed toward the Syrian capital, was shot down.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **1993 **—**** Overall, 127 were killed in attacks. Among those who died, at least 16 peacekeepers were allegedly killed by Khmer Rouge guerrillas in Cambodia in multiple attacks, 23 died in an attack in Somalia on June 5, and seven lost their lives in the same country a little later that year.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **1994** **—** In the year of the Rwandan genocide, 71 peacekeepers lost their lives in "malicious acts" worldwide. Several peacekeepers were killed in Rwanda, although the operation was later criticized as a failure because the United Nations could not prevent the genocide. That year, five U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal died in Somalia.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **2003** **—** 30 peacekeepers were attacked and killed worldwide.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **2005** **—** Overall, 25 international peacekeepers were killed, including seven who died in Congo in February.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **2012** **—** In an escalation of the crisis in the Ivory Coast, seven peacekeepers were killed June 8. Overall, 22 peacekeepers died in similar incidents worldwide.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **2013** **—** Five peacekeepers were killed in April in South Sudan, and in July, seven troops lost their lives in an attack in Darfur, Sudan. Overall, 33 peacekeepers died in attacks worldwide.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico There are currently 16 U.N. peacekeeping operations and one special political mission spread over four continents.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The peacekeepers are supposed to "maintain peace and security, facilitate the political process, protect civilians, assist in the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of former combatants," according to the operation's Web site. Furthermore, peacekeepers are charged with supporting and organizing elections as well as promoting human rights and assisting in restoring the rule of law.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

South Sudan is fighting again. Can its peacekeeping mission work?

South Sudan is fighting once again. Created after a decades-long civil war, this new nation has barely enjoyed a break from violence since it was born in 2011.  Conflict between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and those loyal to former vice president Riek Machar broke out in late 2013. The violence briefly subsided in 2015, after an internationally brokered peace deal was signed.  Can it work? Here are some key questions being explored — and debated — in peacekeeping practice and research.           Why didn’t UNMISS protect civilians who were literally at its doorstep?  More to the point, no government wants its soldiers to risk their lives for the United Nations. And if militaries won’t put their members in harm’s way, having peacekeepers present means little.    Who staffs a peacekeeping mission certainly does matter. But putting together those missions is tricky, as commitment to the goal must be balanced against the need for neutrality.         But UNMISS’s revised mandate and its innovative — or controversial — Regional Protection Force are new attempts to solve old and extremely complex peacekeeping problems. Can peacekeeping succeed when opponents aren’t willing or ready to come to an agreement? Are regional forces more likely to help or hurt in ending a neighboring country’s conflict? And can the U.N. force governments to make a commitment to peace?

The world’s most awkward peacekeeping job

NAIROBI — For years, South Sudan has posed one of the world’s most confounding diplomatic problems. The newly independent nation is at war with itself, and has been largely unresponsive to foreign efforts to broker a lasting peace deal. Add one more international imbroglio to the mix. After fighting broke out in South Sudan's capital in July, about 600 South Sudanese opposition fighters fled the country, eventually landing in the arms of the world's largest U.N. peacekeeping mission. The United Nations has been giving food and shelter to the men — many of them high-level combatants — at special camps in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC. Initially, the United Nations’ mission in the DRC decided the fighters would either starve or be killed if they weren’t helped. Some had arrived in the country wounded or seriously malnourished. Officials expected that they wouldn't stay for long after recovering, perhaps returning to their country after a peace deal was salvaged. Now, the United Nations faces a dilemma: what to do with the hundreds of fighters still in their care, who have refused to renounce war.  Since late 2013, with little interruption, South Sudan has been riven by fighting between two main groups, one led by former vice president Riek Machar and the other by President Salva Kiir. The fighting — which has taken on tribal overtones — has left more than 2.8 million South Sudanese people displaced and tens of thousands dead. Both sides have been accused of heinous war crimes.  Helping the fighters was a humanitarian responsibility, U.N. officials said at the time, but it came with a major question: What were the physical and reputational risks for the United Nations of housing a notorious fighting force? For years, the DRC has been haunted by foreign fighting groups, like the Democratic Forces of the Liberation of Rwanda, which the United Nations has accused of “serious violations of international law.” They are among a complex array of Congolese, Ugandan, Rwandan and Burundian rebel groups that still operate in the country, which is home to nearly 20,000 U.N. peacekeepers sent to quell the violence among various factions. One of the biggest problems posed by the South Sudanese rebels is that they plan on eventually returning to battle. They gave up their weapons to the United Nations., but they have refused to “demobilize” — the process by which they would declare themselves noncombatants. “They appear determined to return to South Sudan to resume fighting, if the opportunity arises,” said Charles A. Bambara, a spokesman for the U.N. mission in the DRC. The United Nations is awaiting solutions from the countries involved. Bambara said that the government of the DRC must ensure that the opposition fighters in its territory “do not return to South Sudan to participate in the armed conflict in that country.”  If the United Nations simply sent the fighters back to South Sudan, they could easily be imprisoned or tortured. Several weeks ago, Kenya deported James Gatdet Dak, an opposition spokesman, back to South Sudan. The United Nations subsequently released a statement saying it was “deeply concerned” about his well being. Dak has not been heard from since he was taken into government custody in Juba, the capital. Bambara said the opposition fighters, if they were expelled from the DRC to South Sudan, “would be exposed to a real risk of summary execution, disappearance, torture or other serious violations of their human rights.” At this point in the conflict, South Sudanese government forces appear to be considerably stronger than the opposition.  Machar was among the opposition fighters who traveled to the DRC, but he has since left to receive medical treatment in South Africa. The United Nations has been working with the African Union “to identify a third country that could temporarily accommodate these elements,” according to a letter from Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to the U.N. Security Council in October. But so far, no option has emerged. That letter ended with a particularly dire analysis. The U.N. mission in the DRC, Ban wrote, “is faced with a situation in which it is no longer in a position to accommodate or care for the [South Sudanese opposition] personnel, though no clear arrangements have yet been put in place, or are under consideration, which would ensure that they are handled in a manner that is consistent with international law.”

U.N. approves big increase in peacekeeping force in South Sudan

NAIROBI — The U.N. Security Council voted Friday to strengthen its peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, where an outbreak of violence has sparked concerns about a resumption of civil war. An additional 4,000 peacekeepers will be dispatched, making the total deployment 17,000 troops, and U.N. forces will be asked to take more “proactive” measures to protect civilians. The vote came as the United Nations is facing criticism over its failure to protect South Sudanese civilians and to use appropriate force when its installations come under fire, as they did in the capital city, Juba, last month. The U.N. mission was established in South Sudan in 2011 after it voted to secede from Sudan. At the time, the mission’s primary goals were “state building and economic development,” according to its original charter. But in late 2013, when the country descended into civil war, prompted by a split between President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar, the U.N. mission’s responsibilities changed dramatically. Almost overnight, tens of thousands of civilians rushed to U.N. compounds, and peacekeepers found themselves trying to keep them safe in makeshift displacement camps across the country. U.N. officials initially considered the turmoil a temporary problem. It was not. Two and a half years later, 180,000 people live in U.N. shelters. A peace deal signed last year was supposed to stop the fighting, but it fell apart last month when fighting flared in the capital between Kiir’s and Machar’s forces, leaving hundreds dead. During that violence, two U.N. compounds in Juba came under fire. Two Chinese peacekeepers and 11 civilians were killed, and 139 people were wounded in and around the U.N. base. Dozens of women reportedly were raped by members of South Sudan’s security forces. It was proof, some observers said, that the United Nations needed a more robust force and mandate that would give it the power to intervene with lethal force to restore peace in the country. That is what the Security Council approved Friday. The 4,000 additional troops come from a regional African protection force belonging to the eight-country Intergovernmental Authority on Development. Peacekeepers are not traditionally used in offensive operations, and it remains unclear what their new mandate means in practice and how it will differ from the current mission. The South Sudanese government has expressed opposition to the expansion to the U.N. expanded mission. During and after the most recent clashes, government forces have restricted the movement of humanitarian workers, even looting a World Food Program warehouse holding rations that would have fed 220,000 people for a month. It is rare for government forces themselves to be among the hostile actors that peacekeepers are sent to pacify. The council did not vote on whether to impose an arms embargo on South Sudan, as the head of U.N. peacekeeping forces, Hervé Ladsous, has urged. Last week, the United Nations released a report on an investigation into an attack by South Sudanese soldiers and their allies in February on a U.N. camp for displaced civilians in Malakal in South Sudan. Dozens of civilians in the camp were killed. Peacekeepers there failed because of a “combination of inaction, abandonment of post and refusal to engage,” the inquiry found.

The growing U.N. scandal over sex abuse and ‘peacekeeper babies’

BANGUI, Central African Republic — The neighborhood is a patchwork of low- slung buildings scorched and looted at the height of the civil war, a place where the United Nations was supposed to come to the rescue. But in a number of homes, women and girls are raising babies they say are the children of U.N. troops who abused or exploited them. “Peacekeeper babies,” the United Nations calls such infants. “A horrible thing,” says an elfin 14-year-old girl, who describes how a Burundian soldier dragged her into his barracks and raped her, leaving her pregnant with the baby boy she now cradles uncomfortably. The allegations come amid one of the biggest scandals to plague the United Nations in years. Since the U.N. peacekeeping mission here began in 2014, its employees have been formally accused of sexually abusing or exploiting 42 local civilians, most of them underage girls. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called sexual abuse by peacekeepers “a cancer in our system.” In August, the top U.N. official here was fired for failing to take enough action on abuse cases. Nearly 1,000 troops whose units have been tied to abuses have been expelled, or will be soon. Among them is the entire contingent from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But the victims appear to be more numerous than the United Nations has reported so far. In a corner of the capital city known as Castors, near the U.N. headquarters in the country, The Washington Post interviewed seven women and girls who described contact with peacekeepers that violated U.N. regulations against sexual exploitation and abuse. Five of them said they exchanged sex for food or money — sometimes as little as $4 — while their country was rocked by civil war and families were going hungry. Only two had reported their cases to the United Nations. Five of the seven interviewed by The Post said they had borne the children of their abusers. The 14-year-old mother said she was assaulted by a Burundian soldier, but the United Nations recorded her case not as rape but as “transactional” sex, in which acts are exchanged for money or food. “Sometimes when I’m alone with my baby, I think about killing him,” the teen said, holding the little boy. “He reminds me of the man who raped me.” The accounts by the women and girls could not be independently verified. But their stories are consistent with other accounts of abuse in the Central African Republic collected by independent groups and the United Nations. The Post does not identify minors who are alleged victims of sexual abuse or exploitation. The U.N. system responsible for handling and prosecuting such cases has been widely criticized as dysfunctional, even after scandals involving peacekeepers in other parts of the world. Only one criminal charge has been filed in relation to any of the 42 cases of sexual abuse or exploitation that have been officially registered in the Central African Republic, according to U.N. officials. U.N. officials did file a report on the 14-year-old mother’s **** case, and a U.N. spokeswoman, Ismini Palla, said the organization was “monitoring the case of the girl closely.” But nine months after the girl reported the alleged rape, investigators have not reported any results. U.N. officials had no comment on why they had classified the case as exploitation rather than assault. The sexual abuse scandal is the latest horrific development in a war already marked by extreme brutality. The conflict began in late 2013 when mostly Muslim rebels overthrew the government in this Christian-majority country, setting off a cycle of revenge killings that in Bangui fell largely along religious lines. About 6,000 people have been killed. The U.N. mission, a 12,000-member organization that includes troops from 46 countries and is known as MINUSCA, was established to provide security and protect civilians. In recent months, numerous allegations have emerged of peacekeeper abuse of vulnerable residents. Human Rights Watch issued a report this month documenting the cases of eight women and girls allegedly raped or sexually exploited by U.N. peacekeepers in late 2015 in the central city of Bambari. Amnesty International said last August that it had obtained evidence of a U.N. peacekeeper’s rape of a 12-year-old girl in the capital. U.N. officials recognize that they are grappling with a serious breakdown in their peacekeeping forces. This month, they said they were investigating the cases of four girls who were allegedly exploited or abused at a camp for internally displaced persons in central Ouaka prefecture. In January, they said that at least four peacekeepers had allegedly paid girls as little as 50 cents for sex at a camp in Bangui. Parfait Onanga-Anyanga, the newly appointed head of the U.N. mission, said he fears that the cases discovered so far may be the “tip of the iceberg.” “We’re going to be flooded by paternity claims,” he said in an interview. It is not the first deployment in which U.N. forces have been accused of sexual abuse. In Bosnia in the 1990s, peacekeepers were accused of soliciting sex from women who had been trafficked and virtually enslaved in local brothels. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the early 2000s, more than 150 allegations of abuse and exploitation were registered against peacekeepers, and U.N. investigators found that many of the alleged victims were orphans. U.N. missions in Kosovo, Haiti, Liberia and other places also have been tarnished by such allegations. The United Nations has conducted internal investigations and revamped training programs. But the complaints continue to roll in. Perhaps no mission in recent U.N. history has been as quickly tainted by abuse allegations as the one in the Central African Republic, which is expected to cost $814 million this year. The first cluster of sexual abuse cases appeared within months of the mission’s September 2014 launch. Even before the U.N. mission officially began, French troops were accused of sexually abusing a number of local children. In a report issued last year, a United Nations-appointed review panel sharply criticized U.N. officials in the Central African Republic as failing to take action or report the cases after uncovering them. “The welfare of the victims and the accountability of the perpetrators appeared to be an afterthought, if considered at all,” the report said. U.N. bases in the Central African Republic are now plastered with posters that list the rules that troops are already supposed to know. “Sex with anyone under the age of 18 is prohibited.” “Exchanging money, goods or employment for sex is prohibited.” “Zero tolerance for sexual exploitation.” But the Castors neighborhood is a shocking illustration of how brazen the peacekeepers became. Residents say that troops skulked around the neighborhood looking for girls during the day and sneaked out at night to meet them in rented rooms or abandoned houses, or to take them into the barracks. Moroccan troops broke holes in the perimeter wall of their bases, witnesses said, so that they could leave undetected. “There are so many girls here who slept with [peacekeepers],” said Thierry Karpandgei, a resident. “You can see their babies all over here.” Most of the alleged cases of abuse and exploitation occurred at the peak of the conflict, in 2014 and 2015, when the fighting pushed residents to the edge of survival. “There was no way to get food or money at the time, and they promised to help us if we slept with them,” said Rosine Mengue, who explained that she received the equivalent of $4 in each of two encounters with a peacekeeper. She was 16 at the time. She spent the money on cassava leaves, which fed her family for two days. Mengue, who is now 18, told The Washington Post it could use her full name. Like the rest of the women, Mengue never heard from the man after she became pregnant, she said. He went back to Morocco. She dropped out of school and is raising her son in her family’s home, surrounded by charred palm trees and the ruins of half-destroyed buildings. “We don’t have enough food for everyone,” her mother said. U.N. officials have said that peacekeeping contingents from about 10 countries have been implicated in the sex-abuse scandal. Most of the women interviewed by The Post said they did not report their cases to the United Nations because they felt ashamed and did not think the organization would be able to help them. One of the women did approach the United Nations seeking financial assistance for her baby after his father returned to the Congo Republic. But U.N. officials say she did not specify that she had received money from the peacekeeper — as she later told The Post — so the case was not recorded as involving exploitation. Such an act would have violated U.N. rules for peacekeepers on sexual relationships. Castors is along the road from the sprawling U.N. headquarters, where Onanga- Anyanga, 55, a veteran U.N. official from Gabon, is scrambling to solve the problem. In an interview this month, he sat in front of a sheet of paper that said in bold print: “Talking points — Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.” When he looked up, he spoke angrily. “We inherited troops that we cannot call troops. I realized that what was sent here was trash,” he said. There are a range of explanations for the rampant abuse, including the poor training and discipline of many battalions, which are dispatched here for years-long rotations, said U.N. officials and analysts. Some troops were sent in 2013 as part of an African Union operation and then were “re-hatted” as U.N. peacekeepers with little or no additional instruction. “We can’t just put a blue helmet on them and assume their mind-set will change overnight,” Onanga-Anyanga said. U.N. officials here have tried to encourage the reporting of sexual abuse by setting up a hotline for victims and buying radio ads in which they are encouraged to come forward. Victims of abuse whose cases are documented are eligible for medical and psychological help and possibly other assistance. But many women are still unaware of how to register complaints. Even as the United Nations has tried to improve training on sexual abuse, there have been mistakes. Many of the new lessons, for example, are taught only in English and French, and some troops lack fluency in either language, said one U.N. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the issue. Perhaps most problematic is that the United Nations leaves the adjudication of sexual abuse allegations to the troops’ countries of origin. But those nations’ investigations are often weak, U.N. officials said. That has contributed to a sense of impunity, according to U.N. officials and outside experts. For peacekeepers in the Central African Republic, “the message is clear: You can rape or abuse women and girls, and you can get away with it,” said Lewis Mudge, an Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Until troop-contributing countries bring peacekeepers accused of these crimes to justice, we can expect more of these cases in the future.” The 14-year-old mother still watches the troops drive near her faded-yellow home, where broken beer bottles are glued on top of the outside wall to keep trespassers out. She and other residents said they first saw the peacekeepers as a sign of security, proof that the world hadn’t forgotten about them. But when the soldiers began arriving in 2014, there was still a massive food shortage. Some peacekeepers recognized their leverage over a city of starving women and girls. Two teenage girls recalled approaching a base of Moroccan peacekeepers to beg for food. Neither had ever had sex, they said in a recent interview, but they agreed to sleep with the soldiers after the men suggested they would give the girls water, food and money. The older girl, then 16, said she met one man in a vacant house. The younger girl, then 15, said she met another soldier next to a base. Both girls said they regretted what they had done almost immediately. “You just feel used,” said the younger girl. The 14-year-old said that when she went to a U.N. base last year to ask for food, a Burundian soldier gently beckoned to her from his barracks, calling, “Come here.” Then, she said, he pulled her into a room full of empty beds. He ripped off her clothes. The teenager and her aunt said that three months later, they told two U.N. employees what had happened. The pregnant girl was then taken to a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders, the medical group said. But aid workers who followed the girl’s case over the next few weeks said they were dismayed at how little help she received from the United Nations. “There was absolutely no immediate or concrete measure of assistance available to this girl,” said Ondine Ripka, an international legal adviser with Doctors Without Borders. A UNICEF spokesman, John Budd, said the organization does not comment on aid provided to individuals. The 14-year-old mother said she had not received any psychological counseling or financial assistance. In a 2005 internal report recognizing the problem of “peacekeeper babies,” U.N. officials wrote that “there is a need to try to ensure that fathers, who can be identified, perhaps through blood or DNA testing, bear some financial responsibility for their actions.” But it is often difficult to identify offenders who have returned to their home countries, U.N. officials say. Even if victims know the names of their abusers, armies in many nations have proved uncooperative in pursuing DNA tests, U.N. officials say. The teenage mother’s case was referred to the Burundian military, which appointed an investigator, according to U.N. officials, but no results have so far been reported. That country has been consumed in civil strife in recent months, and experts said it was unlikely the military would follow through on an investigation. That leaves girls like the 14-year-old to raise their babies on almost nothing, as the war rages on. Earlier this month, she sat outside her home, five rooms where more than 20 relatives sleep. Nearby, a man sold liquor from a plastic table. A white U.N. surveillance blimp flew overhead. Two hundred yards away, a group of Burundian troops was on patrol. The teenager handed her baby to her mother, who looked at the ground. She fears that her daughter has been ruined by the abuse. “If someone destroys what you love, what do you do?” the mother said. The hospital at the center of a Muslim-Christian war in Africa The Central African Republic’s complex war, explained in the journey of a baby girl Tens of thousands of Muslims flee Christian militias in Central African Republic

Trump calls U.N. ‘just a club for people’ to ‘have a good time’

Three days after the United Nations adopted a resolution calling on Israel to halt Jewish settlement activity on Palestinian territory, President-elect Donald Trump tweeted that the international body “is just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time.” The harsh criticism, which Trump made Monday while vacationing at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, signaled he would likely challenge more than just the 71-year-old institution’s approach to the Middle East once he takes office. While Trump did not elaborate on why he considered the United Nations ineffectual, he made it clear both before and after the Security Council adopted the resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem that he believed the United States should have blocked the move. President Obama instructed U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power to abstain from voting, on the grounds that the Israeli government’s continued support for expanding Jewish settlements could undermine any prospect of eventually reaching a two-state solution to the simmering conflict. After the Security Council voted, Trump tweeted, “As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20th,” which is the day he will assume the presidency. Trump moved relatively quickly to select a U.N. ambassador nominee after being elected. But his choice, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R), has little international affairs experience beyond leading trade missions to about half a dozen countries while serving as governor. The United Nations has come under fire for years from critics on both the right and the left. Conservatives have attacked it for infringing on individual nations’ sovereignty as well as wasting resources, while many developing nations argue that most major decisions remain dominated by a handful of countries that were influential when the United Nations was established decades ago. In recent years, some of its peacekeeping troops have been repeatedly accused of raping civilians they were sent to protect, and this August the office of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon formally acknowledged that Nepali peacekeepers sent by the United Nations to Haiti six years ago inadvertently introduced an outbreak of cholera there, even as U.N. officials maintained they have legal immunity in connection to the epidemic. The disease killed thousands of Haitians in the wake of a devastating earthquake. But the United Nations continues to play a key role in helping deliver humanitarian assistance across the globe, brokering cease-fires during conflicts and serving as a forum for sprawling issues such as how best to address climate change. Obama has worked doggedly during his time in office to support multilateral institutions such as the United Nations. He has used his speech each year before the U.N. General Assembly as a way to lay out his vision for foreign affairs and has convened summits there to tackle questions that include the global refugee crisis and the fight against terrorism. Earlier this month, the president stopped by to personally thank Ban for his work when the secretary general, who is stepping down at the end of the month, was meeting with national security adviser Susan Rice at the White House. Americans see the U.N. more negatively than positively when it comes to effectively solving problems, though most see the organization in a positive light and its popularity has risen over the past decade. Democrats are far more favorably inclined toward the U.N. than Republicans, among whom ratings plummeted during the Iraq war and have not recovered.  Both Gallup and Pew show improved ratings for the U.N. since the late 2000s. The percentage saying the organization does a “good job” has risen from 26 percent in 2009 to 38 percent in 2016 in Gallup polls; Pew finds the share rating the group favorably rose from 48 percent in 2007 to 64 percent in 2016. The improved ratings in recent years have been concentrated among Democrats and independents. During a new conference last month, Obama emphasized that the United States must continue to play the leading role in maintaining “the basic framework of the world order” that was established after World War II. “And I’ve said before, that’s a burden that we should carry proudly,” Obama said. “And I would hope that not just the 45th president of the United States, but every president of the United States understands that that's not only a burden, but it’s also an extraordinary privilege. And if you have a chance to do that right, then you should seize it.”

Accusations against French troops shine a light on a wider problem for the U.N.

When the Central African Republic stumbled into chaos in 2013, French soldiers were sent to protect the country's most vulnerable people. Now, some of those soldiers stand accused of sexually exploiting children instead of defending them -- and it is only the latest accusation of sexual crimes committed by peacekeeping troops backed by the U.N. Whereas the U.N. says that its own mission was set up after the alleged crimes occurred, reporting by the British Guardian suggests that the organization might nevertheless have neglected its responsibility in revealing the abuses. Although the U.N. did not operate the French mission it appears to have had knowledge of the incidents. The French peacekeeping mission was backed by the United Nations.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico If the accusations in CAR are true, it would be a dark chapter in the history of U.N.-backed peacekeeping. However, some experts say that they would not be surprised if the U.N. had indeed failed to reveal the allegations. They describe the U.N.'s dealing with sexual assault and abuse allegations as systematically flawed. In fact, the most recent case involving French soldiers would hardly have been revealed, had a senior U.N. aid worker not illegally passed a confidential inquiry on to French prosecutors. Those documents were obtained by Britain's Guardian newspaper, which revealed them earlier this week. The inquiry was conducted internally by U.N. staff and concluded that there was evidence of sexual abuse by French soldiers in the Central African Republic in spring 2014.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Although the inquiry was sent to the Geneva-based Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights last summer, no formal investigation was launched at first, and the case only became public when it was leaked. The whistleblower has since been suspended by the United Nations. French prosecutors continue to investigate more than a dozen French soldiers. “If some soldiers have behaved badly, I will show no mercy,” French President François Hollande was quoted by the Guardian.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Sexual exploitation appears to be a systematic problem**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Was it the U.N.'s formal inability or its unwillingness which prevented the investigation from going forward? "The U.N. itself is unable to prosecute soldiers accused of sexual abuse," Ruth Wedgwood, an international law expert at the Johns Hopkins School of International Affairs explained to The Washington Post. "The prosecution of offenders is the responsibility of the countries they work for. The real problem, however, is that the U.N. rarely checks whether allegations were ever examined or led to court sentences," she said. Even if there is a trial, there is rarely enough evidence to convict the accused soldiers. In certain countries, it would be highly unlikely that prosecutors would press charges, at all. The allegations against the French soldiers come only days after more general criticism was voiced over the U.N.'s handling of sexual abuse and exploitation allegations. An internal U.N. report, which was presented in November 2013 and leaked this March, paints a bleak picture of the organization.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico "Sexual Exploitation and Abuse has been judged the most significant risk to U.N. peacekeeping missions," the report concluded and specified that the incidents could "undermine the tremendous amount," of past achievements. The report, which is distinct from the recent inquiry which has led to the investigation against the French soldiers, is based on an internal U.N. investigation which took place in 2013 and is limited to data from 2012. Whereas the current case only concerns French soldiers operating under the authority of the French government the 2013 report is based on U.N. peacekeeping missions. The internal expert mission singled out four operations where sexual abuse was believed to be a problem: Haiti, Liberia, Congo and South Sudan. Together, they accounted for 85 percent of all reported cases in 2012. Although the document notes that there has been a recent decrease in reported cases of sexual abuse and exploitation in these four missions, 60 allegations were made in 2012. Nearly half of them (45 percent) involved serious sexual abuse and exploitation. 30 percent of all allegations involved minors, and 15 percent were based on allegations of non-consensual sex with minors. Based on those numbers, the report's authors accused the U.N. of a "significant amount of underreporting." **"A culture of silence"**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The internal report paints a dark picture of U.N. peacekeeping missions and the organization's failure and alleged unwillingness to address the problem. Its authors state that there was a "culture of silence" in dealing with allegations, as well as "poor investigation competencies and capacities in the field," which meant that many cases could not be sufficiently documented. "Those who break the rules are not punished and … impunity is norm (rather) than exception." The United Nations does not have its own troops and purely relies on its member states in enforcing its decisions. This dependence could be part of the problem: In order not to offend and embarrass the nations who send troops for its missions, U.N. officials might have ignored allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation. "Cases have been kept in the shadows partially because few countries would continue to deploy their soldiers to U.N. peacekeeping missions if accusations and internal investigations were automatically made public or if the soldiers' immunity were questioned," Wedgwood explained. Given those restrictions, the authors of the internal report emphasize the need for better training because "sexual objectification of sexual coercion of women may be seen as normal and acceptable," by some soldiers. **Those who need to be protected are often the most vulnerable**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Talking to the Associated Press, the mother of a 9-year-old who was among those allegedly exploited in the Central African Republic, explained: “The children were vulnerable because they were hungry and their parents had nothing to give them, so the children were forced to ask the soldiers for food."    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Similar accusations have been made against other troops in the past. "The blue helmet has become black and blue through self-inflicted wounds... We will not sit still until the luster of that blue helmet is restored," Jane Holl Lute, a senior U.N. peacekeeping official, told a congressional committee in 2005.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico However, such promises were short-lived. Sexual abuse and exploitation allegations continue to haunt the United Nations. A 2010 U.S. diplomatic cable, released by WikiLeaks one year after it was written, indicated that Beninese U.N. troops in the Ivory Coast had offered food to minors before coercing them to perform sexual acts.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Since then, similar allegations have been made in other countries. In 2012, two U.N. peacekeepers were sentenced to one year in prison each by a Pakistani military court. The soldiers had been found guilty of raping a 14-year-old boy during the U.N. mission following a devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Although the prison terms might seem short given the gravity of the charges, the mere fact that the two offenders were sentenced appears to have been an exception. _This post has been updated to reflect the latest U.N. statements and to clarify that the U.N. backed but did not operate the French mission._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Syrian rebels release U.N. peacekeepers

UNITED NATIONS — Twenty-one U.N. peacekeepers being held by Syrian rebels for three days were set free Saturday before safely crossing the border into Jordan, according to senior U.N. officials and rebel commanders The development marked the end of one of the most dramatic U.N. hostage crises in years, and it followed days of intense U.N. negotiations to secure the release of the Filipino blue helmets against a backdrop of intensive fighting between Syrian forces and rebel fighters. “The armed group that had detained the 21 peacekeepers transported them to the Jordanian border, where they were met by Jordanian officials,” said Josephine Guerrero, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping. “All 21 peacekeepers are well and unharmed.” After the peacekeepers arrived safely in Jordan, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s office issued a statement welcoming the peacekeepers’ release and urging the combatants to respect the U.N. peacekeepers’ freedom of movement and the safety of the U.N. personnel in Syria, where they are monitoring a decades-old truce along the Golan Heights between Israel and Syria. “The secretary general welcomes the release of the 21 U.N. Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) peacekeepers who had been detained on March 6,” the statement by Ban’s press office said. He “emphasizes to all parties the impartiality of the United Nations.” Ban also urged the warring parties to “respect and uphold the protection of civilians,” reflecting persistent concerns that Syrian authorities may retaliate against villagers in the town of Jamlah, where rebel forces were holding the peacekeepers in a series of home basements. On Friday, the United Nations’ top peacekeeping official, Herve Ladsous, had expressed concern about the fate of the village, citing evidence that Syrian forces had been shelling the town. Syria’s U.N. envoy, Bashar al-Jaafari, denied his government was shelling the town. Negotiations for the release of the peacekeepers took place between rebels from the Free Syrian Army and the United Nations and did not involve the Syrian government or military, according to rebel fighters. Clashes erupted between the Syrian military and rebels as the freed peacekeepers were on their way to the Jordanian border, rebel fighters said. “There was heavy fighting between the Free Syrian Army and regime forces to secure safe passage for the observers,” said Fahed Masri, a spokesman for the FSA. The capture of the peacekeepers was a clear sign that the volatile Syrian conflict can easily drag in noncombatants or even spill across borders. Mortars have landed on Israeli territory from the area in recent months, and Israeli soldiers have fired warning shots across the border. There had been heavy fighting between the Syrian military and rebel forces in and around Jamlah for days before the capture of the U.N. group, and some rebel fighters accused the peacekeepers of passing on information about their movements to Syrian military commanders. “We have proof that these observers were carrying regime soldiers in their U.N. cars, and they allowed them to take photos of FSA positions in the area,” Masri said. “The observers were not kidnapped by the Free Syrian Army. They were hosted by the Free Syrian Army to send a message to the U.N. that it should do its job as a disengagement force and not be part of the conflict.” A U.N. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that U.N. peacekeepers had provided life-saving medical care to injured Syrian troops in the area but that they have done the same for wounded rebels. U.N. officials said the peacekeepers were on a regular supply mission when they were captured. The peacekeepers “were doing their daily run before they were stopped and abducted, which is unacceptable,” the Syrian Arab News Agency quoted Mokhtar Lamani, the head of U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi’s office in Syria, as saying. In a video posted online Wednesday, a rebel fighter from the Martyrs of Yarmouk Brigade, the group responsible for the captivity of the U.N. soldiers, said the peacekeepers would be treated as “war prisoners” and would not be released until the Syrian military withdraws from the area. However, rebel fighters in subsequent videos posted online disavowed the initial statement and said the group had been detained for their own safety and were being treated as guests.

The U.N.’s monitors of death

SO FAR, a U.N. monitoring mission in Syria has had one tangible effect: It has gotten people killed. On Sunday and Monday, monitors toured neighborhoods in the city of Homs and in the Damascus suburbs of Doura and Zabadani. When they left, the areas they visited were shelled, and security forces carried out sweeps in which civilians suspected of speaking to the monitors were taken from their homes and shot or had their houses burned down. “We have credible reports that . . . these people who approach the observers may be approached by security forces or Syrian army and harassed or arrested or even worse, perhaps killed,” Ahmad Fawzi, a spokesman for U.N. envoy Kofi Annan, confirmed to U.N. television. How did Mr. Annan and the U.N. Security Council react to these horrific reports? By urging the deployment of _more_ monitors. “There is a chance to expand and consolidate the cessation of violence,” Mr. Annan told a closed session of the Security Council, according to reporting by The Post’s Colum Lynch. “Observers not only see what is going on, but their presence has the potential to change the political dynamics.” Those words well captured the delusion of Mr. Annan and those who support his diplomacy. There has been no “cessation of violence”; numerous Syrians have been killed every day since the supposed U.N. cease-fire went into effect April 1. Thirty people were reported killed on Tuesday alone. The observers are not “changing dynamics” but providing cover and even targets for the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Yet even when faced with stark facts like the reprisal killings in Homs, the ambassadors sound unfazed: “Targeting by Syrian regime of those speaking w/UN monitors outrageous but not unexpected,” tweeted the Obama administration’s U.N. ambassador, Susan Rice. This raises two questions: If such atrocities were predictable, why did the United States vote to send the U.N. monitors to Syria? And why does it support their continued deployment? The evident answer is that the Obama administration, like its “partners” on the Security Council, wishes to be seen as doing something to stop the bloodshed in Syria without having to commit resources or exert leadership. Sadly, this is far from the first such failure. In a blog at Foreign Policy’s Web site, Michael Dobbs has been documenting the eerie resemblances between the United Nations’ handling of Syria and its history in Bosnia — where an attempt to stop attacks on civilians by dispatching lightly armed peacekeepers in the 1990s led to the worst massacre in postwar European history. As Mr. Dobbs reported, a 1999 report signed by Mr. Annan himself concluded that the Bosnia mission was “at best, a half measure” and a poor substitute for “more decisive and forceful action to prevent the unfolding horror.” Said that Annan report: “We tried to keep the peace and apply the rules of peacekeeping when there was no peace to keep.” It’s bad enough that the Obama administration refuses to learn the lessons of previous failures. More galling is its claim that it has made the prevention of atrocities a priority — as Mr. Obama did Monday in announcing the creation of an “atrocities prevention board.” “We see the Syrian people subjected to unspeakable violence, simply for demanding their universal rights,” he said. “And we have to do everything we can.” Is sending unarmed monitors to besieged cities and shrugging when the people they visit are murdered everything the United States can do? Even in an election year, the answer has to be no. **Read more on this topic** Richard Cohen: The luxury we don’t have in Syria The Post’s View: Needed: Plan B for Syria The Post’s View: The U.N.’s unworkable plan for Syria Jackson Diehl: Why the U.S. should intervene in Syria

U.N. wants to use drones for peacekeeping missions

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations, looking to modernize its peacekeeping operations, is planning for the first time to deploy a fleet of its own surveillance drones in missions in Central and West Africa. The U.N. Department of Peacekeeping has notified Congo, Rwanda and Uganda that it intends to deploy a unit of at least three unarmed surveillance drones in the eastern region of Congo. The action is the first step in a broader bid to integrate unmanned aerial surveillance systems, which have become a standard feature of Western military operations, into the United Nations’ far-flung peacekeeping empire. The United States backs the plan as a way to help the U.N. mission protect civilians, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Wednesday. “This is the idea that the U.N. peacekeeping authorities are putting forward to have unarmed UAVs participate in peacekeeping missions. This would only happen with the consent of the country or the countries where the mission would operate, and their use would not impact in any way on sovereignty,” Nuland said. “Again, they would be unarmed, and they would only be carrying photographic equipment.” But the effort is encountering resistance from governments, particularly those in the developing world, that fear the drones will open up a new intelligence-gathering front dominated by Western powers and potentially supplant the legions of African and Asian peacekeepers who act as the United Nations’ eyes and ears on the ground. “Africa must not become a laboratory for intelligence devices from overseas,” said Olivier Nduhungirehe, a Rwandan diplomat at the United Nations. “We don’t know whether these drones are going to be used to gather intelligence from Kigali, Kampala, Bujumbura or the entire region.” Developing countries fear Western control over intelligence gathered by the drones. Some of those concerns are rooted in the 1990s, when the United States and other major powers infiltrated the U.N. weapons inspection agency to surreptitiously collect intelligence on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s military. The growing American use of drones in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere to identify and kill suspected terrorists has only heightened anxieties about their deployment as part of multilateral peacekeeping missions. U.N. officials have sought to allay the suspicions, saying there is no intention to arm the drones or to spy on countries that have not consented to their use. The U.N. drones would have a range of about 150 miles and can hover for up to 12 hours at a time. They would be equipped with infrared technology that can detect troops hidden beneath forest canopy or operating at night, allowing them to track movements of armed militias, assist patrols heading into hostile territory and document atrocities. “These are really just flying cameras,” said one U.N. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic. “Our best method of protection is early warning. We recently had a patrol ambushed in Darfur. If you had a drone ahead of the patrol, it could have seen the ambush party.” “If you know armed groups are moving in attack or battle formation early enough, you can warn civilians,” the official added. The United Nations, which manages a force of more than 100,000 blue-helmeted troops in 15 peacekeeping missions, views drones as a low-cost alternative to expensive helicopters for surveillance operations. Along with the pending deployments in Congo, the organization has ordered a feasibility study of their use in Ivory Coast. U.N. military planners say there is a need for drones in many other missions, including Darfur, Sudan and South Sudan, where the United Nations monitors tensions along the border of the two countries. But they acknowledged that they have little hope that Sudan would permit them. The United Nations has previously turned to the United States and other governments to provide overflight imagery. Rolf Ekeus, a former Swedish chief of the U.N. Special Commission in Iraq, persuaded the United States to lend the United Nations U-2 spy planes to monitor Hussein’s weapons-of-mass-destruction program in the 1990s. More recently, Ireland, France and Belgium supplied unmanned aircraft to U.N.-backed, European-led missions in Chad, Lebanon and the Congo, and Belgium sent four drones to Congo to help provide security for presidential and legislative elections. Two days before the 2006 election, one of the drones crashed, killing one woman and injuring two in Kinshasa, the capital. Interest in drone technology has picked up among U.N. humanitarian and relief agencies. Last February, the U.N. Institute for Training and Research deployed the United Nations’ first drone in Port-au Prince, Haiti, to survey earthquake damage and help coordinate recovery efforts. The use of drones in peacekeeping missions has proved more sensitive. Masood Khan, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United Nations, recently told reporters that member states understand the importance of surveillance in ensuring peacekeepers’ safety. But he said views differ about the appropriateness of deploying drones. Others say the dispute centers on questions about who would have access to the images and intelligence collected by the drones and whether the next step would be arming them. To address such questions, the U.N. special committee on peacekeeping operations, which is made up of more than 140 countries, has asked the secretary general to assess the effect of drones and other modern technology on peace missions. Herve Ladsous, the U.N. undersecretary general for peacekeeping, asked the Security Council in a closed-door meeting Tuesday to support his plan for drones in Congo. Britain, France and other Western members of the council joined the United States in backing the proposal. But China, Russia, Rwanda, Pakistan and Guatemala voiced concern, setting the stage for a contentious debate over the U.N. plan. Rwanda’s U.N. ambassador, Eugene-Richard Gasana, told the council that the world body’s introduction of drones carries the risk of transforming the peacekeeping mission into a belligerent force, according to a council diplomat. But Richard Gowan, an expert on U.N. peacekeeping at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation, said much of the resistance is driven by fear that drones would replace the legions of U.N. peacekeepers. “This really boils down to a concern from the troop contributors that they are going to be sidelined. A drone is a cheaper and more efficient alternative to an infantry patrol,” Gowan said. “I think, very frankly, that a number of the large African and Asian troops contributors are worried that if the United Nations gets involved in high-tech operations like this, that their personnel will be made redundant.”

U.N. secretary general fires head of peacekeeping force

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday that he has fired the head of the peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic after repeated reports of sexual exploitation and abuse by U.N. forces there. “I cannot put into words how anguished, angered and ashamed I am” by such reports, the usually soft-spoken Ban said at a news conference at U.N. headquarters in New York. “I will not tolerate any action that causes people to replace trust with fear,” he said. “Enough is enough.” He called for an emergency Security Council meeting Thursday and a video conference with all peacekeeping force commanders worldwide. “I will reiterate that leaders must report allegations immediately, investigate thoroughly and act decisively. Failure to do so will have clear consequences,” Ban said. The action followed a new report by Amnesty International alleging the rape of a 12-year-old girl and “the apparent indiscriminate killings of a 16-year-old boy and his father” by U.N. force members from Rwanda and Cameroon in separate incidents last week in Bangui, the Central African Republic’s capital. Ban had recently set up an external review panel to examine similar previous reports and to recommend how to avoid future incidents. Abuse allegations against peacekeeping troops, predominantly in but not limited to Africa, are not uncommon. A similar spate of charges emerged 10 years ago in eastern Congo, leading then-Secretary General Kofi Annan to order investigations. U.N. officials have stressed that the responsibility for disciplining troops and holding them accountable rests with their country of origin. There are now 16 U.N. peacekeeping missions deployed around the world, out of a total of 69 since 1948. The Central African Republic erupted in violence in March 2013, after a mostly Muslim rebel coalition ousted President François Bozizé. Muslim and Christian coalitions have subsequently battled for control, driving hundreds of thousands of civilians from their homes. The deployment of French troops to the landlocked former French colony in late 2013 was soon followed by allegations that soldiers had sexually abused children, primarily boys. In April, the French Defense Ministry said the reports were under investigation. Since a multinational peacekeeping force was established there in April 2014, there have been 57 allegations of misconduct, including 11 that involve sexual abuse, according to Ban spokesman Stéphane Dujarric, the Associated Press reported. The force also has troops from Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Burundi and Morocco. After the new report Tuesday by Amnesty International, Ban said he had asked for the resignation of Gen. Babacar Gaye, the Senegalese officer who commanded the Central African Republic force. He paid tribute to Gaye’s “tireless efforts in support of peace, security and reconciliation over the course of a long and distinguished career” that has included numerous U.N. commands. The problem of sexual abuse by peacekeeping troops, Ban said, “goes far beyond one mission or one conflict or one person.” “To the victims, I say we stand with you,” Ban said. “Please come forward. Please feel safe in knowing that we will do all we can to respond to these outrageous crimes. You should not feel shame. Shame belongs to the perpetrators.”

The United Nations needs a leader like Danilo Turk

Compared to the breathless contest for the White House, choosing the next United Nations Secretary-General may seem like small potatoes. This fall, Ban Ki-Moon’s ten-year tenure at the United Nations will end.  Ban focused on climate change, but otherwise has had little impact on meatier issues facing the U.N.  He has seemed stymied by matters of war and peace, much less reform of the U.N. bureaucracy, enhancing operational efficiency or boosting morale within the organization (by protecting whistle-blowers, for example). The scandal of introducing a virulent cholera into Haiti – through the failure to check the health of U.N. “peacekeepers” before their deployment and the failure to dig adequate sanitary latrines – is notorious.  The sexual exploitation of children by U.N. troops in the Central African Republic has been a horror show, with no discipline of the miscreants. With all of these challenges, what the U.N. needs is a leader who is savvy about politics, knowledgeable and dedicated to human rights. It should be someone who can sidestep the passive resistance used by organizations to avoid change, and someone who welcomes whistle-blowers, such as Anders Kompass, back into the fold. The next U.N. Secretary-General should be a leader who has taken part in crisis management in various regions of the world – a skill set often gained through service on the U.N. Security Council, or from prior U.N. leadership positions. But the most critical part of the U.N. Secretary-General’s job is quiet diplomacy in preventing the escalation of tensions and disputes into wars. This requires careful work with heads of state and international leaders, both on the 38th floor of the United Nations in New York and in the field as well. The Secretary-General must also woo support from the “P-5” – United States, France, England, Russia, and China that enjoy permanent seats and hold veto power on the United Nations Security Council. U.N. observers predict that the next Secretary-General will hail from one of the Eastern European states – a regional group deserving a turn at bat.  Most U.N. member states support the idea of regional rotation. Antonio Guterres, a former prime minister of Portugal who gained kudos for his leadership of the United Nations refugee agency, may be hard put to avoid a quiet Russian veto.  Helen Clark, a former prime minister of New Zealand who ran the U.N. Development program, has had mixed reviews. Argentinian foreign minister Susana Malcorra, who served as Ban Ki Moon’s chief of staff, faces opposition from the United Kingdom because of the unresolved fracas over the Falkland Islands. Serbia’s former foreign minister Vuk Jeremic, who attended Harvard’s Kennedy School, will likely be sidelined by his unrepentant stance on Kosovo, where NATO had to fight an air war and ground campaign to assure that the predominantly Muslim province would be protected as a newly independent state. Bulgaria’s Irina Bokova has drawn some heated criticism as head of UNESCO for sponsoring U.N. cultural activities that some thought showed pointed hostility to Israel. Slovakia has also fielded its foreign minister Miroslav Lajcak, who served in Bosnia as High Representative, but he has not attracted much international notice and has no other U.N. experience.   Bulgaria’s Kristalina Georgieva, a former vice president of the World Bank, has offered her name at the last minute, but also lacks any U.N. experience – an obstacle to knowledgeable reform. Former Slovenian president Danilo Turk – an international lawyer who served eight years as ambassador to the United Nations in New York and five years inside the house as the U.N.’s Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs – has a profile that would seem to fit the bill, as a more-than-worthy successor to Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. Turk can point to his muscular service on the U.N. Security Council, beating back the hand-chopping reign of terror of West African insurgent Foday Sankoh, as well as guiding the key mediation between Jakarta and East Timor during the paroxysm of violence that swept through that region. Turk is also a world-renowned expert on human rights law. His eloquence and credibility were on full display during the recent General Assembly debate when, for the first time, candidates for the position of U.N. Secretary-General had the opportunity to present their vision for the future of the global organization. Turk has called for more effective recruitment of top-notch U.N. personnel, including women, boosting morale within the organization, involvement of the private sector, a focus on field-oriented work, and close collaboration with the Security Council in reaching practical decisions. In a world that is still dangerous, the choice of the next U.N. chief is a consequential matter for the United States and the international community.  Turtle Bay is no place for amateurs.

Peacekeepers’ important role in fighting terrorism

The Aug. 7 front-page article “ ‘Where will we run this time?’ ” described the desperate conditions of 160,000 South Sudanese fleeing ethnic conflict and living in U.N. peacekeeping camps. Perhaps inadvertently, the article also described a serious U.S. national security issue: 125,000 U.N. peacekeepers, the largest military deployment in the world, attempt to keep the peace and protect civilians in 16 conflict areas on four continents, many of them failed or failing states and therefore breeding grounds for nonstate terrorism. Unless Americans are willing to send U.S. troops to Somalia, Mali, South Sudan, Lebanon and other hot spots, we must depend on U.N. peacekeepers to defend against conditions in which terrorism may take root. At one-eighth the cost of U.S. boots on the ground, peacekeepers are a bargain. For underfunded, undertrained and underequipped peacekeepers to be up to the job, amid charges of child and sexual abuse and neglect of duty, U.S. and NATO support is required. At a September 2015 U.N. summit, President Obama committed to doubling the number of U.S. military advisers and, in conjunction with NATO, providing engineering, medical, intelligence and explosive- detection support. Some 50 nations from China to Colombia agreed to provide 40,000 new troops and police. Stronger, more effective and responsible U.N. peacekeeping operations are an essential and cost-effective tool in preventing the conditions that give rise to nonstate terrorism. ****Donald T. Bliss** , Bethesda** The writer is president of the United Nations Association of the National Capital Area.

To make amends, the U.N. must provide funds to fight cholera in Haiti

Regarding the Aug. 19 editorial “The U.N. finally faces facts in Haiti”: The United Nations conceded that it played a role in a devastating cholera epidemic in Haiti six years ago and admitted that it should do “much more.” Contrition was long overdue. International experts reviewing the evidence (including a panel appointed by the United Nations) long ago concluded that the cholera outbreak was triggered by a lack of adequate sanitation at a U.N. peacekeeper’s base. In a country that is extremely vulnerable to disease outbreaks and that has limited capacity to respond to them, the introduction of cholera resulted in a major and ongoing disaster, with more than 10,000 deaths and 800,000 people sickened. The U.N. can save lives, restore goodwill and stabilize the country by financing a plan to control cholera in Haiti. The Haitian government, international agencies and nongovernmental organizations, including Partners In Health, know how to eliminate cholera transmission in Haiti. Partners In Health supports an ambitious plan to interrupt and stop the spread of the disease using a combination of mass vaccination and household water treatment. If the U.N. follows words with financing, it will be taking very strong steps toward making amends to a country whose people it has harmed. We call on it to do just that. ****Louise Ivers** , Boston** The writer is a senior health and policy adviser   with Partners In Health.

U.N. says some of its peacekeepers were paying 13-year-olds for sex

NAIROBI — The United Nations has been grappling with so many sexual abuse allegations involving its peacekeepers that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon recently called them “a cancer in our system.” Now, officials have learned about what appears to be a fresh scandal. Investigators discovered this month that at least four U.N. peacekeepers in the Central African Republic allegedly paid girls as little as 50 cents in exchange for sex. The case is the latest to plague the U.N. mission in the Central African Republic, whose employees have been accused of 22 other incidents of alleged sexual abuse or sexual exploitation in the past 14 months. The most recent accusations come in the wake of Ban’s efforts to implement a “zero tolerance” policy for such offenses. The United Nations maintains nine peacekeeping operations in Africa, employing more than 100,000 people on the continent, and the abuses threaten to erode the organization’s legitimacy. Other sex-crime cases have occurred in Mali, South Sudan, Liberia and Congo in recent years. Last month, the United Nations published a damning independent investigation that said that poor enforcement of policies in place to deter and report abuse meant that “the credibility of the U.N. and peacekeeping operations are in jeopardy.” Experts and officials say systemic problems still hinder the investigation   and prosecution of alleged abusers, leading to a perception of impunity. The abuse “undermines everything we stand for,” said Anthony Banbury, the U.N. assistant secretary general for field support. The mission in the Central African Republic, where U.N. troops and civilians were sent in 2014 to help end a civil war and support a fledgling government, stands out for its record of sexual abuse and exploitation. “They are preying on the people they’ve come to protect,” said Parfait Onanga-Anyanga, the top U.N. official in the country. The most recent allegations involve at least four peacekeepers who are accused of paying girls as young as 13 for sex at a camp for the internally displaced next to the international airport in Bangui, the capital. The site, known as M’poko camp, is home to 20,000 people, mostly Christians. It is a vast agglomeration of white tents surrounding old, decaying airplanes, just yards from the airport runway. The United Nations has not publicly released the nationalities of the accused troops or provided details of the alleged abuse. But in interviews, U.N. officials said the peacekeepers were from Gabon, Morocco, Burundi and France. The prostitution ring they allegedly used was run by boys and young men who offered girls “for anywhere from 50 cents to three dollars,” according to one official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation. Some officials say there may be many more cases of exploitation by peacekeepers that have gone unreported. Because there is no regular U.N. presence in M’poko, it has been difficult to gauge the scale of the problem. M’poko had already had a problem with sexual abuse before the recent cases were reported. Its population had grown sharply since September, when violence erupted between the warring parties in the Central African Republic. Human Rights Watch documented nine cases of sexual violence between September and December in and around the displacement camp. In several instances, Christian women were raped by members of the mostly Christian “anti-balaka” militia after being accused of interacting with Muslims. Across Bangui, the conflict has fallen largely along religious lines. “M’poko is a lawless zone run by anti-balaka thugs a few hundred meters away from the international airport. The camp is not being protected, and women are being raped,” said Lewis Mudge, a Human Rights Watch researcher focused on the Central African Republic. But this marks the first time that the United Nations has acknowledged the involvement of its employees in the camp’s underworld of commercial sex work, which is driven by abject poverty and a lack of law enforcement. “The M’poko camp is unfortunately a place where horrible, unacceptable things happen to women and children,” said Banbury, the assistant secretary general. “In some cases, we have credible allegations that there are U.N. personnel that have committed these crimes.” Banbury said U.N. troops plan to begin patrolling M’poko more frequently and will attempt to dismantle the prostitution ring. The U.N. mission in the Central African Republic has been plagued by sexual abuse allegations. The previous U.N. special representative there, retired Senegalese general Babacar Gaye, was fired in August over his team’s handling of the accusations. The organization has dispatched special investigators to Bangui to better understand what has gone wrong. The United Nations was also strongly criticized for failing to react to offenses by peacekeepers in the country. As many as 14 troops from France, Chad and Equatorial Guinea allegedly raped and sodomized six boys between the ages of 9 and 15 in 2013 and 2014, before the U.N. mission formally began. The United Nations took no action after learning about the cases until a whistleblower leaked an internal U.N. investigation to French authorities, according to U.N. officials. Last month, the report by a panel including former Canadian Supreme Court justice Marie Deschamps found that U.N. staff in Bangui had “turned a blind eye to the criminal actions of individual troops” in that case. In August, two women and one girl accused three U.N. peacekeepers of rape in the war-torn town of Bambari. That same month, a U.N. police officer allegedly raped a 12-year-old girl during an operation in Bangui’s main Muslim neighborhood. She had been hiding in a bathroom while peacekeepers searched her house, according to Amnesty International. “When I cried, he slapped me hard and put his hand over my mouth,” the girl told an Amnesty International researcher. For years, the United Nations has been trying to stop the sexual abuse perpetrated by its employees and troops under its command. It has ordered a series of reports to identify weaknesses in enforcement and mandated that a component on sexual exploitation and abuse be included in training for peacekeepers. Ban has also encouraged harsher penalties for the peacekeeping units to which the abusers belong. But the slow pace of investigations into abuse has “severely undermined enforcement,” according to a report last year from the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services. Even more problematic, some experts say, is that the prosecution of alleged offenders falls to the governments of the countries that provide the peacekeepers. In many cases, those governments conduct halfhearted investigations and fail to convict offenders. “To say that it is immensely frustrating is a tremendous understatement,” said Banbury. “The U.N. should stop tiptoeing around, trying not to offend governments, and instead put the victims of sexual exploitation and abuse at the heart of their policy,” said Sarah Taylor, an advocate in the women’s rights division at Human Rights Watch. Some argue that the lack of enforcement encourages a sense among U.N. employees that they can commit sexual crimes with impunity while based overseas. “They think ‘We’re in a special class,’ that sexual abuse is not that serious,” said Paula Donovan, who leads Code Blue, an advocacy campaign working to expose the issue of sexual abuse by U.N. personnel. The number of alleged cases of sexual exploitation and abuse committed by U.N. personnel declined from 2008 to 2014, dropping from 83 to 51, which U.N. officials say is evidence of increasingly effective intervention. But critics say that those numbers are incomplete and that many cases go unreported. “The data is not just porous. It’s a joke,” Donovan said. Other analysts say that getting civilians to report sexual crimes in war-torn environments, where there is a mistrust of authority and a lack of law enforcement, is an enormous challenge. The victims might “fear retaliation by the perpetrator, who in some cases carries a weapon,” said a report last year on U.N. abuses by the Stimson Center, a Washington-based research organization. In many other cases, impoverished girls and women accept food and money in exchange for sex. “This is already a society whose social fabric has totally collapsed, with youngsters left to fend for themselves,” said Onanga-Anyanga. “This is putting salt into an open wound.” _**Correction:** An earlier version of this article had an incorrect name for the organization that published a report last year on U.N. abuses. The Stimson Center came out with the report._ **Read more** Pope Francis visits mosque in war-torn Central African Republic Tens of thousands of Muslims flee Christian militias in Central African Republic Christian-Muslim marriages are latest casualty of strife in Central African Republic

U.N. leader: Syrian civil war threatens cease-fire with Israel

UNITED NATIONS — The Syrian civil war is threatening the 39-year-old cease- fire between Syria and Israel, as fighting along a separation line between the two countries is undermining the United Nations’ capacity to monitor the terms of the truce, according to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki moon. The development poses the most serious challenge to date to the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement, which set the terms for a strained, but stable, stalemate between Israel and Syria following the Yom Kippur War. For decades, it has helped to guarantee relative calm between Israel and Syria in the Golan Heights. In recent months, Syrian armed forces, equipped with heavy weapons, have crossed into the U.N.-monitored demilitarized zone in pursuit of Syrian rebel groups that have used the area as a haven, Ban wrote in a letter to the U.N. Security Council. He called the breach a “grave violation” of the cease-fire. In the course of the fighting, the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force, which has more than 1,000 peacekeepers under its command, has seen them shot at, abducted, harassed during patrols and robbed. “Both Syrian armed forces and armed members of the opposition have interfered with the conduct” of U.N. patrols, Ban wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post. The turmoil has forced some U.N. monitors to halt patrols and shutter observations posts. Some nations, including Croatia and Japan, have decided to pull their troops out of the Golan Heights, leaving those remaining without the means to complete their mission. “The situation is deteriorating,” Ban warned in the letter, which is expected to be discussed by the U.N. Security Council next week. “The continued military activities in the area of separation have the potential to escalate tensions between Israel and the Syrian Arab Republic, and jeopardize the cease-fire between the two countries and the stability of the region.” U.N. leaders have said they are committed to maintaining the mission, but with a far more limited role, after a series of dangerous episodes. Earlier this month, armed rebels in Syria abducted 21 Filipino monitors, saying they would be released only if the Syrian army withdrew its forces from a contested town it had been shelling. Following intensive negotiations, the insurgents released the monitors unharmed, although the four vehicles they were traveling in were never recovered. In other incidents, armed factions have stolen U.N. rifles, ammunition and vehicles. Near the town of Khan Aishe, opposition fighters briefly abducted four peacekeepers at gunpoint. In an effort to address the worsening situation, the United Nations opened an assessment of security for the monitors. But the more immediate challenge is stemming the withdrawal of several countries, including Austria, Croatia, India, Japan and the Philippines, that form the backbone of the mission. Japan already withdrew its contingent of 46 monitors and support staff. In February, Croatia ordered its monitors to stop participating in patrols and plans to have them all withdrawn from the country. The remaining contingents, including Austria, are also said to have misgivings. The lightly armed U.N. observation mission lacks the means to intervene in the Syrian civil war or to forcibly prevent either Syria or Israel from breaching the line of separation. But the presence of an impartial force in a demilitarized zone between Israel and Syria has over the years made it easier for the two regional powerhouses to keep their distance, avoiding a miscalculation that could lead to fighting. U.N. diplomats and peacekeeping officials fear that as the fighting draws the Syrian army closer to the Israelis, the prospects for clashes will increase. Ban reported that though the cease-fire between Israel and Syria “generally was maintained,” Syrian armed forces continued to “carry out military activities and security operations” against Syrian insurgents in the demilitarized zone. His letter also cited “ a number of violations” by the Israel Defense Force, including a Jan. 18 incident in which three Israeli jets briefly flew across the cease-fire line and another incident two days later when eight Israeli soldiers briefly entered the demilitarized zone on foot. Ban said the United Nations was not able to confirm reports that Israeli planes had conducted an airstrike inside Syria. U.S. officials have said the jets targeted a shipment of weapons and caused minor collateral damage to a nearby research center that deals with chemical weapons.

Kofi Annan’s memoir, ‘Interventions: A Life in War and Peace’

In his new memoir, “Interventions,” Kofi Annan jokes that “SG,” the abbreviation for his title as U.N. secretary general, carried a second meaning around the organization’s headquarters that more aptly described the role of the world’s top diplomat: scapegoat. During a four-decade U.N. career, including 10 years in the top job, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate shouldered his share of blame for some of the world’s worst human rights calamities. As the undersecretary general for peacekeeping in the 1990s, Annan bore responsibility for U.N. missions in Bosnia and Rwanda, where peacekeeping forces failed to stem the slaughter of civilians under their watch. Those failures had many looking for Annan to give an introspective and anguished reckoning of his personal struggles — but they will be disappointed in this memoir. The book, written with his former adviser and speechwriter Nader Mousavizadeh, aims to shore up Annan’s legacy. It provides a fresh opportunity to remind the world that the greatest blame belonged to the globe’s biggest powers, principally the United States, for failing to provide the United Nations with the troops, the firepower and the will to confront evildoers. Annan is justified in shining a light on the United States, including the Clinton administration, which blocked action in the U.N. Security Council on Rwanda, and the Bush administration, which went to war in Iraq on the back of flimsy evidence and with a post-invasion plan that left the country in chaos. But Annan tends to minimize the consequences of his own decisions, treating the United Nations’ repeated refusal to confront wrongdoers as the inescapable path of an organization forced to do its job with inadequate means. Rwanda is illustrative. On the eve of that country’s 1994 genocide, the United Nations’ force commander, Canadian Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, fired off a cable to Annan saying that he’d uncovered a plan to exterminate the country’s Tutsi and that he intended to mount an armed raid on a weapons cache that would be used to arm the mass murderers. Annan ordered him to abort the mission, a decision Dallaire saw as disastrous. In Annan’s telling, there was no other logical response, given the United Nations’ under-equipped peacekeeping force in Rwanda and the reluctance of the Clinton administration to support a tough reaction in the wake of a debacle in Somalia, where 19 U.S. Army Rangers and members of the elite Delta Force were killed by supporters of a Somali warlord. To his credit, Annan sought to use the failures of Bosnia and Rwanda to develop a practical strategy for averting new genocide. He recruited national armies — the Australians in East Timor, for instance — to enforce peace in hot conflicts. And he empowered U.N. “blue helmets” in such places as Somalia, Congo and Haiti to use lethal force in limited instances in repelling challenges to the United Nations’ mandates from armed gangs and other spoilers. It was Annan who shepherded a new international doctrine, the Responsibility to Protect, which places a moral obligation on states to protect their citizens from mass slaughter while pressing powerful nations, principally the United States, to ensure that the use of force is legitimate, preferably with a Security Council mandate. Annan’s book offers a first-hand survey of efforts to attend to the world’s ills, recalling an alphabet of post-Cold War U.N. peace work from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Perhaps his greatest disappointment is in his own continent, where a generation of post-revolutionary leaders has failed to address its people’s greatest needs. He voices particular dismay over the conduct of former Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi, who was charged with corruption; former South African president Thabo Mbeki, who questioned the link between HIV and AIDS; and Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, who refused to recognize the enormity of the AIDS epidemic or even discuss the need for condoms. “Mr. Secretary General, when it comes to condoms, the Pope and I are _one_ ,” Mugabe once told Annan, a remark that underscored a deeply rooted social conservatism among African leaders. Annan also shares some insights into the peculiar charms of some of the world’s mass murderers, recalling being struck by the genteel bearing of Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who stands charged with genocide. “One always imagines that those responsible for great evil should exude it from their very pores. But as with Saddam Hussein — whom I met with on a special visit to Iraq in 1998 in order to attempt to broker a deal that would stop a war — this was a man who seemed cool, polite, and friendly.” Like that of any secretary general, Annan’s legacy was defined as much by his relationship with the United States and its leaders as by his actions. The Ghanian-born international civil servant studied at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., and has been a lifelong admirer of the United States. When the Clinton administration sought a replacement for the United Nations’ Egyptian leader, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, it settled on Annan, who had shared Washington’s belief that the use of firepower in Bosnia could help turn the tide. He had also supported, however belatedly, then-Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright’s case for the use of military force against the Serbs in Kosovo. In the months after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Annan’s relations with the United States worsened as he issued a series of increasingly critical statements, telling the BBC that he considered the U.S. move illegal. He also became an outspoken critic of America’s excesses in the war on terror. President George W. Bush, meanwhile, installed a sharp critic of the United Nations, John R. Bolton, as his new U.N. envoy. “This was hardly a sign of support for me or the institution,” Annan writes. A major corruption scandal over the United Nations’ management of the multibillion-dollar oil-for-food program in Iraq, which implicated the top U.N. official managing the program and disclosed that Annan’s son profited from it, weakened the secretary general politically and brought calls from Republican lawmakers for his resignation. He ultimately survived and completed his two-term tenure as secretary general. Since then, he has led mediation efforts to end a dangerous political standoff in Kenya and later to try to stop Syria’s worsening civil war. His Syria mediation, which concluded too late for full coverage in the book, ended in a stalemate. When he announced his plans to step down, Annan made it clear that he would not be the scapegoat for what he saw as a collective failure to stem the country’s worsening civil war. He blamed the warring parties for rejecting a diplomatic solution and the big powers on the U.N. Security Council for failing to put enough pressure on the fighters to silence their guns. “You have to understand,” Annan said in his resignation announcement, “as an envoy, I can’t want peace more than the protagonists, more than the Security Council or the international community for that matter.” **lynchc@washpost.com ** **Colum Lynch** , the U.N. correspondent for The Washington Post and a contributing editor at Foreign Policy magazine, reported on Annan’s tenure as secretary general for the Boston Globe and The Post. **INTERVENTIONS** **A Life in War and Peace** By Kofi Annan with Nader Mousavizadeh Penguin Press. 383 pp. $36

Four U.N. peacekeepers detained in Golan Heights

BEIRUT —Syrian rebels kidnapped four United Nations peacekeepers Tuesday along the fraught cease-fire line between Israel and Syria in the Golan Heights, in a replay of a similar incident in March. The U.N. peacekeeping department in New York said four Philippine peacekeepers serving in the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force were captured by “an unidentified armed group” while patrolling near the town of Jamlah. “All efforts are currently underway to secure their release,” said Kieran Dwyer, a spokesman for the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. In a statement posted on Facebook, the rebel Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade announced that it seized the peacekeepers to “secure and protect” them from heavy shelling by Syrian government forces. The statement was accompanied by a photograph of the peacekeepers sitting barefoot on a carpet and wearing light- blue U.N. armored vests, three of which were marked “Philippines,” over their camouflage fatigues. The Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade abducted 21 Philippine peacekeepers in the same area in March. The group first claimed it was holding those U.N. observers as leverage to compel the Syrian government to withdraw its forces from Jamlah, where the troops had clashed with rebels. But after intensive negotiations between the United Nations and the rebels, the group released the peacekeepers along the Jordanian border, saying it had detained them for their own safety. The Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade said the four observers were taken Tuesday after government forces captured a checkpoint near the area they were patrolling, “which endangered their lives, pushing us to intervene.” The statement also described “heavy clashes and heavy shelling” in the area, suggesting that the rebels may have seized the peacekeepers in part to protect themselves. It said the peacekeepers were endangered not only by “members of the regime army” but by “some criminal groups” as well. In New York, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the detention and called for the peacekeepers’ immediate release. He urged all parties to respect the “freedom of movement and safety and security” of the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force. Unarmed members of the observer force have patrolled the no man’s land between Syria and Israel since 1974 , monitoring a cease-fire between the two countries following the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Israel occupied most of the Syrian Golan Heights during the Six-Day War in 1967. The peacekeepers have continued their patrols even as fighting between Syrian rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad has spread into the area, bringing shellfire and clashes to the zone under U.N. supervision. The abduction took place in the rugged no man’s land, where shepherds still move flocks down deep canyons and dry riverbeds, in a triangle of land that borders Syria, Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. While the mosques still call people to prayer, the towns are very quiet, and few vehicles appear on the road. Some of the houses are damaged by mortars or shelling. From an Israeli military observation post, one can see an old Ottoman-era bridge, a Jordanian military and customs depot, and further in the distance, a string of small villages that have changed hands repeatedly in the past year, between regular Syrian army troops and rebel combatants. Israeli military commanders call the zone an “ungoverned area,” and the Israel Defense Forces have moved tanks and intelligence and combat units to their side of the contested boundary in the Golan Heights. “This area is no longer stable,” Brig. Gen. Gal Hirsch said in a tour of the area with journalists on Thursday. “Many players are involved now.” Hirsch pointed to a U.N. post in the hazy distance that was attacked by Syrian artillery a few months ago. “Radicals are building their future infrastructure right here. Places like this are heaven for terrorists.” Booth reported from Jerusalem. Ruth Eglash in Jerusalem, Ahmed Ramadan in Beirut and Colum Lynch at the United Nations contributed to this report.

U.N. faces ghost of Iraq in evaluating chemical weapons use in Syria

UNITED NATIONS — A few days ago, a little-known Swedish scientist with a career devoted to studying lethal warfare agents paid a quiet visit to London. He was there to examine evidence that British officials believe shows that Syrian forces used chemical weapons against their own people. Ake Sellstrom’s confidential mission marked the first stage in a fledgling U.N. investigation of claims that the nerve agent sarin has been used in battles in at least three Syrian cities since December. The inquiry has once again thrust the United Nations into the center of a hunt for weapons of mass destruction. For U.N. inspectors, the inquiry is reminiscent of the days when they scoured Iraq’s deserts and industrial parks more than a decade ago in fruitless pursuit of lethal stockpiles of chemical weapons that had long before been destroyed and nuclear facilities that no longer existed. There are stark differences between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and President Bashar al-Assad’s Syria. For one, the United States, which led the push for invading Iraq, appears reluctant to intervene militarily in the war in Syria. For another, U.N. inspectors may never be permitted to step foot in Syria to examine the sites in question, making it extremely difficult to establish definitively whether chemical weapons were used and by whom. But officials at U.N. headquarters also see parallels between the Iraq and Syria cases — and potential pitfalls. Among them is a  big-power rift between the United States and Russia and the reactivation of several veterans of the Iraq inspections, including Sellstrom. As happened with Iraq, any findings on Syria by the U.N. team will fuel an international debate about the wisdom of military intervention. The team’s conclusions also will test the reliability of Western intelligence agencies, particularly in the United States and Britain, whose flawed data served as the basis for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. “The echoes of weapons inspections in Iraq are inescapable,” said Carne Ross, a former British diplomat who managed his government’s Iraq policy at the United Nations from 1997 to 2002. “We were played, right?” said Patricia Lewis, an expert on biological, chemical and nuclear weapons at London’s Chatham House, suggesting that the intelligence failures in Iraq will cast a shadow over the findings on Syria. “We were badly burned by people coming out of Iraq telling us stuff that wasn’t true, either out of enthusiasm or malice or ego. Nobody outside the West believes the intelligence services of the West anymore.” President Obama has said repeatedly that any use of chemical weapons by Syria would cross a “red line,” prompting an unspecified response. But Obama, who opposed the Iraq war, has also underscored the limits of intelligence and the need for concrete evidence. In a letter to key lawmakers last week, the White House said U.S. intelligence agencies believe the Syrian government is likely to have used chemical weapons on a small scale. But the letter said U.S. officials are seeking further proof and endorsed a “comprehensive United Nations investigation that can credibly evaluate the evidence and establish what took place.” In late March, the Assad government asked the United Nations to investigate its claims that Syrian opposition fighters attacked government forces with chemical weapons in the town of Khan al-Assal, near the city of Aleppo. Negotiations over the scope of the investigation stalled after U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon accepted a subsequent request by Britain and France for a broader inquiry, which would also examine claims by opposition forces that Syrian authorities used chemical weapons. Syria’s U.N. ambassador, Bashar al-Jaafari, said his government has proof that chemical weapons were used in Khan al-Assal. “We have victims, we have bodies, we have wounded,” he said at a news conference here Tuesday. Jaafari said the Syrian government opposes the expanded U.N. mission, citing concern that it would mark the beginning of an open-ended investigation leading nowhere. “What happened in Iraq is still alive in our minds,” he said. Experts say detecting the use of chemical weapons grows more difficult as time passes. If the U.N. team never gets into Syria, the job will be even tougher. Either way, the task will test Sellstrom’s technical and diplomatic skills as he seeks to stitch together the threads of evidence — primarily soil samples, blood and hair from suspected victims, and witness testimony — to come up with conclusive answers. He will be working with a much smaller team — about 15 chemists, munitions experts and doctors — than the one deployed to Iraq. In the coming weeks, the experts are expected to travel to key capitals to examine the findings of intelligence services and interview Syrian refugees who may have witnessed the use of chemical weapons or been exposed to them. Those who know the Swedish scientist say that he will follow the evidence where it leads and that he is unlikely to be intimidated or swayed either by Syrian combatants whose claims he is testing or the big powers that will be supplying him with evidence. The Iraq inspectors reported to the Security Council, but Sellstrom and his team may have more latitude because they were appointed directly by Ban. Still, insiders caution, Sellstrom risks being drawn into a major-power squabble over the course of the inspections, particularly if the team is unable to come up with a definitive conclusion. “I hope he knows the maelstrom he’s being thrown into,” said Charles Duelfer, a former U.N. weapons inspector who headed the CIA’s monumental review of Iraq’s weapons program. Duelfer said Sellstrom is a “serious, objective inspector type. He’s not a politician, a diplomat or a lawyer. One of his challenges is going to be figuring how to maneuver in that intersection between political science and physical science.” Obama’s red-line warning over Syria’s chemical activities is likely to place a burden on Sellstrom, Duelfer said, adding that such ultimatums “tend to be attached to a trigger.” In Iraq, he noted, “the finger on the trigger turned out to be weapons inspectors. The way its headed, that same dynamic will apply to poor Ake.” Even if Sellstrom’s team can secure compelling evidence of the use of chemical weapons in Syria, Duelfer said, it will be nearly impossible to demonstrate with absolute certainty who used them if the U.N. team is not allowed into the country. “You can get to a moderate to high confidence that sarin was used, but then you still don’t know the return address,” Duelfer said.

U.S. diplomat accuses U.N. of bias against Israel

UNITED NATIONS — The Trump administration is strongly condemning what it calls a systemic anti-Israel bias at the United Nations, arguing Friday that U.N. monitoring of West Bank settlement activity allowed by the Obama administration is the latest example. Michele Sison, the No. 2 U.S. diplomat at the United Nations, spoke against what the United States says is the unfair singling out of Israel during a closed session of the U.N. Security Council on Friday. There and elsewhere, the Trump administration is arguing that the United Nations has allowed valuable time and attention to be hijacked for bashing Israel. Sison spoke during the session to hear the first U.N. report issued under a resolution condemning settlements that the Obama administration allowed to take effect in December. In a pointed and highly unusual critique of Israeli actions, the United States had abstained, allowing the resolution to pass, instead of vetoing it as U.S. envoys have done in the past. The change in U.S. administrations, and the shift in positions on Israeli settlements flavored the discussion Friday. “It is clear from what the U.S. representative said today that the U.S. administration is continuing to develop its thinking on some of the points of detail” about settlements and a peace negotiation, British U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft told reporters. In presenting the report, U.N. Middle East peace envoy Nickolay Mladenov told the U.N. Security Council that Israel has vastly accelerated the pace of housing announcements for Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, endangering the territorial viability of a potential sovereign Palestine. The spike demonstrates that Israel has “a clear intent to continue expanding the settlement enterprise in the occupied West Bank,” Mladenov said. “Such actions are in breach of international law and they must stop.” The United Nations, European Union and many individual countries call Israel’s settlement activity illegal under international law. The United States has long sought not to use that terminology, instead calling settlements illegitimate and unhelpful to peace. “There can be no moral equivalency between the building of homes and murderous terrorism,” Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said Friday. “The only impediment to peace is Palestinian violence and incitement. This obsessive focus on Israel must end.” For years, successive U.S. administrations have vetoed Security Council condemnations of Israel over its treatment of Palestinians. The Trump administration strongly disagrees with the December resolution and the Obama administration’s rebuke but cannot quickly undo the U.N. action. Instead, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley and other U.S. officials are taking every opportunity to point out what they say is institutional mistreatment of Israel at the United Nations and its member bodies, and the United States is expected to use its presidency of the U.N. Security Council next month as a megaphone. Earlier Friday, the United States voted against five resolutions it calls anti-Israel at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. The Trump administration lobbied allies to also vote no. No major U.S. ally did so, but Britain issued a warning that it would follow the United States’ suit if the U.N. body continues to single out Israel for opprobrium. “Today we are putting the Human Rights Council on notice,” British Ambassador Julian Braithwaite said. “If things do not change, in the future we will adopt a policy of voting against all resolutions concerning Israel’s conduct in the occupied Syrian and Palestinian territories.” The human rights body approved four resolutions condemning Israeli actions against the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and one calling on Israel to return the Golan Heights to Syria. Haley had warned ahead of the vote that the United States would boycott discussions of what she called “outrageous, one-sided, anti-Israel resolutions.” The U.S. denunciation of the U.N. focus on Israel comes even as the Trump administration is seeking curbs on Israeli settlement building as part of its effort to resume Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. The White House expressed its “concerns” with settlement construction after talks with senior Israeli officials in Washington ended Thursday night with a joint statement showing the two governments were unable to agree on a settlement policy that could pave the way to peace talks resuming. As the Israelis left Washington after four days of talks, the White House released a statement saying they had discussed “concrete, near-term measures to improve the overall climate” to improve prospects for peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. Among the topics were ways to improve the reliability of water and electricity in the West Bank and Gaza. But the most closely watched part of talks between the Trump administration and the Israeli government concerned settlement activity. In two sentences, the statement laid out positions that made it clear that issue was unresolved. “The United States delegation reiterated President Trump’s concerns regarding settlement activity in the context of moving toward a peace agreement,” it said. “The Israeli delegation made clear that Israel’s intent going forward is to adopt a policy regarding settlement activity that takes those concerns into consideration.” The wording may be politically useful to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is under unrelenting pressure from his right-wing coalition to forge ahead expanding settlements. Many Jewish settlers and their advocates in Netanyahu’s government cheered Trump’s election as a green light for rapid building that could functionally doom a contiguous, economically viable Palestinian state alongside Israel. While he does not welcome criticism from his most powerful ally, Netanyahu has in the past used U.S. objection to settlement activity to rein in his own coalition members. The new Trump White House has sent mixed signals on settlements. Trump publicly endorsed a hiatus on settlement building during Netanyahu’s visit to Washington last month, but the White House has also said it does not necessarily see the issue as a hindrance to peace. Trump’s newly confirmed ambassador to Israel, David M. Friedman, is a longtime advocate of settlements and headed a U.S. organization that supports education and other activities in a walled Israeli enclave built deep in the West Bank. Trump plans a push toward a peace settlement, an elusive goal of many past U.S. presidents. The Trump effort is focused on Arab states that support the Palestinian cause applying pressure on leadership in the West Bank to make a deal. Trump has said the deal may not include a separate sovereign Palestinian state as sought by the past three U.S. presidents. Israel’s Channel Two television reported that to set the ground for talks, the Trump administration has demanded Israel not build outside the major settlement blocs and proposed placing a yearly cap on the volume of other construction projects. Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported that Trump’s demand that Netanyahu declare a construction freeze was a precondition for having Saudi Arabia join a regional peace process. Officials said Trump believes in enlisting the Saudis to play a role in a regional process and thinks that they will bring other moderate Arab states to the table as well. Carol Morello in Washington and Ruth Eglash in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

The United Nations’ duty in Haiti’s cholera outbreak

IT IS now all but certain that Haiti’s cholera epidemic, which has killed more than 8,000 people and sickened more than 600,000, is directly traceable to a battalion of U.N. peacekeeperswho arrived in the country after the 2010 earthquake. The United Nations and its peacekeepers have done immeasurable good in Haiti and elsewhere, but in this instance they bear responsibility for unleashing one of the world’s most devastating recent epidemics. The peacekeepers, from Nepal, where cholera is endemic, established their base on the banks of a tributary that feeds one of Haiti’s main sources of drinking water, the Artibonite River. Owing to the base’s slapdash sanitation system — drainage sites containing human feces that flooded and overflowed in the rain — waste water flowed into the tributary and contaminated the river. In a country where no cases of cholera had been recorded in more than 150 years, the disease spread so fast that within nine months of the battalion’s arrival in late 2010, the number of cholera-infected Haitians surpassed all recorded cholera infections in the rest of the world combined. Hundreds more will continue to die annually for years to come in a nation whose anemic health, hygiene and sanitation infrastructure is no match for the ravages of a water-borne disease. A report from researchers at the Yale School of Public Health and Yale Law School details the convincing epidemiological evidence, as well as the United Nations’ stubborn disavowal of responsibility. Initially, a panel of independent experts enlisted by the United Nations said that the evidence pointing to the peacekeepers was mainly circumstantial. Now the experts have reversed themselves, saying that the Nepalese peacekeepers were “most likely” the cause of the epidemic. Still, the United Nations refuses to accept legal, financial or moral responsibility. Until now, the United Nations has asserted and enjoyed what amounts to blanket immunity from claims arising from its peacekeepers’ actions. There is a basis in law and logic for its stance. Given the range of nations, conflicts, disasters and chaotic environments in which U.N. personnel are deployed, the institution needs some protection from lawsuits and other claims for damages arising from its operations. Otherwise, it might never enter a risky place, thereby rendering itself useless. Still, immunity in the courts, which the United Nations has enjoyed, does not justify a policy of institutional indifference. In the case of Haiti’s epidemic, U.N. officials have a moral obligation to right a wrong that has killed thousands. That obligation goes beyond the legally tangled question of paying reparations to thousands of potential claimants in Haiti and the obvious need to ensure that U.N. installations and contractors meet higher standards of hygiene and sanitation. It involves the United Nations and its major donors, including the United States, adding resources to help Haiti build lasting improvements to its feeble public health system. Haiti needs sewage treatment plants and municipal water facilities, as well as an effective primary health-care system accessible to people in rural areas as well as towns. Through UNICEF and the Pan American Health Organization, the United Nations should redouble its efforts to establish modern infrastructure in a country where 90 percent of the population lacks running water. That’s not just part of the United Nations’ mission. It’s a matter of accountability and responsibility. **Read more at PostOpinions:** Charanya Krishnaswami and Muneer I. Ahmad: U.N. hypocrisy in Haiti Amy Wilentz: Helping Haiti by aiding one earthquake victim

Three days after the United Nations adopted a resolution calling on Israel to halt Jewish settlement activity on Palestinian territory, President-elect Donald Trump tweeted that the international body “is just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time.” The harsh criticism, which Trump made Monday while vacationing at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, signaled he would likely challenge more than just the 71-year-old institution’s approach to the Middle East once he takes office. While Trump did not elaborate on why he considered the United Nations ineffectual, he made it clear both before and after the Security Council adopted the resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem that he believed the United States should have blocked the move. President Obama instructed U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power to abstain from voting, on the grounds that the Israeli government’s continued support for expanding Jewish settlements could undermine any prospect of eventually reaching a two-state solution to the simmering conflict. After the Security Council voted, Trump tweeted, “As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20th,” which is the day he will assume the presidency. The United Nations has come under fire for years from critics on both the right and the left. Conservatives have attacked it for infringing on individual nations’ sovereignty as well as wasting resources, while many developing nations argue that most major decisions remain dominated by a handful of countries that were influential when the United Nations was established decades ago. In recent years, some of its peacekeeping troops have been repeatedly accused of raping civilians they were sent to protect, and this August the office of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon formally acknowledged that Nepali peacekeepers sent by the United Nations to Haiti six years ago inadvertently introduced an outbreak of cholera there, even as U.N. officials maintained they have legal immunity in connection to the epidemic. The disease killed thousands of Haitians in the wake of a devastating earthquake. But the United Nations continues to play a key role in helping deliver humanitarian assistance across the globe, brokering cease-fires during conflicts and serving as a forum for sprawling issues such as how best to address climate change. Obama has worked doggedly during his time in office to support multilateral institutions such as the United Nations. He has used his speech each year before the U.N. General Assembly as a way to lay out his vision for foreign affairs and has convened summits there to tackle questions that include the global refugee crisis and the fight against terrorism. Earlier this month, the president stopped by to personally thank Ban for his work when the secretary general, who is stepping down at the end of the month, was meeting with national security adviser Susan Rice at the White House. Americans see the U.N. more negatively than positively when it comes to effectively solving problems, though most see the organization in a positive light and its popularity has risen over the past decade. Democrats are far more favorably inclined toward the U.N. than Republicans, among whom ratings plummeted during the Iraq war and have not recovered.  Both Gallup and Pew show improved ratings for the U.N. since the late 2000s. The percentage saying the organization does a “good job” has risen from 26 percent in 2009 to 38 percent in 2016 in Gallup polls; Pew finds the share rating the group favorably rose from 48 percent in 2007 to 64 percent in 2016. The improved ratings in recent years have been concentrated among Democrats and independents. During a new conference last month, Obama emphasized that the United States must continue to play the leading role in maintaining “the basic framework of the world order” that was established after World War II. “And I’ve said before, that’s a burden that we should carry proudly,” Obama said. “And I would hope that not just the 45th president of the United States, but every president of the United States understands that that's not only a burden, but it’s also an extraordinary privilege. And if you have a chance to do that right, then you should seize it.”

In Gaza and other war zones, how neutral is the United Nations?

_David Bosco is an assistant professor of international politics at American University. He is the author of“Five to Rule Them All: The UN Security Council and the Making of the Modern World” and “Rough Justice: The International Criminal Court in a World of Power Politics.” _ The mortar shells that struck a United Nations-run school in Gaza on Wednesday, killing at least 20 Gazans — including children — and injuring dozens of others, marked the sixth time that U.N. facilities have been hit during this conflict. U.N. officials have presented these incidents as attacks on the international community as a whole. “This is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame,” said Pierre Krähenbühl, a senior U.N. refugee official. “Today the world stands disgraced.” While Israeli officials have never admitted intentionally targeting the United Nations, many Israelis contest the notion that the United Nations is a benign and impartial actor in Gaza, devoted only to ensuring the well-being of refugees in the territory. The Israeli government and the U.N. refugee organization for Palestinians — the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) — regularly trade accusations: U.N. officials have criticized Israel’s economic blockade of the territory, while Israeli officials have routinely accused UNRWA of parroting Hamas’s arguments and even being complicit in some of its activities. The United Nations’ struggles in Gaza are an extreme version of a dilemma the global body faces in hot spots around the world: how to preserve its prized neutrality as it becomes involved in bitter conflicts with very little middle ground? In Gaza, the bad blood has some history. During the 2008-2009 Gaza incursion, UNRWA reported that Israeli strikes damaged dozens of its facilities. In one strike, Israeli shells set fire to a U.N. warehouse, and Israel eventually paid compensation. For its part, Israel has accused the United Nations of specific misconduct, including transporting Hamas rockets in a U.N. ambulance — a charge Israeli officials later retracted. The broader Israeli critique is that UNRWA nurses Palestinian grievances and has acquiesced to the militarization of the territory by extremists such as Hamas. In 2002, a spokesman for then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called for an investigation of what he described as “30 years of abuse of refugee camps by the Palestinians” and the United Nations’ “bond of silence” toward it. Animated by similar concerns, the U.S. government has conducted investigations of UNRWA’s operations on its own, and Canada recently redirected some of its funding from UNRWA to other channels. The discovery of Hamas rockets in several UNRWA schools during the current conflict — quickly condemned by U.N. officials — has only deepened the suspicions of Israel’s supporters that UNRWA is, in effect, aligned with Hamas. The controversy surrounding the United Nations is particularly intense in Gaza but not unique to it. In some conflict zones, the United Nations has come to be seen as a proxy for one side or as the embodiment of an international policy that certain combatants reject. In these cases, the organization serves as a tempting target for extremists looking to make a point and generate headlines. Two U.N. aid workers were shot and killed in Somalia in late 2011. Earlier that year, Boko Haram militants detonated a bomb outside a U.N. building in Abuja, Nigeria, killing 21. In 2009, Taliban operatives killed five U.N. workers in Afghanistan. And most notorious, Iraqi insurgents bombed the U.N. compound in Baghdad in August 2003, an attack that claimed the lives of top official Sergio Vieira de Mello and more than a dozen others. Of course, all humanitarian actors face challenges in maintaining wartime neutrality. But the agencies of the United Nations, including UNRWA, carry an additional burden. They are attached to a global organization that is, in fact, highly political. U.N. humanitarian operations fall under the very loose purview of the organization’s General Assembly, comprising more than 190 often fractious states. Its peacekeeping operations are directed by the 15-member Security Council. For Israelis, in particular, it is difficult to separate the United Nations’ role as a relief agency in Gaza from the hostility it perceives in the organization as a whole. Every year, the assembly and several of its subsidiary bodies pass a sheaf of resolutions criticizing Israel for its occupation and various other practices. American and Israeli diplomats have regularly complained about what they describe as a skewed and unbalanced view of Israel prevailing in Turtle Bay and Geneva. If the United Nations struggles to maintain an image of impartiality and neutrality in its humanitarian operations, those qualities can be even more elusive when its personnel don helmets and pick up rifles. Since the late 1940s, generations of U.N. peacekeepers have patrolled conflict areas in an effort to tamp down violence. Sometimes they manage to win the trust of the key parties. But the lightly armed forces can also become a convenient target. Armed men ambushed a convoy of peacekeepers in Sudan last summer, killing seven. During the Bosnian war, Serb forces chained hapless peacekeepers to buildings to help ward off NATO airstrikes. In 1993, a Somali warlord killed two dozen Pakistani peacekeepers, triggering a chain of events that led to the “Black Hawk Down” episode and the collapse of the multinational relief operation in that country. The seeming impotence of U.N. peacekeepers has sparked occasional efforts to make them more formidable. In a few places, most recently in Congo, U.N. forces have been transformed into combatants. Since last year, a U.N. “intervention brigade” has been rooting out extremist groups in eastern Congo. That more muscular mission has the full blessing of the Security Council, but it has made many U.N. traditionalists uneasy. If U.N. troops are active combatants, can the organization really insist that attacking its forces is beyond the pale? And if U.N. soldiers become legitimate targets, is there a danger that unarmed U.N. personnel will be drawn into the line of fire? The Gaza crisis demonstrates that the United Nations’ ability to float above politics has long been under strain. Yet, more assertive peacekeeping and the development of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine — which insists that the international community has an obligation to safeguard civilians, even when that means confronting sovereign governments — will make remaining or appearing even-handed that much more difficult. **Twitter:@multilateralist **

U.N. accepts role in deadly Haiti cholera outbreak for first time

Blue-helmeted U.N. “peacekeepers” sent to conflict zones have long suffered from a reputation for passivity. But the acknowledgment this week by U.N. officials that its troops bear responsibility for Haiti’s cholera epidemic comes at a time when the organization is already facing criticism for undermining countries it has been sent to stabilize. The United Nations’ admission that its forces played a role in triggering Haiti’s 2010 cholera outbreak is seen as a long-overdue official recognition of _something_ that has been widely known — but stubbornly denied by U.N. leaders — for years. It follows accusations this year that U.N. peacekeepers have committed rape and murder in the Central African Republic, and more recently that they failed to defend aid workers against brutal attacks in South Sudan. Critics say these scandals have laid bare the United Nations’ struggles to police its forces and investigate claims of wrongdoing and abuse, whether in cases of negligence — such as Haiti — or the allegations of more serious crimes in Africa. When the United Nations fails to accept its responsibility as well, said Akshaya Kumar, the deputy U.N. director at New York-based Human Rights Watch, the peacekeeping system breaks down. “I think one of biggest losses from cases like this is loss of trust between U.N. and communities they’re sent to serve; that is really hard to rebuild,” she said. __ That has been the case in Haiti, where thousands of heavily-armed troops with U.N. blue helmets have been deployed since the bloody 2004 ouster of then- President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti is resented by many Haitians who view the foreign troops as an occupying force. But their role in policing the volatile country is considered _critical_ by international donors and foreign governments. U.N. officials have refused for years to accept blame for bringing cholera to Haiti, but suspicions have long settled on a contingent of U.N. troops from Nepal who arrived after the January 2010 earthquake that devastated the capital of Port-au-Prince. A cholera epidemic in Nepal was underway at the time, and raw waste from the latrines at the U.N. troops’ camp in Haiti was allowed to seep into an adjacent river. In a statement sent to The Washington Post, Farhan Haq, a deputy spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, said that the organization has become convinced in the past year that it needs to do much more regarding its own involvement in the initial cholera outbreak in Haiti and the suffering of those affected by the disease, which has sickened hundreds of thousands and left about 10,000 dead. The U.N. acknowledgment, first reported by the New York Times, comes after top officials were provided a draft report by an adviser criticizing their handling of the cholera outbreak. Haiti’s 2010 earthquake left as many as 200,000 dead, and the damage has been compounded since then by periodic flare-ups of cholera. A recent report by Doctors Without Borders has raised the possibility the disease may have killed far more Haitians than previously estimated. Cholera spread virulently in the muddy, crowded tent camps where destitute Haitians took refuge after the quake. Nearly six years later, the disease continues to claim new victims, particularly in rural parts of the country without access to clean drinking water. A new spike in infections has been reported this year. Ban has pledged more than $2 billion to fight the disease in Haiti, but has struggled so far to raise the funds from member states. Haq said the Haiti report, written by Philip Alston, a New York University law professor and U.N. special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, would probably be published late next month and presented by Ban at the U.N. General Assembly in October. Alston did not respond to requests for comment. The United Nations “wanted to take this opportunity to welcome this vital report,” Haq said. Without giving details, Haq said the draft report criticizing the U.N. handling of the outbreak, and its recommendations, “will be a valuable contribution to the U.N. as we work toward a significantly new set of U.N. actions." He said the United Nations has been working to fight cholera since the outbreak but would present a new set of measures after discussions with Haitian authorities and U.N. member states. A U.N. spokesman who was asked about the report Thursday said the organization’s legal position “had not changed” and that it was working to “figure out how to resolve” questions of its responsibility in the outbreak. The U.N. charter affords the organization broad diplomatic immunity from lawsuits and other legal action. Beatrice Lindstrom, an attorney for Haitian cholera victims who have filed a suit in U.S. federal courts seeking reparations from the U.N., said an acceptance of culpability could make it more likely that plaintiffs will finally receive financial compensation. “The U.N. has broad immunity from national courts, but that has always been conditioned on providing remedies out of court to victims who are harmed by U.N. operations,” Lindstrom said. “It has been in breach of the treaty granting it immunity in the first place, so if the U.N. follows through on remedies, that would make questions of immunity mute.” But Robert Fatton Jr., a Haitian-born political scientist at the University of Virginia, said Haq’s statement amounted to little more than “the idea that the U.N. might be more receptive to its own criticism.” “Will that entail more _than_ just empty promises to address the problem?” Fatton asked. “The question is whether the report will lead to some form of compensation for the victims of the epidemic and whether the moral outcry resulting from the U.N.’s irresponsibility will begin to erode the notion that the organization should continue to enjoy diplomatic immunity.”

How to end the Afghan mission

Human beings sometimes crack, as the U.S. Army staff sergeant did at 3 a.m. Sunday when he allegedly left his base outside Kandahar and began killing Afghan civilians in an apparent spasm of rage and frustration. But nations shouldn’t crack. Even under the stress of a war that some days seems to be going horribly wrong, nations should move carefully so they don’t leave more chaos and dead bodies in their wake. Some of the recent events in Afghanistan show the American military mission at its worst: urinating on enemy dead; accidentally burning Korans; a crazed soldier allegedly massacring civilians. We can say that most U.S. troops did nothing of the sort and that such disruptions are rare. But this doesn’t change the reality that, in these moments, we see how war can degrade decent men and nations. The question for policymakers isn’t the nature of war but how to end it. And here, the gut reactions of this week are likely to be misleading — in the sense that they could prompt hasty decisions that bring more loss of civilian life. A retreat under fire is dangerous in any case, but especially a pell-mell retreat that abandons previous strategies for withdrawal. That’s why Newt Gingrich’s sudden conclusion that the war isn’t “doable” is especially unfortunate. What did he think was possible here? If he was looking to force the Taliban to a USS Missouri-style surrender, he’s in the wrong century. President Obama has already said that he intends to “responsibly wind down this war,” as he put it Tuesday. He has agreed with NATO allies to transfer the lead combat role to the Afghans by the middle of next year and withdraw most foreign troops by the end of 2014. It’s a plan framed by both the United States and its most important partners. It’s not something for Americans to discard under duress because they’re angry, aggrieved or even ashamed by recent events. The U.S. strategy has been to shape the Afghanistan we will leave behind after 2014. Almost certainly, that country will be a mess. But as we discovered in Iraq, there’s a difference between the out-of-control, homicidal mess of 2006 and the more controlled mess of 2011, when the last U.S. troops finally departed. The civil war that so many feared hasn’t yet happened. As in Iraq, the United States hopes to create conditions that can contain the disorder. That may sound like a fool’s errand, given Afghanistan’s bloody history, but it’s based on some sensible ideas: Build a good enough Afghan army to hold Kabul and maintain contact with the provinces; negotiate political power-sharing with the Taliban that can avert civil war; and work with Afghanistan’s neighbors to build a firewall that can keep the inevitable violence there from destabilizing the region. That’s a hard strategy to pull off — and even harder after Sunday’s massacre — but not an impossible one. It still looks better than the alternatives, which are guaranteed versions of civil war, partition or both. The administration also hopes to maintain a counterterrorism force in Afghanistan that can prevent al-Qaeda from regaining a safe haven. That’s a platform worth fighting for, although the Iraq example isn’t encouraging about the likelihood of a residual troop presence. When one thinks about how to end the war in Afghanistan, it’s useful to consider the culture of our adversaries. The Pashtuns are good at starting wars, but they also have rituals for stopping them. The core idea is what the Pashtuns call “nanawatay,” in which one of the combatants figuratively goes into the house of the other to settle the feud. A stable settlement is one with the balance of honor that Obama often describes with the phrase “mutual interest and mutual respect.” Obama’s special representative for the region, Marc Grossman, has been holding secret talks with the Taliban for more than a year. Until Sunday, that process seemed to be going in the right direction, toward the Taliban opening an office in Qatar and beginning real peace talks. This track will undoubtedly be harder after Sunday’s rampage, which has given the Taliban’s hard-liners new arguments for resisting negotiations. Grossman has also been talking with neighboring countries about building a structure to keep a future Afghanistan from disintegrating. This regional framework still seems possible, even if the talks with the Taliban prove fruitless. The diplomatic options are uncertain, like U.S. military operations on the ground. But they are part of a withdrawal strategy that looks well-reasoned even after Sunday’s disaster in Kandahar. **_davidignatius@washpost.com _ ** **More on this debate:** Eugene Robinson: End the Afghan mission now The Post’s View: Despite deepening crisis, Afghan strategy is worth saving Fernando Lujan: How to get Afghans to trust us again

Is Israel an ‘apartheid’ state? This U.N. report says yes.

The findings from an Arab-led group were not cleared or fully backed by U.N. leadership and do not set new policies toward Israel. Yet they reflect another attempt to use a U.N. forum to denounce Israel and seek to put its Western allies on the defensive at a time when some have questioned Israel's hard-line approach, including expansion of settlements in the West Bank. Apartheid was a term once associated with South Africa's white-rule system, but now represents a broad term for crimes against humanity under international law and the Rome Statute that set up the International Criminal Court, said the report in its executive summary made public Wednesday. Israelis, who find the term apartheid inaccurate and inflammatory when applied to their conflict with the Palestinians, immediately slammed the report. One government spokesman even compared it to Nazi tabloid Der Sturmer, which promoted Nazi propaganda and was virulently anti-Semitic. The report, published by the U.N.’s Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), also drew sharp criticism from the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, who called it “anti-Israel propaganda.” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres distanced himself from the findings, with spokesman Stephane Dujarric saying the report was published without any prior consultation with the U.N. secretariat. “The report as it stands does not reflect the views of the secretary general,” said Dujarric. Headquartered in Beirut, ESCWA’s membership includes 18 Arab states, two of which — Jordan and Egypt — have peace treaties with Israel. A statement released by Rima Khalaf, a U.N. undersecretary general and executive secretary of the committee, said concluding that a state has established an apartheid regime “is not an easy matter for a United Nations entity.” “In recent years, some have labeled Israeli practices as racist, while others have warned that Israel risks becoming an apartheid state. A few have raised the question as to whether in fact it already has,” she said. Titled, “Israeli Practices Toward the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid,” the report was written by Richard Falk, a former U.N. special rapporteur to the Palestinian territories known for harsh criticisms of both Israel and the United States, and Virginia Tilley, professor of political science at Southern Illinois University. The two concluded that Israel has established an apartheid regime aimed at dominating the Palestinians. Their recommendations include reviving the U.N. Center Against Apartheid, which closed in 1994 after South Africa ended its apartheid practices. The report also urges support for a boycott, divestment and a sanctions campaign against Israel. Dividing the Palestinian people into four distinct groups, the authors write that although they are treated differently by Israel, they all face “the racial oppression that results from the apartheid regime.” The first group identified is the roughly 1.7 million Palestinians who are full citizens of Israel, but who, the report found, live under “martial law” and are subjected to oppression because they are not Jewish. The second group highlighted in the report is the estimated 300,000 Palestinians who live in East Jerusalem, a mostly Arab area. The report said these Palestinians “experience discrimination in access to education, health care, employment, residency and building rights.” The third group includes the 4.6 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank and Gaza. In the West Bank, the Jewish residents known as settlers are governed by Israeli civil law, while Palestinians live under military rule. “This dual legal system, problematic in itself, is indicative of an apartheid regime,” said the authors. The last group discussed in the report are the millions of Palestinian refugees who live outside Israeli territory and who are prohibited from returning to their homes in Israel or the occupied Palestinian territory. “Israel defends its rejection of the Palestinians’ return in frankly racist language: alleging that Palestinians constitute a 'demographic threat' and that their return would alter the demographic character of Israel to the point of eliminating it as a Jewish state,” wrote Falk and Tilley. The report also attempts to refute Israeli explanations as to why this situation exists, namely its claims that Israel has the right to remain a Jewish state or that Israel does not owe Palestinian noncitizens equal treatment precisely because they are not citizens. Some Israelis also claim the country's treatment of Palestinians reflects no intention to dominate, because it is a temporary situation derived from the realities of ongoing conflict and security requirements. “The report shows that none of those arguments stands up to examination,” wrote the authors. Saeb Erekat, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, welcomed the report. “The problem is not the report but the facts that it contains. There's no other word to define what is going on here other than apartheid,” said Erekat, a longtime peace negotiator. Emmanuel Nahshon, spokesman for Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, tweeted that it was a “Der Sturmer like report, NOT endorsed" by the U.N. secretary general. “The attempt to smear and falsely label the only true democracy in the Middle East by creating a false analogy is despicable and constitutes a blatant lie,” said Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, also in a tweet. “The U.N.'s top donors, including the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, and Canada, must stop funding U.N. bodies obsessed with demonizing Israel,” said Gilad Erdan, Israel’s minister of public security and strategic affairs. “This obsession with condemning Israel does nothing to advance peace or help the Palestinians. All countries concerned with promoting a peaceful solution should stop funding bodies that discriminate against Israel, and insist that the U.N. undergo fundamental reforms,” Erdan said. In recent weeks, the U.S. government has indicated that it would consider halting participation in various U.N. programs due to its perceived anti-Israel stance. “The United States stands with our ally Israel and will continue to oppose biased and anti-Israel actions across the U.N. system and around the world,” wrote U.S. ambassador Haley.

Cholera outbreak in Haiti in 2010 tied to U.N. peacekeepers, report says

UNITED NATIONS — A group of scientists who investigated the source of a cholera epidemic in Haiti that killed thousands of people has concluded that U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal probably introduced the strain into the Haitian population. In a report, the scientists concluded that the 2010 outbreak was not the result of “deliberate action” and was caused by a “confluence of factors.” The findings marked a major retreat by the experts, who were part of an independent panel appointed by the United Nations and who had concluded just two years ago that incomplete evidence and the myriad factors in the epidemic’s spread — including inadequate water and sanitation infrastructure — made it impossible to assign responsibility for the introduction of the strain. Since then, the experts said, they have obtained new evidence, including microbiological samples. “The exact source of introduction of cholera into Haiti will never be known with scientific certainty, as it is not possible to travel back in time to conduct the necessary investigations, and those on the ground at the time focused on outbreak response not source introduction,” the panel wrote in its new report. “However, the preponderance of the evidence and the weight of the circumstantial evidence does lead to the conclusion that personnel associated with the . . . MINUSTAH facility were the most likely source of introduction of cholera into Haiti.” MINUSTAH is the acronym of the French translation for the U.N. Mission in Haiti. The U.N. peacekeeping mission was established in 2004 to help bring security and stability to Haiti. In 2010, after a deadly earthquake, the United Nations expanded its presence in the Caribbean nation. In trying to identify the introduction of the cholera strain, the U.N. panel’s new report tracks the arrival of a contingent of Nepalese peacekeepers from Kathmandu to a U.N. encampment in the village of Mirebalais in October 2010. Within days, hospitals in the region registered a dramatic increase in deaths from diarrhea and dehydration, signature symptoms of cholera. The illnesses marked the opening chapter in an epidemic that quickly spread across the country. The report stated that the United Nations had constructed a “haphazard” system of pipes from the U.N. camps’ showers and toilets to six fiberglass tanks. The “black water waste,” which included human feces, was then transferred to an open, unfenced, septic pit, near where children and animals frequently roamed. The system presented “significant potential” for contamination, the report said. The members of the U.N. panel — who no longer work for the world body — defended their initial findings, saying that the “majority of evidence” at the time of their first report was “circumstantial.” The latest findings will increase pressure on the United Nations to acknowledge responsibility for introducing cholera into the country. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his top advisers had invoked the panel’s ambivalent 2010 findings in arguing that the United Nations bore no legal responsibility for the epidemic, although they said the organization was committed to lead international efforts to respond to the health crisis and improve the Haiti’s sanitation infrastructure. The Boston-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti filed a compensation claim in November 2011 on behalf of the families of 5,000 victims, and it is preparing lawsuits against the United Nations in U.S. and Haitian courts on behalf of thousands more.

From Congo, a U.N. peacekeeping mission filled with promise

FOR YEARS, a U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo was a glaring testament to the organization’s fecklessness. The largest such force in the world, with 19,000 troops, the “stabilization mission” cost $1.5 billion a year but utterly failed to pacify eastern Congo, which has been a battleground for warlords and the armies of neighboring powers for nearly two decades. At its low point a year ago, the U.N. blue helmets watched passively as a vicious force of defectors from the Congolese army occupied and ravaged the city of Goma. Now, at last, the U.N. Congo mission has a victory to savor — as well as a potential model for future peacekeeping missions. This month a special U.N. “intervention brigade,” made up of 3,000 soldiers from Tanzania, South Africa and Malawi, joined the Congolese army in routing the defectors, whose M23 militia had been wreaking havoc for 18 months. Fleeing to Uganda, which, along with Rwanda, had been their sponsor, the rebels disbanded and were disarmed. Their military commander, Sultani Makenga, who is wanted for war crimes, is being held by the Ugandan army. A peace deal between Congo’s government and the rebels fell through last week, prompting Uganda to warn that the M23 could revive. But thanks to the United Nations’ unprecedented use of muscle, the region has its best shot at peace in years. The force, authorized last March by the U.N. Security Council, is the first with a mandate to undertake offensive operations. Its presence helped discipline the Congolese army and — combined with heavy pressure from the United States and European Union — induced Rwanda to cease its support for the rebels. Encouragingly, the capable Brazilian commander of the U.N. force, Gen. Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz, has been saying he intends to follow up by taking on the score of smaller militias still operating in eastern Congo. The most significant is the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, which was formed by ethnic Hutu extremists who carried out the 1994 genocide against Rwandan Tutsis. Until that force is eliminated, Rwanda will retain an incentive — an excuse, some say — for backing Congolese proxies. In the meantime, the success in Congo ought to prompt some reflection in the United Nations’ department of peacekeeping operations, which oversees nearly 100,000 troops all over the world. Many of its operations have been embarrassing failures: Consider the mission in southern Lebanon, which since 2006 has stood by while the Hezbollah militia has deployed tens of thousands of missiles aimed at Israel, despite a Security Council mandate to “ensure that its area of operations is not utilized for hostile activities of any kind.” More forces prepared to take the offensive could prevent such debacles or even reverse them; that is what has happened in Congo. **Read more:** The Post’s View: U.S. needs to push for sanctions on Rwanda to help Congo Michael Gerson: Eastern Congo’s rule by the ruthless

Russian veto of U.N. resolution on Srebrenica infuriates U.S., allies

Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution Wednesday commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys and recognizing it as an act of genocide. Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s U.N. ambassador, called the resolution a “confrontational and politically motivated” attempt by its sponsors, including the United States and Britain, to blame one side for the many atrocities committed during the 1990s Balkans conflict. The vote was the latest controversy between Russia and the United States and its European allies. Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said in a statement that the veto was “a further stain on this Council’s record” and called it “madness” to deny what happened in Srebrenica. The Security Council has never formally recognized the massacre as a genocide. Previous U.N. statements and member states have done so, and they have taken responsibility for the failure to protect Srebrenica, which had been declared a U.N. safe zone and was protected by peacekeeping forces. An international gathering is to be held in the Bosnian city Saturday to honor the victims of what former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan called the worst genocide in Europe since World War II, carried out by Bosnian Serb forces beginning July 11, 1995. As he opened the Security Council meeting, Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson said, “We gather in humility and regret to recognize the failure of the United Nations and the international community to prevent this tragedy.” Officials from countries supporting the resolution said it was the subject of intense negotiations this week to avoid a veto. It named no group as responsible for the Srebrenica genocide, and the text acknowledged responsibility for atrocities during the war by all sides. But Russia, one of the five permanent Security Council members with veto power, balked at using the term “genocide,” said officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the closed-door negotiations. China, Venezuela, Angola and Nigeria abstained, while the 10 other members voted in favor of the resolution. International tribunals long ago placed the blame for the Srebrenica killings on an autonomous Bosnian Serb republic that existed at the time; its political and military leaders are facing war crimes trials. The Dayton Accords in late 1995 brought an uneasy end to the three-year Bosnian war. Russia has retained close ties with Serbia, whose leaders have charged that attempts to highlight the Srebrenica genocide undermine their nation’s reputation and impede reconciliation efforts in the Balkans. Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic said Russia proved itself a true friend by preventing attempts to “smear the entire Serbian nation as genocidal,” according to news reports from Belgrade. Churkin, the Russian envoy, opened his Security Council remarks by asking for a moment of silence to “honor the dead of Srebrenica,” and he said Russia fully recognized the tragedy that took place there. “We tried to make sure the document was balanced,” he said of the resolution, and “proposed an alternative option.” Instead, he said, its authors had opted for wording that was “not constructive, confrontational and politically motivated,” an approach that he said “singled out one party for a war crime.” Power, who wrote extensively as a journalist and author about genocide in the Balkans and elsewhere, said in her statement after the vote that “this Council did everything in its power to get Russia on board,” including “not even mentioning the perpetrators.” But Russia, she said, considered a reference to genocide a “redline” and vetoed “a well-   established fact documented by hundreds of thousands of pages of witness testimony, photographic evidence and forensic evidence.” “A number of countries today have chosen to remain neutral” by abstaining in the vote, Power said, asking “how any country could use the privilege of permanent membership on this Council to negate what happened.” Britain, whose delegation drafted the resolution, expressed outrage. “Genocide occurred at Srebrenica. This is a legal fact, not a political judgment,” said Peter Wilson, the country’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations. “On this, there is no compromise.”

Exclusive: U.S.-funded Somali intelligence agency has been using kids as spies

MOGADISHU, Somalia — For years they were children at war, boys given rifles and training by al-Qaeda-backed militants and sent to the front lines of this country’s bloody conflict. Many had been kidnapped from schools and soccer fields and forced to fight. The United Nations pleaded for them to be removed from the battlefield. The United States denounced the Islamist militants for using children to plant bombs and carry out assassinations. But when the boys were finally disarmed — some defecting and others apprehended — what awaited them was yet another dangerous role in the war. This time, the children say, they were forced to work for the Somali government. The boys were used for years as informants by the country’s National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA), according to interviews with the children and Somali and U.N. officials. They were marched through neighborhoods where al-Shabab insurgents were hiding and told to point out their former comrades. The faces of intelligence agents were covered, but the boys — some as young as 10 — were rarely concealed, according to the children. Several of them were killed. One tried to hang himself while in custody. The Somali agency’s widespread use of child informants, which has not been previously documented, appears to be a flagrant violation of international law. It raises difficult questions for the U.S. government, which for years has provided substantial funding and training to the Somali agency through the CIA, according to current and former U.S. officials. A CIA spokesman declined to comment on the issue. But in the past the U.S. government has supported Somali security institutions — despite well-known human rights violations — citing the urgent need to combat terrorist groups such as al-Shabab. The child informants were used to collect intelligence or identify suspects in some of the world’s most dangerous neighborhoods, according to their accounts. “They took me sometimes in a car and sometimes on foot and said, ‘Tell us who is al-Shabab,’ ” recalled one 15-year-old who said he was held by the intelligence agency. “It’s scary because you know everyone can see you working with them.” The teenager was one of eight boys interviewed by The Washington Post who described being forced to work as informants after leaving al-Shabab. The boys each spoke alone, through an interpreter, but their accounts were nearly identical. They said they spent years in the custody of intelligence agents and were dragged along on missions, sometimes several times a week. Occasionally, they were told to wear NISA uniforms. They were threatened with violence if they didn’t cooperate, several boys said. Their parents didn’t know where they were. Somali intelligence agents called the boys “far-muuq,” they said — finger-pointers. Somalia’s army has long recruited children as soldiers. But for years, U.N. and human rights officials found it difficult to confirm reports about a shadowy government-run center in Mogadishu, which was said to hold children used in intelligence operations. Only late last year did U.N. officials persuade Somali authorities to transfer the boys to a new rehabilitation center, where they would not be accessible to intelligence agents, according to U.N. and Somali officials. That is where The Post interviewed the children. Somalia’s intelligence chief denied in an interview that the boys were forced to work as informants but said that “high-level” child combatants were — and still are — kept in custody, because they are dangerous and have valuable knowledge. Those boys, he said, sometimes volunteer to go on missions and have yielded “important information” that has helped agents prevent attacks. “If a child joins al-Shabab when he is 9, by the time he is 16, he is a lion,” NISA’s director, Gen. Abdirahman Turyare, said in an interview. “They are able to point to someone and tell us, ‘That guy, he fought with me.’ ” Somalia’s intelligence agency continues to keep such boys for months at a time, Turyare acknowledged, in spite of a 2014 agreement to release children to UNICEF within 72 hours of their escaping al-Shabab or being apprehended. Although details of the CIA’s operations in Somalia are secret, Somali officials said the two agencies work together closely. “There’s nothing NISA does that the CIA doesn’t know about,” said a senior Somali official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence issues. During Somalia’s 25-year civil war, which has shifted among rebel factions, clans and Islamist groups and left hundreds of thousands dead, children have constantly been caught up in the fighting. In 2015, UNICEF recorded more than 300 cases of children being used as soldiers by Somali forces. That practice would normally trigger a U.S. ban on most military aid, but President Obama has granted Somalia a waiver on national security grounds in recent years. Al-Shabab, which seeks to transform the country into a hard-line Islamic state, has been even more notorious for recruiting children. In some parts of Somalia, the group has ransacked classrooms, kidnapping hundreds of children and sending them to training camps. The international community, recognizing that child combatants needed to be assimilated back into Somali society, lobbied in recent years for a reintegration program. And the government in 2012 launched a plan that it said would provide former underage soldiers with psychological help and education. But according to the boys interviewed in Mogadishu, the program they entered was not about rehabilitation. To their surprise, the teens were put to work gathering intelligence. “Maybe they thought because we were young we would be easier to manipulate,” said one baby-faced 15-year-old who goes by the nickname Yariso, or “Shorty.” The boys became such fixtures in Somali security operations that witnesses began alerting local humanitarian groups, asking, “Who are these children with NISA?” In late 2015, after years of pressure from the United Nations, the children were quietly transferred from the government-run detention center to a juvenile rehabilitation facility in central Mogadishu at the Elman Peace and Human Rights Center, which is run by a nonprofit group and receives its funding from UNICEF. Thirty-three of the boys remain. Thirty-one have been released. But international aid workers and experts suspect that the use of boys as informants continues. One Somali security official confirmed that “hundreds” of children remain in NISA facilities and are used as intelligence assets. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the topic. In Galkayo, in central Somalia, about 30 former child combatants have been kept in a one-room building since being captured in late March and have faced NISA interrogations, according to several relief workers. In 2015, Somalia ratified the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which outlaws the recruitment of children younger than 15 by security forces. Such recruitment is considered a war crime by the International Criminal Court. The majority of the former underage soldiers interviewed by The Post said they began working as informants before they turned 15. Turyare, the intelligence chief, shrugged off humanitarian groups’ concerns. “The angle [that UNICEF] is responsible for and the angle we are responsible for is different,” he said. Other officials said the distinction between child and adult combatants is blurrier in Somalia than in Western countries. For example, in Puntland, a large, semiautonomous region in northern Somalia, the state constitution says anyone older than 14 is considered an adult. “Here we consider the body, not the age,” said Maj. Gen. Mohamed Sheikh Hamud, Somalia’s police commissioner and former head of intelligence. U.N. officials in Somalia declined to speak on the record about the intelligence agency’s use of child informants. But Leila Zerrougui, the New York-based special representative of the U.N. secretary general for children and armed conflict, said that being an informant “puts the lives of children in danger and is one of the most dangerous functions they can assume.” During their years as informants, the boys said, they sometimes were used in operations in Mogadishu and sometimes in towns hours away. Somali agents never told the boys when they would be released from detention, the children said. “We just assumed we would be working for NISA for the rest of our lives,” said one 16-year-old boy, who, like the other teens, declined to give his full name for security reasons. He agreed to be identified only by his nickname, Hanad. Another boy, Abdullah, said he was 13 when he joined al-Shabab. By then, the majority of his classmates in a small town in southern Somalia had been recruited. The group’s members didn’t seem to him like terrorists. They offered protection from rival clans and other al-Shabab members. After about two years of fighting with al-Shabab, Abdullah had had enough. He called an uncle and told him that he planned to defect. The uncle called intelligence agents to pick him up. Abdullah assumed they would interrogate him for a few days before sending him to a rehabilitation center or releasing him. But the agents kept Abdullah in their custody for more than two years, he said. Sometimes agents would cordon off a neighborhood and walk a few steps behind Abdullah through the area, he said. He would motion with his hand when he saw someone for the agents to arrest. “On those trips I saw a lot of family members and friends who were in al-Shabab. I knew if I picked them out, they would be in the same position as me,” Abdullah said. “Sometimes I said nothing. I told the agents, ‘I’ve run out of people.’ ” On some missions, agents gave Abdullah $2 for every suspect he pointed out, he said. Other children said they told intelligence agents some information they thought was real — where ammunition was hidden, for example — but also made things up. “I told them what they wanted to hear,” said Salam, 17. “I thought that would mean I could be freed earlier.” Some boys were taken to a military court to testify against suspects, according to several of the children. A number of the boys were detained by NISA for more than four years, the teens said. In recent years, U.N. officials received reports that children had been seen being paraded around by Somali intelligence agents. Gaining access to the boys, however, proved difficult. In 2012, a contingent of U.N. officials and foreign military officers made an appointment to visit the center where the boys were kept. “But when we arrived, NISA wouldn’t let us in. They gave no reason. We could see the children through the fence outside, but we couldn’t speak to them,” said a military official from an African nation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the incident. It would be three more years before the children were transferred to the Elman Center, a two-story building in downtown Mogadishu where the boys learn reading and writing, basic computer skills and a bit of English. On a recent day at the center, boys crowded around a blackboard that listed several functions of a computer. “Open a file,” the instructor had written. “Save a file.” “We still have a long way to go, but the leadership displayed by the minister of internal security to remove the children from the facility and hand them over to us for care and rehabilitation is a step in the right direction,” said Ilwad Elman, the center’s director of programs and the daughter of its namesake, Elman Ali Ahmed, a Somali human rights activist who was assassinated in 1996. In 2008, the U.S. Congress passed the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, which was intended to block military assistance to countries that “recruit and use child soldiers.” Every year after it took effect, the State Department has found that the Somali military has been recruiting children, although there has been no mention of child informants. But under a “national interest” waiver, the United States allocated $330 million to Somalia this year, much of which has gone to the security sector. Three other countries — Nigeria, South Sudan and Congo — also received a waiver in 2015 despite using underage soldiers. A State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said the waiver was granted so that the U.S. government could help Somalia develop its army and police and improve stability. “While more progress is needed, the government of Somalia has taken initial steps to implement its U.N.-backed child soldier action plan,” the official said. She added that the State Department had “not heard reports” of the child informants. In a letter last year to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), CIA Director John Brennan addressed the question of how the agency reacts when one of its foreign partners is found conducting human rights abuses. “If we determine that such abuses have occurred, we carefully assess whether national security imperatives warrant continuing contact” with the ally, Brennan wrote. If the relationship continues, he wrote, the CIA provides human rights training so the abuses are less likely to occur. Critics say that in trying to crack down on a group linked to al-Qaeda, the United States and other donors have ignored human rights abuses. Laetitia Bader, a Somalia researcher for Human Rights Watch, said the Obama administration’s decision to continue providing military aid “sends exactly the wrong message not only to the Somali army, but to all Somali security forces, that they can continue to use children without any consequences to their relationship with the U.S.” In Mogadishu, as the former child combatants await their release from the Elman Center, they have a strong sense of what will come next: retribution. “Once you’re labeled as an informant, there’s nothing for you. Where can you go?” said one 17-year-old, who said he had worked with the intelligence agency since he was 14. One boy who was released and tried to return to his neighborhood was shot at by insurgents and returned to the center, Elman said. “Some children are in such great danger because of their time as informants that we have to relocate them and their families to new regions,” Elman said. When the boys imagine their future, they think about the way people treated them during their days as informants. “You can feel all the hatred. The revenge that person wants on you. But you don’t have a choice,” said one 17-year-old boy with spiky hair and wide brown eyes, nicknamed Madowe. His parents live in a part of the country under partial control of insurgents. “I have no future in Somalia,” he said. “I have no faith that I can live while al-Shabab is in the country.” Greg Miller and Carol Morello   in Washington contributed to   this report.

Girls get up-close look at United Nations

Ceci Nogueira and Alex Waterman have imagined what it would be like to visit the United Nations dozens of times. As members of their school’s Model U.N. team, they are used to taking on the roles of diplomats and negotiators. They have sat at round tables, made speeches and tried to picture what it would be like to be responsible for resolving the world’s most dire crises. Last Tuesday, they finally experienced the real thing. Ceci and Alex were invited to a U.N. reception in New York in recognition of a video they made thanking peacekeepers for their work. The two D.C. seventh-graders were the youngest of five students from around the country to win the U.N.’s “Thank a Peacekeeper” contest. The pair’s interest in the project was sparked by Michael Martini, their geography teacher at Alice Deal Middle School. It was in his class that they learned about the United Nations — the organization created to promote international cooperation — and peacekeepers, which are military and police officials who work in crisis zones on the United Nations’ behalf. Right now, there are 16 U.N. peacekeeping operations being conducted on four continents. Their responsibilities range from assisting countries hit by diseases and natural disasters to monitoring peace agreements between nations that were once at war. The more Alex learned about the work that peacekeepers do, the more she was inspired to create something for them. “To have to go in these scary situations and try and resolve these conflicts that might not ever be resolved, that’s pretty impressive,” she said. She and Ceci teamed up to produce a video that would show their — and their entire neighborhood’s — gratitude. They filmed family members, friends and neighbors holding signs bearing messages such as “Moms and dads support peacekeepers” and “Gymnasts give thanks to you.” The two girls didn’t expect their video to win but were thrilled when it did. The invitation to New York meant that they were able to talk to peacekeepers and shake hands with Edmond Mulet, assistant secretary general for peacekeeping operations. “The most meaningful moment was when people were talking to us about being excited to share the video with their colleagues,” Ceci said. “I felt really honored and surprised.” **— Sarah Kaplan  **

John Kerry and Susan Rice: South Sudan’s leaders need to set aside their dispute

_John F. Kerry is secretary of state. Susan E. Rice is national security adviser._ _I_ n 2011, the world’s newest nation was born amid joyous celebrations. The international community welcomed South Sudan not just with cheers but also with promises of help. The hope and promise of that day are now at grave risk of being squandered if the nation’s leaders don’t at long last provide leadership. Violence that erupted in the capital city of Juba last December spread quickly, claiming the lives of thousands of men, women, and children and reopening bitter ethnic divisions. In the time since, almost 2 million people have been displaced from their homes, while residents in some parts of the country face the risk of famine. In a country that has so much potential and that has endured decades of conflict, the suffering and violence have had a devastating effect. The tragedy is especially hard to accept because the violence was not imposed on South Sudan by outside forces; instead it was unleashed by a political dispute among the country’s leaders. Now, the responsibility is on their shoulders to halt the bloodshed and bring their country together. After months of delay and false pledges, both sides must return to negotiations, make necessary compromises and finally end this conflict without further delay. Barren vows and rosy words are not enough; too many people have died while too many promises have been broken. It is past time for South Sudan’s leaders to take responsibility and end the fighting. To move forward, a transitional government with a mandate to create security agencies that protect all of South Sudan’s people — regardless of ethnicity or political alignment — is imperative. That government must develop a transparent system for managing the country’s resources and agree on an inclusive constitutional drafting process that focuses on improved governance. Given the level of past violence, a reconciliation plan must also be established, accompanied by efforts to investigate atrocities and ensure that those involved are held accountable for their crimes. The South Sudanese people have many friends throughout the world, and none is more committed to their future than the United States. But the full value of those friendships cannot be realized unless and until the country’s leaders put the interests of their people above their own grievances. The United States and our international partners have organized a massive humanitarian aid effort, supported a U.N. peacekeeping force whose members have risked their lives to save civilians and made repeated efforts to encourage reconciliation and a return to peace. We have worked with local and regional partners to document human rights abuses and support religious leaders as they work for reconciliation. All this is helpful, but none of it will be enough in the absence of effective leadership. Working in close cooperation with our regional and international partners, we will continue to increase pressure on the parties until the violence ends. But we must also be clear that those who choose the path of continued conflict and destruction will face greater consequences. We do not have the luxury of time. In South Sudan, hunger is often a threat, but when the cycle of planting and harvesting is disrupted, when grazing lands are turned into battlegrounds and when humanitarian convoys are subject to attack, the threat becomes a crisis and the lives of millions hang in the balance. With each passing day, the ranks of the hungry and malnourished grow. This suffering will end only when the guns fall silent. On this sad anniversary, we salute the men and women of South Sudan who still strive each day on behalf of peace. Our thoughts are with the leaders of the faith communities and civil society groups who have rejected hatred and embraced compassion and with the neighbors who have sheltered and safeguarded one another. South Sudan’s leaders would be wise to follow their people’s example. The two of us have traveled to South Sudan many times. We know the country’s promise and have seen firsthand the dedication, courage and incredible resilience of its people. We have witnessed the costs of conflict and shared in the exhilaration when it appeared that the years of fighting had given way to a new era of freedom and peace. We remember the long lines of voters standing and waiting with patient exuberance to vote in their country’s referendum and joined with the crowds on independence day to celebrate the realization of peaceful self-determination. Now, the whole world is watching to see what the leaders of South Sudan will do. Will they continue on the path of conflict and condemn their country to another year of suffering? Or will they make the hard choices, work together and restore to their country the hope that its citizens so richly deserve? For the sake of all the people of South Sudan, the choice must be for peace. **Read more on this topic:** Michael Gerson: As South Sudan becomes new nation, old conflicts remain The Post’s View: Saving South Sudan from chaos The Post’s View: In South Sudan, more violence to come The Post’s View: The political settlement South Sudan needs

Five Indian U.N. peacekeepers killed in South Sudan

UNITED NATIONS — A force of about 200 unidentified armed assailants ambushed a supply convoy in South Sudan on Tuesday, killing five U.N. peacekeepers and seven civilians, U.N. officials said. The ambush marked the deadliest armed attack on the United Nations since the region became engulfed in intercommunal violence between warring ethnic groups. It also raised concerns that the United Nations has become a target in that violence. All five peacekeepers were identified as Indian nationals. “This was a direct targeted attack against the United Nations; this was not a case of us getting caught in the crossfire,” said Kieran Dwyer, a spokesman for the United Nations’ peacekeeping department. “It was a sustained attack with the intention to kill and sustain a firefight.” The U.N. convoy, which included 18 civilians and a protection force of more than 30 peacekeepers, was traveling in Jonglei state when it came under fire, Dwyer said. The U.N. peacekeepers, he said, “fought back hard” and prevented the assailants from overwhelming the convoy and “killing everyone.” The U.N. Security Council issued a statement condemning the attack, offering condolences to India and the families of the victims, and calling on the South Sudanese government to “swiftly investigate the incident and bring the perpetrators to justice.” The attack is also expected to prompt a review of the U.N. force’s security procedures. Hilde Johnson, a Norwegian national who serves as the U.N. special representative for South Sudan, expressed condolences to the families of the dead and vowed the United Nations’ support for peace efforts in the region. “This attack will not deter UNMISS [the U.N. Mission in the Republic of South Sudan] and its peacekeepers from working to protect vulnerable communities in South Sudan,” Johnson said. For years, Jonglei state has been the scene of fighting between the Murle and Lou Nuer communities, who have engaged in deadly tit-for-tat cattle raids. The fighting peaked in December 2011, when thousands of young men from the Lou Nuer attacked the town of Pibor, burning homes and killing more than 1,000 people. Trying to restore calm, South Sudan’s army has sought to disarm the groups. But the effort has been marred by reports of government human rights abuses, particularly targeting the Murle, who suspect that the government favors their rivals and have refused to turn over their weapons, according to Jehanne Henry, a researcher with Human Rights Watch. “It’s clear that Jonglei is a problem that has not been solved,” Henry said.

Sudan leader says he has been wrongly maligned over Darfur conflict

KHARTOUM, Sudan — From his office overlooking this sprawling capital, Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir watched as his country seemed to fall off the world’s radar. For the only head of state with an outstanding arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, it was welcome news — a sign that his accusers had moved on. It might mean that U.S. sanctions would be lifted, peacekeepers would depart and the world would be forced to acknowledge his claim about Darfur: that peace in the war-torn state, where Bashir is accused of having committed genocide and war crimes, was “getting wider and wider and deeper and deeper.” **_[Read the transcript of our interview with President Bashir.] _ ** That is not what is happening in Darfur, according to the United Nations and international aid agencies. This year, nearly half a million people were displaced in a region the size of Spain, and violence is the worst it has been in years. But Bashir doesn’t buy those numbers or assessments, he said last week in his first interview with a U.S. media outlet in more than five years. That vast gulf between how the world sees Darfur and how Bashir sees it reflects not only the controversial policies of the 70-year-old leader but also the challenge of ending a protracted conflict whose very existence is still a source of controversy. Now, Bashir has a demand: He wants the U.N. peacekeeping mission — the biggest in the world — out of Sudan. “The area of peace has expanded in Sudan to the extent that there is no need for these forces to stay,” he said, adding that the U.N. force is so weak that “even a pedestrian with a knife can take their weapons away.” The United States and other nations have tried for years to marginalize Bashir. Because of the ICC warrant, he can visit only the few countries that have pledged not to arrest him. Because of U.S. sanctions, credit cards do not exist in Sudan. During his 25 years in office, Bashir has repeatedly found himself at the center of global events. For five years in the 1990s, his government gave refuge to Osama bin Laden. He presided over the only conflict in the 21st century that the United States has deemed a genocide. And in 2011, he agreed to allow the secession of South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, which promptly descended into chaos. Now, as he gets ready for yet another term, Bashir is looking to throw out the U.N. mission while simultaneously pleading for the lifting of U.S. sanctions. He says that the sanctions continue to damage his country’s economy and that he met American demands that he not harbor terrorists, agree to the secession of South Sudan and sign the ultimately unsuccessful Darfur Peace Agreement. But even as he articulates interest in reengaging with the United States, at least economically, he derides the U.S. interest in Darfur as a hollow political charade. The conflict began in 2003 when rebel groups in Darfur rose up against Bashir’s administration for neglecting the region. The government responded by waging a brutal counterinsurgency campaign, mostly by employing Arab militias known as the Janjaweed. That, too, is something Bashir denies. More than a decade later, humanitarian aid workers’ access to Darfur is limited, with the Sudanese security apparatus sometimes flatly denying travel permits. In 2009, Bashir kicked out more than a dozen aid groups, accusing them of collaborating with the ICC. The departure of U.N. peacekeepers would be a victory for Bashir, but some aid officials argue that it would have disastrous implications. “Without the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur, the Darfur situation would be worse than Rwanda of 1994,” said a senior U.N. official in Sudan. The number of internally displaced people — 2.5 million according to the United Nations, but only a fraction of that according to the Sudanese government — is another topic that Bashir interprets in a wildly different way from the rest of the world. “To them, it is an easy life,” he said of the displaced. “They would rather stay in these camps than go back and work.” Bashir has refused to accept the international community’s explanation for what is happening in Darfur — that the region is unraveling and the Sudanese government is not only refusing to disarm key groups but also actively abetting the conflict. In 2006, Congress voted to keep sanctions in place as long as that support continues, and it hasn’t reconsidered that status. In his leather armchair, Bashir shook his head at the idea that the U.S. policy is grounded in reality. “Unfortunately, the Darfur problem has become an internal United States issue to serve political ends,” he said, referring to President Obama, who famously called the deaths in Darfur a genocide when he ran for president in 2008. These days, there are dozens of isolated intertribal clashes in Darfur, often over land and gold mining, and sometimes between members of the same ethnic group. Other conflicts rage in the Sudanese states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile. Allegations have emerged that Bashir and his government are more directly behind the surge in violence. Over the past year, he has formed a group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), now the country’s best-armed and best-outfitted unit, which has pursued Darfuri rebel groups, Bashir said. “They were very successful,” Bashir said. “They dealt a very severe blow to the rebels in Darfur.” But analysts say the RSF is effectively a better-funded version of the Janjaweed, burning villages and indiscriminately attacking civilians using many of the same fighters as the former militia. “The RSF are indisputably a state organ on a publicly-vaunted state-directed mission to terrorize Sudan’s marginalized communities,” said a report from the Enough Project, a Washington-based nonprofit group. Bashir denies those allegations. “Wherever they go, they are welcomed by the people,” he said. “They are commended by the people because they deliver services to the people.” The fundamental goal of the security forces, he said, is to prevent civil unrest and hunt down those he refers to as “terrorists.” That’s why the RSF was created, he said, and that’s why, in September 2013, the Sudanese police and military killed dozens of civilians involved in anti-government demonstrations. Bashir said the protesters were attempting to destroy government property and assaulting police. “If these events happened in the United States, would the government allow people to go?” he asked. “Of course, we have examples in the United States. Even someone in his car who is asked to raise his hands and refuses, he will be shot. We’ve seen it. Especially if he is black.” In spite of the many accusations against him, Bashir doesn’t appear to be nearing the end of his reign. In 2011, he announced that he would step down from the presidency. But months later, he accepted his party’s nomination. In 2013, he said the decision to step down was this time “definite, God willing.” A year later, he announced that he had changed his mind again at the urging of his party. Elections are in April, and he stands almost no chance of losing, experts say. Asked whether he intends to be president for life, Bashir laughed. “There are pressures from my own party and other Sudanese parties also, and I succumb to those pressures. But I hope as soon as possible I can find an exit out of this,” he said. Earlier this year, Bashir made an attempt to hold a public conversation with his political opponents. He called it a “national dialogue” and held up the initiative as proof of his inclusive governing style. But within weeks, instead of joining the dialogue, rebel groups and the unarmed political opposition in Sudan signed their own pact, pledging to “dismantle the one-party state regime.” It appeared to be a blow to Bashir’s effort at a detente. But he brushed it off. “I’m sure through time, when the process goes forward, many of them will come and join the process,” he said.

U.N. observers in Syria shot at in attempt to reach massacre site

UNITED NATIONS — Syrian President Bashar al-Assad today faced mounting international condemnation at the United Nations on Thursday as Syrian forces blocked U.N. monitors from investigating a fresh massacre site in a village near the city of Hama. The standoff came as special emissary Kofi Annan acknowledged that his six-point plan for a political transition in Syria has reached a dead end, with both sides refusing to implement it. He said a reinvigorated diplomatic push would be required to avert a full-fledged civil war, and he warned for the first time that any party blocking a political transition should face unspecified “consequences.” U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the monitors came under small-arms fire Thursday as they tried to reach the site of the reported new massacre in Qubair, a small village in Hama province. Speaking at a U.N. General Assembly session, Ban said the incident occurred after the U.N. monitors were blocked from entering Qubair to investigate the alleged killings. Ban provided no details on who had fired at the monitors or whether there were any injuries. U.N. monitors have frequently been fired at since they arrived in Syria to monitor a fragile cease-fire. Ban condemned the reported massacre as “an unspeakable barbarity” and called on the Syrian government to immediately implement the U.N.-backed peace plan. The reported killing Wednesday of as many as 78 civilians, most of them women and children, added to mounting pressure on Assad, 46, who has ruled Syria since his father’s death in 2000. “Clearly, the time has come to determine what more can be done to secure implementation of the [six-point] plan — and what other options exist to address the crisis,” Annan, a former U.N. secretary general, told the U.N. General Assembly at a special session on Syria attended by Ban and Nabil Elaraby, the head of the Arab League. “If things do not change, the future is likely to be one of brutal repression, massacres, sectarian violence, and even all-out civil war. All Syrians will lose.” With U.N. observers blocked from reaching the site, it was not immediately possible to confirm that 78 people were killed Wednesday afternoon in Qubair, a small Sunni hamlet northwest of Hama that is surrounded by villages populated by members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect. But activists and residents contacted in the area described circumstances similar to those in Houla, a Sunni village northwest of Homs where 108 civilians were massacred on May 25, allegedly by pro-government militiamen known as shabiha from the surrounding Alawite villages aided by the security forces. Qubair resident Laith Hamawi said his mother and six brothers were among the victims. He said he was about half a mile away in his olive fields when he saw security forces and shabiha members converge on the village of about 150 residents from three directions. “I was scared to move, so I hid,” he said. For several hours, he said, he heard shooting and tank fire and saw houses burning. After the troops left, he returned home and found the bodies of his mother and four brothers, he said. The bodies of two other brothers were apparently taken away by the departing security forces, he said. “We moved through the houses and saw the dead bodies of women, children and the elderly,” Hamawi said. Most of those killed were from the Yateem family, and 40 were women and children, other activists said. They said government forces took at least 30 of the corpses with them and that other bodies were burned when homes were set on fire. Residents waited much of the day to show the bodies to U.N. monitors, but when they did not arrive, the villagers buried the remaining dead. The official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) denied as “absolutely baseless” the reports that Assad loyalists had carried out the killings. Government forces moved into the area and killed “terrorists” after an “armed terrorist group” murdered nine women and children, the agency said. Hamawi said his cousin was seized by the security forces at the entrance to the village when he heard the U.N. monitors were on the way. Hamawi said he later saw his cousin on the pro-government al-Dunia television station testifying that “armed gangs” had killed the victims. Annan, the U.N. special envoy, has been seeking support for a plan to set up a new negotiating bloc — or contact group — including representatives from the United States, Russia, Iran and other regional and global powers, according to diplomats familiar with the proposal. The group would be tasked with drawing up a transitional plan, including presidential and parliamentary elections, and using their influence to persuade the rival parties to accept it. Despite Annan’s call for unity, there remained sharp differences between, on the one hand, Western and Arab governments, which favor the imposition of sanctions on Syria, and, on the other, China and Russia, which have resisted sanctions and oppose any international effort to oust the Syrian leadership. In Washington, White House press secretary Jay Carney issued a statement calling on “all nations to abandon support for this brutal and illegitimate regime, and to join together to support a political transition in Syria — one that upholds the promise of a future for which far too many have already died.” “The United States strongly condemns the outrageous targeted killings of civilians,” including women and children in Qubair. He denounced Assad’s “continued abdication of responsibility for these horrific acts,” which “only further underscores the illegitimate and immoral nature of his rule.” As the scale of the killings became clear, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton convened a meeting with European and Middle Eastern counterparts in Istanbul, where she was attending a conference on counterterrorism. “The regime-sponsored violence that we witnessed again in Hama yesterday is simply unconscionable,” Clinton said at a joint news conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. “Assad has doubled down on his brutality and duplicity, and Syria will not, cannot, be peaceful, stable or, certainly, democratic until Assad goes.” Ban, meanwhile, presented the U.N. General Assembly with a gloomy assessment of conditions in Syria, warning that the prospects for peace were slipping away and that the “dangers of full-scale civil war are imminent and real.” He held Assad primarily responsible for the worsening violence in Syria. “For many months, it has been evident that President Assad and his government have lost all legitimacy,” he said. The slaughter of civilians in the village of Houla two weeks ago “brought this fact into horrifying focus,” Ban said. “Men, women, even children were executed at point-blank range, some of their throats slit or skulls crushed.” Expressing revulsion at the “shocking and sickening” reports of new massacres in Qubair and the village of Kafr Zeta, Ban said that U.N. monitors seeking to visit the site were blocked by a Syrian army checkpoint and fired upon by unspecified gunmen as they approached the village. “A village apparently surrounded by Syrian forces, the bodies of innocent civilians lying there, they were shot, some allegedly burned or slashed with knives,” he said. “We condemn this unspeakable barbarity.” Syria’s U.N. envoy, Bashar al-Jaafari, denied that his government was responsible for the killings in Qubair or the earlier massacre at Houla. Jaafari accused “armed groups” aligned with the opposition of committing “serious violations of human rights” in an effort to derail the peace process. He also faulted Ban for accusing Syria of responsibility for the Houla massacre before the United Nations has concluded its own investigation into the killings. Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, the Norwegian leader of the U.N. observer mission in Syria, said some monitors trying to reach Qubair “are being stopped by civilians in the area.” Mood also quoted residents as saying the safety of the observers could be at risk if they entered the small village, a cluster of farmhouses with a population of just a few hundred people about 12 miles northwest of Hama. Observers are still trying to reach the village, but the U.N. mission “is concerned about the restriction imposed on its movements, as it will impede our ability to monitor, observe and report,” Mood added. Sly reported from Beirut. Staff writer Joby Warrick in Washington and special correspondent Suzan Haidamous in Beirut contributed to this report.

U.S. should push for sanctions on Rwanda to help Congo

BACK IN January, President Obama rationalized his refusal to act in Syria in part by asking, in an interview with the New Republic, “How do I weigh tens of thousands who’ve been killed in Syria versus the tens of thousands who are currently being killed in the Congo?” Since then, his administration has supported a vigorous campaign of diplomacy and military intervention to stop the bloodshed in . . . Congo. This worthy effort now faces its first serious test. A United Nations-sponsored conference in February produced a peace framework; in March the U.N. Security Council authorized a 3,000-strong “intervention brigade,” the first in U.N. history, to carry out offensive operations against armed groups. The force, composed of troops from South Africa, Malawi and Tanzania, is due to be fully deployed by next month — and it appears that its services will soon be needed. This month fighting has erupted between the Congolese army and a rebel group called M23 after months of relative calm. Thousands of people were forced to flee their homes in North Kivu province, where there are already nearly 1 million displaced civilians. The scale of recent bloodshed in Congo is in no way comparable to that in Syria, but it stems from a chronic conflict that has repeatedly convulsed Africa’s Great Lakes region. With the Congolese government in faraway Kinshasa unable to control the region, neighboring countries — beginning with Rwanda — have repeatedly intervened. Rwanda originally sought to protect itself from Hutu militias that fled its territory after carrying out a 1994 genocide, but over the years it has developed economic interests in Congo and close ties with Congolese Tutsis. According to a new report by Human Rights Watch, Rwanda is backing M23 despite its commitment at the February peace conference to stop sponsoring Congolese militias. The report says M23 has carried out scores of murders and rapes since March. It is not the only offender: Government troops are also guilty of abuses, as are smaller militias allied with one of the two sides. M23 may be trying to gain advantage ahead of the U.N. force’s deployment, which is why it’s important that the force begin to act on its mandate as soon as possible. The Obama administration continues to focus on the problem: Secretary of State John F. Kerry is due to lead a ministerial discussion on Congo at the United Nations on Thursday. Mr. Kerry can be expected to remonstrate in private with representatives of Rwanda — which unconvincingly denies links to M23 — but he ought to speak out publicly about the violations as well. The United States and European governments, longtime supporters of Rwanda, suspended some aid last year after M23 briefly seized the city of Goma. Now they need to threaten further sanctions, while also offering Rwanda incentives, including economic carrots, that will allow it to beat a face-saving retreat from Congo once and for all. **Read more on this topic:** The Post’s View: Obama can’t skirt tough issues in Africa The Post’s View: War looms once again in Congo Michael Gerson: Africa, empowered

Stopping South Sudan’s downward spiral

THE UNITED States played a key role in the arrival of South Sudan as Africa’s 54th nation in 2011. President George W. Bush helped broker a north-south peace agreement in 2005, ending a civil war that claimed nearly 2 million lives. President Obama rallied the world to rescue that peace agreement a few years later when it was falling apart. The creation of the nation was celebrated as proof, as then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put it, that “peace is possible if people are willing to make hard choices and stand by them.” Susan E. Rice, the White House national security adviser, said one of her major accomplishments as United Nations ambassador was “helping midwife the birth of the world’s newest nation, South Sudan.” But now South Sudan is spiraling into the kind of war, chaos and human suffering that Mr. Obama’s appointees — including Ms. Rice and the current U.N. ambassador, Samantha Power — have vowed never to let happen again. Reports are mounting of violence against innocent civilians and mass hunger. The United States, a beacon of hope in the past, now must exercise more leverage and commitment to save South Sudan. The current crisis began in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former vice president, Riek Machar, of staging a coup attempt. The conflict mushroomed into a civil war. Some 1.5 million people remain displaced inside the country and 520,000 more have fled across the borders. More than 2.5 million people face food insecurity and the total is rising. War is preventing people from trading, planting crops and moving livestock. The economy is on the verge of collapse. Oxfam, with a team working to provide humanitarian aid, warns that there are “alarming rates of malnutrition and hunger.” Efforts are underway to distribute vital seeds and tools to farmers for the upcoming planting season, but they could be upended by fighting. The Kiir-Machar conflict always had an underlying tension between South Sudan’s two major ethnic groups, the Dinka and the Nuer. But war has intensified and fragmented ethnic conflict. There are reports of grave human rights violations. An African Union commission of inquiry has reportedly found credible evidence of atrocities. The report, not yet released, should be made public, and no effort spared to find and prosecute the perpetrators. Peace talks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, have failed, with the latest collapse in March. There has been talk of broadening the mediation to include other African states, China, the United States, Britain and others, but so far no real action. Mr. Obama is making a trip to Kenya this summer. Now is the time for the United States to step up to the plate with the same fervor with which it greeted South Sudan’s independence. More than just rhetoric is called for. It is time to pressure Mssrs. Kiir and Machar to lay down their arms; to impose stronger sanctions and an arms embargo; to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid; and to begin the long, difficult process of healing a young nation midwifed by the United States. **Read more on this topic:** The Post’s View: Saving South Sudan from chaos Emily Wax-Thibodeaux: Hope amid despair in South Sudan John F. Kerry and Susan E. Rice: South Sudan’s leaders need to set aside their dispute Michael Gerson: As South Sudan becomes new nation, old conflicts remain Hillary Clinton: Independence day for South Sudan

The U.N.’s Syria disaster

THIS MAY BE remembered as the week in which the illusion that the bloodshed in Syria could be stopped by United Nations diplomats was destroyed once and for all. Inside the country, the killing sharply and sickeningly accelerated. In Washington, U.N. envoy Kofi Annan finally had to acknowledge thathis calamitous peace initiative, which has provided the United States and its allies with an excuse for inaction for the past 11 weeks, “may be dead.” Mr. Annan’s concession was forced in part by the latest massacre by a government-backed militia. In a village near Hama, some 80 people were butchered and their homes burned. A BBC reporter who visited the scene tweeted: “You can see that a terrible crime has taken place.” Like a massacre two weeks ago in another village, this was an instance of sectarian cleansing. The militia members came from the Alawite sect of Bashar al-Assad, while the victims were Sunni. Even Mr. Annan has had to recognize the result of his initiative, which counted on voluntary compliance by Mr. Assad with steps that would doom his regime. “If things do not change, the future is likely to be one of brutal repression, massacres, sectarian violence and even all-out civil war,” Mr. Annan told the United Nations on Thursday. The envoy at last hinted that “pressure” and “consequences” for the Assad regime were called for. But Mr. Annan is mainly pushing a diplomatic initiative that is even more far- fetched: a “contact group” to settle on a plan for Syria that would include the permanent Security Council members as well as Saudi Arabia, Turkey . . . and Iran. Since Tehran is Mr. Assad’s closest ally, its inclusion would ensure either a solution that favored his regime or a deadlock. No wonder the Russian government, Mr. Assad’s other sponsor, has endorsed the idea and proposed a meeting in Moscow. The Obama administration continues to oppose measures that might head off the looming catastrophe, such as the creation of protected zones for the Syrian opposition. But it is at least resisting Mr. Annan’s bad idea. Even before meeting him, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton rejected the idea of including Iran in a contact group. Ms. Clinton also laid out some specific and worthy parameters for a transition in Syria in a meeting Thursday with the Friends of Syria group in Istanbul. Ms. Clinton and a State Department briefer said these include Mr. Assad’s “full transfer of power” and departure from Syria; a “representative and inclusive interim government” that leads to “free and fair elections”; and “civilian control of the military and security forces.” It’s hard to imagine Iran accepting those terms; for Russia, they would install a political model in Damascus that Vladimir Putin is fighting to prevent in Moscow. The administration must now face how it can realistically achieve those aims. As we’ve said before, there’s a lot the United States could do, well short of invasion but well beyond the rhetoric-and-resolution approach it’s taken for more than a year. In Istanbul, Ms. Clinton discussed greater coordination of international aid for the Syrian opposition and a tightening of economic sanctions. These are steps in the right direction; but the transition in Syria will begin only when Mr. Assad is confronted with irresistible force. **More on this debate:** Fouad Ajami: Five myths about the Arab Spring Danielle Pletka: For Obama, intervening in Syria would be good policy and good politics The Post’s View: What the U.S. should do about Syria David Ignatius: Syria’s neighbors are growing restless

Are African peacekeepers prone to mutiny?

Last month’s farewell ceremony to Gambian troops participating in the Darfur peacekeeping mission ended up sounding like a warning rather than the intended pep talk. The chief of defense cautioned against misconduct, told soldiers not to undermine their leadership and warned that “culprits will be dealt with seriously.” This message hints at some of the less peaceful aspects of peacekeeping missions. Well-publicized cases include peacekeeper involvement in sexual exploitation, trading in conflict minerals and arms trafficking in some missions.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico It is not only misbehavior abroad that leaders should worry about; there is also a pattern of peacekeepers mutinying when they return from missions. My research found 12 cases of peacekeeping-related mutinies spread across nine countries in Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau and Nigeria) since the early 1990s. In other cases, such as Sierra Leone, peacekeepers have threatened to mutiny to put their leadership under pressure.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Mutiny occurs when soldiers collectively revolt against their leadership for goals other than political power. These are not coups, which by definition involve the overthrow of a head of state. Mutinies are generally initiated by rank-and-file soldiers and exemplify deep tensions within the military hierarchy. African top brass do not take mutinies lightly. For instance, 54 Nigerian soldiers convicted of mutiny in 2014 were sentenced to death by firing squad.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico My research, which involved interviews and conversations with former mutineers and soldiers in five West African countries, found a combination of reasons for discontent amongst peacekeepers. While on deployment supplies, equipment and logistics are required that would not be necessary while stationed at home. These further needs are at times not met, and soldiers have mutinied over claims that they have not received the required supplies. Being under-equipped is not a new concern for many African militaries, but the complaints take on a new urgency in a deployment setting where soldiers often face combat. Outdated equipment, inadequate training or a lack of supplies such as ammunition can be the difference between life and death in these missions. There have also been complaints about the internal military procedures regulating deployments. Dissatisfaction over deployment rotation schedules and deployment selection processes have triggered mutinies and threats to revolt by peacekeepers from Chad, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Another key concern amongst mutinying peacekeepers is pay. Some African peacekeepers have been highly critical of their governments for not paying their salaries on time or not paying them the full U.N. rate. For example, during my discussions with a Sierra Leonean soldier regarding deployments to Darfur, he explained that the peacekeepers “are not happy, they are grumbling. [U.S.$]1,225 to country and we only get $400. We do not know what the government is using the money for.” Complaints like this make sense in relation to the way peacekeepers are paid. For U.N. missions, the U.N. pays contributing countries $1,028 for each soldier per month. Governments are then responsible for paying their peacekeepers. As the soldier above explained, African peacekeepers rarely receive the full amount paid to the governments. The difference is supposed to cover expenses such as medical screening, training, uniforms, equipment, etc., which are needed for the deployment. But mutinying soldiers are often unaware and suspicious of the way their governments allocate the money. The U.N.’s transparency is in contrast to the secretive nature of national defense spending in many states.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Peacekeeping missions also provide an opportunity for soldiers to compare their pay and conditions with soldiers from other states in the region. Since each country pays its own soldiers, salaries differ among soldiers on the same mission. At times, peacekeepers appear to revise their view of their situation when exposed to the pay and conditions of other troops. Mutinying Burkinabé troops in 1999 specifically claimed that Malian troops were earning nearly three times what they were for participation in ECOMOG. In a response to similar grievances by Sierra Leone soldiers participating in AMISOM, the minister of defense addressed the differences in pay between contingents. He also asked the media to stop reporting on it for fear that soldiers would become further demoralized and “go on a rampage.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Underlying the pay or other material grievances is a sense of injustice. For peacekeeping mutineers, the injustice is often linked to the risks they endured on a mission. Interviewees and public statements by mutineers highlighted their sacrifice and suggested that inadequate pay or equipment is particularly offensive in light of their veteran status. The complaints about pay often hint at deep-rooted discontent about their leadership. Over and over again,  rank-and-file interviewees in West Africa made the same claims: “The senior officers were robbing us”… “the top brass got the deployment money and sliced it” … “they [officers] cheated us.” Regardless of the specific complaint (pay, equipment, etc.) from the rank-and-file soldiers’ perspective, senior officers were to blame. This suspicion towards the senior hierarchy is related to a larger pattern of military disobedience in many African states. Many military officers have used strong-arm tactics to land themselves a privileged place in which they are amongst the elite of the country. However, there has long been resentment at the sharp class divisions within militaries and accusations that senior ranks benefit at the expense of junior ranks. These ongoing tensions often seem to be reignited or perpetuated with new income opportunities associated with peacekeeping missions. The pattern of mutinies following peacekeeping missions does not suggest that countries contributing troops should brace for a revolt upon their return home. Mutinies still remain relatively rare, but their negative implications for military and state instability should not be underestimated. Many mutinies turn violent, leading to both military and civilian casualties.  Two peacekeeping-related mutinies in Gambia intensified military divisions and contributed to a coup in 1994. The Nigerian army acknowledged that a peacekeeping mutiny in 2008 continued to have “negative implications on the morale and disposition” of the military ranks “towards one another” even after years had passed. Peacekeeping-related mutinies are occurring at the same time that many African states and their foreign partners are placing much energy and resources into professionalizing African militaries. Planners should take heed of the grievances expressed in mutinies, which threaten to perpetuate many of the divisions that professionalization efforts aim to resolve. _Maggie Dwyer teaches courses related to politics and security in Africa at University of St. Andrews and University of Edinburgh. You can follow her on Twitter at@MagDwyer. _    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Thousands died when the U.N. brought cholera to Haiti. Here’s why it’s getting off scot-free.

Who pays the costs when United Nations operations go wrong? This hypothetical question became very real in October 2010 when U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal brought cholera to Haiti, as we describe in a new article for the journal Perspectives on Politics. Although cholera is endemic in Nepal, the peacekeepers were not screened for the disease before their departure. Once in Haiti, they built a camp with substandard sanitation that allowed human waste to spill from open pits and cracked pipes into a nearby waterway. Soon after their arrival, the first cases of cholera appeared, leading to an epidemic that has cost over 9,000 lives and sickened more than 750,000 people.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The U.N. repeatedly denied any connection between its people and the epidemic, but the organization’s culpability was soon confirmed by a range of scientific studies, expert findings, and even a report commissioned by the secretary- general.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Though the U.N. is clearly responsible “in fact” for the epidemic, it has never been found responsible “in law.” The gap between the two is important, both for the U.N. and the people who suffered. The U.N. is protected from legal accountability for the harms it has caused by three legal and political factors: U.N. immunity, the absence of legal standing for individuals in international law, and Haiti’s position of dependence in the international system. The cholera victims and their lawyers have attempted to hold the U.N. accountable in two ways. First, they approached the U.N. with “petitions for relief”  that asked the organization to apologize, invest in clean water systems, and compensate the victims. But the U.N. refused to receive their petitions. How can the U.N. simply shut its door? While several treaties, including the Status of Forces Agreement between the U.N. and Haiti, establish that the U.N. is expected to consider such claims, none contains an explicit legal requirement that it must. Moreover, there is no process or institution through which the cholera victims can challenge the organization. Faced with the U.N.’s rejection, the victims attempted to sue the U.N. in U.S. federal courts. This approach has been stymied by the U.N.’s immunity from legal actions in domestic courts. There is some debate among international legal scholars over how far this immunity is supposed to extend, but in practice courts around the world have interpreted it as absolute protection against any lawsuit. This practice is endorsed by the U.S. State Department, and so it was no surprise when the U.S. courts dismissed the victims’ cases in early 2015. Though this decision is being appealed, it appears that the cholera victims have hit a dead end: They cannot hold the U.N. legally responsible for the harms it caused. **How did we get here?**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico U.N. immunity was not originally intended to insulate the organization from all responsibility for its harms. Rather, its purpose was to protect the U.N. from national governments that might use lawsuits to harass or pressure it. It was understood originally as “functional immunity,” meaning that it covered the UN and its officials for actions taken in the performance of their official duties. For example, in the _Mothers of Srebrenica_ case, Dutch courts ruled that the mothers of men killed in the Srebrenica massacre could not sue U.N. peacekeepers for failing to prevent the massacre.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico On the other hand, the U.N. is legally responsible for harms not related to its official mandate — e.g., when U.N. peacekeepers kill someone in a car accident. Since 1945, the prevailing interpretation of U.N. immunity, advanced by courts, governments, and the U.N. itself, has expanded, with an ‘absolute’ position coming to dominate over the ‘functional.’ The second obstacle is that the international legal system gives few rights to individuals. As private citizens, the victims do not have standing —  i.e., legal status and ability — to address the U.N. or to advance claims against it in other international forums. Instead, international law presumes that governments will advance claims on behalf of their citizens. If the Haitian people want justice, then they have to rely on their government. The Haitian government has a number of legal options. It could use its position as a U.N. member to insist that the organization respond to its claims. It could use the Status of Force Agreement to establish a claims tribunal against the wishes of the U.N. Or it could encourage the U.N. to request an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice, which, due to the particular circumstances of this case, would be binding on the U.N. However, for reasons unknown — but probably having to do with Haiti’s heavy dependence on the U.N. and the international community — the government has declined to take action. Legally, Haiti is able to hold the U.N. accountable, but practically, it cannot afford to bite the hand that feeds it. This is a world in which international institutions such as the U.N. have more power and responsibility over the fate of people than ever before but are essentially sheltered from legal accountability when things go wrong. People who are directly harmed by the actions of the U.N. have no way to seek redress. In some ways, this is beginning to change. Access to courts is now widely acknowledged as a human right. Some human rights tribunals are accessible to individuals; conversely, individuals can be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court. But as victims of U.N. negligence, the Haitians are still outside the legal system, looking in. **Where do we go from here?**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Ideally, the U.N.’s functional operations and its accountability to individuals should not conflict, since U.N. operations should contribute to the welfare of local people. In practice, however, sometimes things inevitably go wrong. The issue in the Haiti case is: who is held responsible for those damages? The current system ensures that this is not the U.N. Restricting U.N. immunity would carry practical implications. Being responsible for damages makes it harder for the U.N. to do its job. The victims’ lawyers demanded that the U.N. pay $50,000 per illness and $100,000 per death. At this rate, U.N. liability amounts to roughly $38 billion—over four times the U.N.’s _total_ annual peacekeeping budget. A payout that size would dramatically undermine U.N. peacekeeping activities in Haiti (including cholera eradication) and elsewhere, potentially even shutting them down.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico If the U.N. cannot afford the bill, it would be passed on to member states. While it’s hard to imagine that national governments would be willing to pay,  it might make them think twice about authorizing future peacekeeping missions or contributing troops. In short, a large payout for the mess in Haiti could have consequences for all U.N. peacekeeping efforts. Functional immunity was designed to manage this tension by ensuring that local courts would not impede U.N. operations. But the Haiti case demonstrates that U.N. immunity has shifted too far toward the organization at the expense of the people it is meant to serve. Just outcomes are like pixilated images — they appear clear from a distance but are blurry and illusive up close. The law is a common frame for seeking justice, but it will never be perfectly able to deliver just outcomes. Sometime we need to think outside the legal box. Responsibility and accountability are not only legal concepts — they are also political and moral ones. There are a range of non-legal ways to promote accountability, including political pressure, public shaming, and media scrutiny. We see these at work when constituents call on misbehaving politicians to resign or consumers boycott companies. In Haiti, the U.N. is unable or unwilling to acknowledge the harm it has caused and the law doesn’t obligate it to. Civil society actors may ensure that law does not have the final word. _Mara Pillinger is a PhD candidate in political science at George Washington University. Follow her on Twitter @mplng._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

U.S. appears unable to pull South Sudan back from the brink of civil war

JUBA, South Sudan — South Sudan owes its existence to the United States. Years of diplomacy and development aid by successive U.S. administrations helped create the world’s newest nation three years ago. South Sudan was supposed to break the sad, familiar African model of petty rivalries, corruption and oppression. The country has ample oil resources and eager international investors. But as a conflict fueled by ethnic and personal power struggles tears the country apart, the United States has been unable to pull South Sudan from the brink of civil war. “We have all of us vowed to do our best to try to prevent that kind of violence. And this is precisely the kind of violence that the people of South Sudan fought so hard for so long to try to escape,” Secretary of State John F. Kerry told reporters before an arm-twisting visit Friday to South Sudan’s capital, Juba. “And the United States and other countries were all deeply involved in the effort to try to make that happen.” Kerry said South Sudanese President Salva Kiir had pledged to come to peace talks with his rival, former vice president Riek Machar, as soon as this week. Kerry also spoke to Machar by phone Friday. Although the meeting may never happen, Kiir’s promise to Kerry was the first small sign that Washington has much influence now. The tensions between Kiir and Machar have been visible for more than a year. Last summer, Kiir fired Machar and the entire cabinet. By December, tensions had boiled over. Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, accused Machar, an ethnic Nuer, of trying to overthrow him. Machar denied the allegations and launched a rebellion that has split the nation’s army along ethnic lines. The two sides have fought fiercely since then, largely over oil-producing areas, despite a cease-fire signed in January. A massacre on April 15 by rebel fighters left the town of Bentiu littered with bodies. Soon after, Dinka residents of Bor in Jonglei state attacked a U.N. base where about 5,000 people had sought shelter. At least 58 people were killed and nearly 100 wounded, including two U.N. peacekeepers. And now, signs are emerging of an impending famine. In the strongest warning yet from the United States, Kerry said Thursday that the violence is spiraling toward possible genocide. “Of any nation, the U.S. has the most leverage to bring to bear in South Sudan, but that leverage has been greatly depleted since independence in 2011,” said Cameron Hudson, former director for African affairs at the National Security Council who worked extensively on South Sudan. Some critics say that in its optimism after South Sudan won its independence from Sudan after 22 years of civil war, Washington overlooked the new country’s divisions. Before its independence, ethnically black South Sudan was defined chiefly by its decades-long conflict with the Arab-dominated Sudanese government in Khartoum. That shared struggle masked some of the divisions among South Sudan’s tribes and factions, although they were never far from the surface. “The U.S. invested heavily in building institutions of government for the newest country in the world. Meanwhile, though, longtime political divisions within the ruling party were festering,” said John Prendergast, a founder of the anti-genocide Enough Project affiliated with the Center for American Progress. Prendergast faulted the Obama administration for leaving the job of top envoy for South Sudan vacant for most of last year as security conditions worsened and tensions built. By the time the job was filled in late 2013, “the two competing groups within the ruling party were on a high-speed collision course,” he said. Current and former U.S. officials acknowledge that the danger signs were there when Kiir and Machar took office, a union U.S. advisers blessed as the best chance to foster unity and national pride. But the speed and ferocity of South Sudan’s descent stunned the Obama administration. “If it could have been prevented, we would have prevented it,” a senior State Department official traveling with Kerry said of the slide toward civil war. “We saw the problems, but none of us saw that it was going to turn this badly this quickly.” Some critics say the Obama administration was unwilling to take forceful diplomatic action against South Sudan’s leaders and ignored the warning signs of the looming conflict. In January, Rep. Edward R. Royce (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, told a congressional hearing that the crisis was “no surprise.” He said experts have been sounding alarms about growing internal tensions since 2011. But the administration continued to back South Sudan’s leaders. In 2012, the administration reportedly led an effort to block a U.N. Security Council proposal to impose sanctions on South Sudan for corruption and human rights abuses, Royce said at the hearing. “Despite these warnings, I am afraid that our investment and diplomatic success may have skewed the judgment of the U.S. government on more than one occasion,” Royce said. Administration officials place blame squarely on Kiir and Machar. “A kind of personal violence, a personal anger between two leaders, should never be permitted to take an entire nation in the direction that South Sudan is currently spiraling toward,” Kerry said. “Both President Kiir and Riek Machar need to each of them condemn the brutal attacks that are taking place against innocent people, and they need to condemn the perpetrators of this violence. Leadership is needed.” Critics said Kerry’s visit to South Sudan was overdue. He has a strong personal relationship with Kiir, having traveled to South Sudan several times when he was in the Senate, and might have used that pull earlier, administration critics said. Kerry spoke to Kiir many times by phone over the past four months but was unable to persuade him to pull back forces. Now, with few other policy options left, the administration is trying to jump-start an African peacekeeping force that could separate the warring sides, and it is threatening sanctions if the fighting does not stop. “It is a shame he didn’t engage in this way earlier in the conflict, given the well- understood likelihood that this kind of security crisis could have catastrophic humanitarian consequences,” said Hudson, who is now acting director of the Center for Prevention of Genocide at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. “I believe it could have helped to avoid a lot of the atrocities we have seen in the past few months had he gone earlier. That said, it is important that he is there now.” The senior State Department official said sanctions would target the travel and overseas assets of people who could include Kiir and Machar. The U.S. sanctions are already authorized by an executive order signed by President Obama. But economic and travel sanctions applied only by the United States would have little more than symbolic effect, since few senior South Sudanese of either ethnicity hold large assets in the United States or travel there frequently. The United Nations also is considering sanctions, and the Obama administration is trying to persuade neighboring nations such as Kenya and Uganda to apply their own. Those could have a significant effect because large banks and institutions are based there. But despite the efforts of Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia to foster peace talks, there appears to be little appetite among those nations for economic sanctions. “They have also lost their patience with both sides,” the State Department official said, but acknowledged that regional sanctions would be a tough sell. The African Union is beginning a review of atrocities, some of which might eventually be prosecuted as war crimes. Aside from sanctions, Washington has other options, including the suspension of foreign aid and the downgrading of diplomatic ties. Kerry didn’t mention those, and U.S. officials hope they won’t need to go that far. “President Obama’s ‘go-slow’ approach is simply not working,” said Oxfam America President Raymond C. Offenheiser. “The administration had clearly hoped that the threat of sanctions would be enough to encourage the parties to pursue peace talks, but this gambit has failed to stop parties who are fighting for their political — and physical — survival.”

The U.N. finally owns up to its role in Haiti’s cholera outbreak

LIKE CLIMATE change deniers, the United Nations for years has stood virtually alone against the weight of scientific opinion on its own peacekeepers’ responsibility for the outbreak of cholera six years ago in Haiti, which continues to suffer from the world’s worst epidemic of that deadly disease. That stance, regarding an epidemic that has killed more than 10,000 people and infected hundreds of thousands, is “morally unconscionable, legally indefensible and politically self-defeating,” according to a new report from a top adviser to the organization. Not to mention scientifically obtuse. Spurred by the report from Philip Alston, a New York University law professor who is a human rights adviser to the organization, the U.N. is finally acknowledging its complicity in Haiti’s cholera crisis. Breaking a steely silence, a spokesman for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the New York Times that the organization “needs to do much more regarding its own involvement in the initial outbreak and the suffering of those affected by cholera.” A new policy will be prepared after consultations with Haitian officials and other governments. It is difficult to overstate the damage the U.N. has done to its own prestige and moral standing by its pig-headed denialism. The disease, absent from the country for at least a century, struck soon after the arrival in 2010 of several hundred peacekeeping troops from Nepal, which at the time was struggling with a cholera outbreak. Untreated waste from the peacekeepers’ base was discharged into an adjacent river and, in short order, Haitians in nearby villages began to get sick and die. In a nation with paltry infrastructure and an anemic public health system, the disease spread quickly. Epidemiologists soon traced the outbreak, and even the specific strain of cholera, to the U.N. base, concluding there was no other plausible source of the disease. Despite that, U.N. officials adopted a three-monkeys policy: They saw nothing. They heard nothing. They said nothing. That tone-deaf stance appeared driven by U.N. lawyers, loath to crack the shell of legal immunity they insisted was the U.N.’s birthright. Doubtless, they feared any admission that might expose the organization to billions of dollars of claims in lawsuits arising from deaths and infections, not to mention from people affected in the future. That lawyerly posture was heedless of the U.N. charter, whose preamble affirms its commitment to human rights, “better standards of life” and other goals at odds with a flat refusal to own up to the facts in Haiti. The reality, which the U.N. at last seems ready to accept, is that the organization must recognize its responsibility and renew its commitment to combat cholera in Haiti and strengthen the nation’s public health infrastructure, which the organization has previously pledged to improve, to little effect. That may be difficult and costly; the alternative was untenable. **Read more about this topic:** The Post’s View: Cholera’s fresh attack in Haiti The Post’s View: United Nations must admit its role in Haiti’s cholera outbreak The Post’s View: The United Nations’ duty in Haiti’s cholera outbreak

David Ignatius: U.N. peacekeeping and the failure of a noble idea

There is no “big idea” easier to pay homage to in principle, or harder to make work in practice, than the peacekeeping role of the United Nations. This is painfully clear in a new memoir by Kofi Annan, its former secretary-general. The latest failure of the U.N. dream was Annan’s mediating mission to Syria. For months, he tried to cajole President Bashar al-Assad into stopping the killing and starting a political transition that would avert civil war. To which he received the standard answer to well-meaning U.N. missions: Go away. You are powerless to stop me. Annan finally did walk away last month, ending his Syria mission and probably his career as a mediator. What will come next, it’s increasingly clear, is a paramilitary covert action, supported by the United States and most of its allies, to help the Syrian rebels accomplish what the United Nations could not. Annan’s new memoir, “Interventions,” is a study in the failure of a noble idea. And it should cause readers to reflect why, in so many cases, the international community has been unable to gather sufficient force (or will) to prevent conflict. Another failure is probably ahead with Iran, where six years of escalating U.N. sanctions have not curbed Tehran’s nuclear program and unilateral military intervention is increasingly likely. I’ve long been a supporter of multilateral action through the United Nations, and I still think the United States is most powerful when it operates under the legitimacy of international organizations. But the United Nations today is bootless; the will of most members for a change of government in Syria, for example, is too easily blocked by the veto of a single permanent Security Council member, such as Russia. Annan gives a devastating account of some of the United Nations’ errors during his decades with the organization, especially in his description of the peacekeeping missions in the 1990s in Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia, which he collectively describes as the organization’s “greatest of failures.” Somalia was a project of Annan’s predecessor, Boutros Boutros-Ghali. A U.N. peacekeeping force known as UNOSOM II had been authorized in March 1993, described by Madeleine Albright, then the United States’ U.N. ambassador, as “an unprecedented enterprise aimed at nothing less than the restoration of an entire country.” But the U.S. military contribution was restricted to a small special operations force hunting the rebel Gen. Mohamed Aideed; it communicated with Boutros-Ghali and didn’t coordinate with the rest of the U.N. force. When the Americans got slaughtered in a bloody ambush in Mogadishu (depicted unforgettably in the film “Black Hawk Down”), Washington bailed out, and UNOSOM II quickly collapsed. The Somalia mess made the United Nations so nervous about intervention that it ignored an appeal a few months later from its own representative in Rwanda that a genocidal massacre was about to begin there. In January 1994, Gen. Romeo Dallaire, the French Canadian commander of a small force called UNAMIR, cabled New York that the Hutu-led government in Kigali was planning the “extermination” of Tutsis. He concluded his message, “ _Allons-y._ ” Let’s go. The United Nations did nothing. Three months later, 800,000 Rwandans were dead. Annan was running peacekeeping operations at the time, and his deputy cabled the brave Dallaire insisting on “the need to avoid entering into a course of action that might lead to the use of force and unanticipated consequences.” That’s a sorry U.N. chapter, and it’s to Annan’s credit that he tells this and other stories so honestly. The third debacle was Bosnia. In April 1993, the Security Council demanded that the town of Srebenica, filled with 60,000 Muslim refugees and encircled by Bosnian Serb forces, become a “safe area . . . free from armed attacks.” The refugees waited more than two years for the United Nations to deliver. In July 1995, Gen. Ratko Mladic committed his infamous massacre. A month later, UNPROFOR finally intervened. When Annan became secretary-general, the United Nations tried to bolster its peacekeeping efforts. It did better in East Timor, Kosovo and Libya in putting some teeth in the concept of a “responsibility to protect.” But the abiding story has been the United Nations’ limitations — in dealing with Iraq, the Palestinian issue, Iran and now Syria. What to do? Albright and 15 other former foreign ministers just sent a letter to President Vladimir Putin saying they were “gravely disappointed” by Russia’s failure to support the U.N. mission and pleading for action to stop the war in Syria. Albright’s office says that the Russians responded negatively. As the whole of this revealing book demonstrates, there’s got to be a better way to prevent ruinous conflicts. **_davidignatius@washpost.com _ ** **Read more from Opinions:** David Ignatius: Seeking to cool war fever over Iran

Ambiguous U.N. mandates rarely lead to successful peacekeeping missions

The Jan. 4 front-page article “U.N. peacekeepers fail to rein in African wars” left me with a profound sense of deja vu. In 1964, the United Nations ended its controversial four-year peacekeeping operation in Belgian Congo, later renamed Zaire. My PhD thesis focused on that operation, which, at its peak, involved almost 20,000 troops. I tried to answer the question of whether the United Nations can effectively implement an ambiguous mandate. My conclusion then, confirmed by subsequent experience, was that it is extremely difficult and unrealistic to expect operational success without the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council demonstrating strong political will — a condition not usually present. ****Robert Copaken** , Rockville**

In Sudan, peacekeepers’ weapons have repeatedly fallen into militants’ hands

U.N. and African Union peacekeeping forces in East Africa have repeatedly allowed their weapons to fall into the hands of armed groups responsible for much of the region’s violence, according to a report by a Geneva-based research group. The report by the Small Arms Survey concluded that more than 500 weapons, including heavy machine guns and mortars, as well as nearly 1 million rounds of ammunition, were taken from peacekeeping forces in Sudan and South Sudan over the past decade. The arms were seized from peacekeeping patrols, bases and supply convoys in at least 20 separate incidents between 2005 and 2014, the report said. Eric Berman, a former U.N. peacekeeper and principal author of the report, said that the weapons seizures have undermined security in eastern Africa and that the actual losses probably exceed those documented in the report. “The scale and scope is larger than what a lot of folks expected,” Berman said. The report was funded in part by the State Department and was delivered to the United Nations on Tuesday, Berman said. A senior U.N. official involved in peacekeeping efforts said in an e-mail that the study “sheds light on issues that have not been adequately addressed in the past,” but added that many of the report’s criticisms are overstated and that its findings are “two years behind the curve.” The official said that the United Nations has taken steps over that period to improve the effectiveness of its peacekeeping units and that the number of weapons lost by those forces is “not the same order of magnitude as the 2.9 million small arms and over 1.5 billion rounds in circulation in Sudan [and] South Sudan over the past decade.” The official spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the issue. The study focuses on weapons held by the roughly 250,000 troops deployed by the African Union and the United Nations to Sudan and South Sudan since peacekeeping operations began there in 2005. That effort is aimed at stemming violence in a region where millions of people have been killed in border disputes, competition over oil supplies, and ethnic and religious conflicts — tensions that led to the creation of South Sudan as a separate state in 2011. According to the United Nations, there are 6.9 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in Sudan and 1.4 million displaced people in South Sudan. The United Nations is involved in 16 peacekeeping missions around the world. By the end of last year, more than 1 in 4 of those troops were deployed to Sudan and South Sudan. Losses of weapons and ammunition have been far greater in other conflicts. The Islamic State militant group in Iraq and Syria, for example, amassed an arsenal including tanks and antiaircraft weapons after overrunning U.S.-equipped forces in Mosul and other Iraqi cities last year. But Berman said the losses by peacekeeping units have been overlooked as a factor hindering efforts to curb violence in regions beyond the more high-profile counterterrorism campaigns. Berman, managing director of the Small Arms Survey, said he began examining the issue in 2008, shortly after two attacks in the Darfur region of Sudan ended with rebel groups seizing significant quantities of weapons from peacekeepers. “Those two incidents within the span of six months gave me the opportunity to start asking some other questions,” Berman said. “Were these outliers? Was there more to it, and was this a bigger problem?” Berman said that the amount of equipment taken is most likely understated “due to the lack of transparency in reporting” and a reluctance to criticize countries that are willing to contribute peacekeepers. “There’s a bias against embarrassing troop-contributing countries,” he said. “There’s a focus on the safety of the men, while the weapons and the equipment are often not spoken of.” Bangladesh, India and Pakistan have been the largest contributors of peacekeeping soldiers, Berman said. He noted that some U.N. officials and military leaders argue that a loss of weapons is inevitable in a hostile environment. One of the largest losses by peacekeepers in Sudan came in 2008, when a shipment of ammunition to units in Nyala was attacked, Berman said. The report indicates that more than 600,000 rounds, or 12  1/ 2  tons of ammunition, were taken — enough to support 800 rebels for one year. Berman said he hopes the report will encourage further research and vigilance in monitoring weapons brought into conflict zones by peacekeepers. The report calls for additional training for units on managing weapons stockpiles and more thorough reporting of arms inventories after their missions are done. Enhanced transparency would allow organizations such as the Small Arms Survey to potentially track the seized weapons outside the conflict zones where they were taken, Berman said. “What we’ve achieved is getting people interested in this and willing to fund additional research,” Berman said, adding that the United Nations and some countries that contribute troops have been more willing to engage with the topic since he approached them with his findings. “It’s a sea change from where we were four or five years ago, where it was either discounted or considered risque,” he said. “We’re eager to explore this further.”

Researchers have found that war has a remarkable and miraculous effect

A few years later, the Sierra Leone government conducted door-to-door interviews to gauge the rebuilding and reconciliation process. Surveyors asked people about their experiences with the war, about their current incomes, their participation in community meetings and their political engagement. The war had shattered many lives. About 44 percent of people reported someone in their household had been killed. Yet a deeply surprising change had come over the survivors. Compared to their neighbors, those who had been exposed to more violence were also more trusting of others. They were more active in their communities and more likely to vote. How could that be? “We all expected these terrible adverse consequences for the community, for people’s trust in one another.” said Edward Miguel, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, who traveled to Sierra Leone in the early 2000s to study the post-war recovery. “Instead, we were finding positive effects of war.” At first, even Miguel was skeptical of his results. But in the past decade, 19 studies have come out documenting the same thing, not just in Sierra Leone, but also in Uganda, Burundi, Georgia, Israel and Nepal. The evidence has been adding up.  None of the studies they looked at were true experiments, of course. Scientists cannot assign certain people to be pillaged. Instead, they relied on the fact that war itself often strikes randomly. In Sierra Leone, for instance, raiders would come through a town like a tornado, ravaging some homes but leaving others untouched. Rebel kidnappings in northern Uganda operated with similar arbitrariness. Nepal’s civil war cut an unpredictable swath of destruction through the nation — there was not much rhyme or reason to which villages got caught in the violence.  In light of these atrocities, the resilience of the survivors seems all the more remarkable. People who suffered more violence during war not only reported more civic and political engagement on surveys conducted years later. They also behaved in more cooperative and altruistic ways when researchers tested them with laboratory games. For instance — some studies paired up anonymous strangers, giving one person a sum of money that could be shared or hoarded. This is called "the dictator game" because the person with the money has all the power. In Sierra Leone, researchers found that people who had been exposed to more wartime violence were more generous — they shared more money in the dictator game than neighbors who hadn’t seen much violence. Another kind of experiment tested people’s willingness to cooperate. In Nepal, villagers were put into groups where they could vote to cooperate or vote to be selfish. For each vote in favor of cooperation, the researchers gave all participants four rupees. If people voted for themselves, they received 20 rupees on top of whatever the group payout was. For instance, if four out of 10 people voted to cooperate, then everyone received 16 rupees each. However, the selfish voters also received a 20 rupee bonus, for a total payout of 36 rupees. In this kind of game, it makes sense for individuals to vote selfishly no matter what everyone else does. People only vote the other way if they care more about the community than about their own well-being. In Nepal, there was already a strong sense of unity within villages following its civil war. A study found that about two thirds of participants voted to cooperate overall. But the communal feeling was more intense in places that were hit harder by war violence, where 76 percent of people voted to cooperate — compared with 60 percent of people in places that were less directly damaged by the war. When the team of researchers reviewed all these studies on war and cooperation, they noticed two interesting patterns. First, the positive effect of war didn’t seem to fade. Some of the studies had been conducted over a decade after the conflict in question had ended, yet they still found that the scars of war had made people more generous, more politically active and more likely to be leaders in their communities. Second, some studies suggested there were limits to the increased altruism. Certain lab games found that exposure to war violence made people nicer toward members in their own village but not necessarily toward people outside their own community. This is a topic that needs to explored further, Miguel said, but it lends support to a provocative idea about the origins of cooperation and generosity.  But there’s a slight problem with that idea. Suppose you lived in a community where everyone was genetically predisposed to be generous, but you had a mutation that made you selfish. You would prosper by living off of everyone else’s hard work, and eventually, your selfish offspring would dominate the community. In other words, it seems that natural selection would extinguish any altruistic impulses in the long run — unless people were constantly under threat and could survive only if they banded together. In recent years, evolutionary psychologists have argued that war may have played an important role in making us more cooperative. We know that humanity has a bloody past; constant conflict between different tribes would have extinguished any groups where people couldn’t work together or sacrifice themselves for the common good. At the same time, it doesn’t make sense to be indiscriminately kind toward others. If war made us nicer to our neighbors, it did not make us any more trusting of outsiders.  How does this explain the patterns of generosity among victims of war violence? The researchers speculate that our evolutionary history may have predisposed us to behave in certain ways following stressful or violent encounters with outsiders. In times of peace, we might jostle selfishly among ourselves, but in times of heightened conflict, we might instinctively become cooperative — and this trait may have helped our ancestors triumph over their rivals.  The researchers emphasize that we have much to learn about how nations rebuild after a war. What is clear, though, is that trauma can strengthen, not weaken civic life. This may be a universal reaction to stress. Related studies show that survivors of violent crime or natural disasters also become more engaged in their communities. We should not be so pessimistic, then, about "war-torn" regions of the world; we should not be so dismissive; nor should we be so surprised when countries beset by violence make miraculous recoveries. "The data strongly reject the common view that communities and people exposed to war violence will inevitably be deprived of social capital, collective action, and trust," the researchers write. These ideas should not seem so foreign. Folk wisdom has long held that conflict knits people together — centuries ago, for instance, the wars between European powers solidified national identities. The researchers also point out postwar societies have been more likely to pass laws strengthening the social safety net and gender equality. Humans might have an instinct for conflict and competition, but it seems we also have an instinct for rebuilding. “While the human costs of war are horrific,” the authors write, “there may also be at least some reason for optimism once the violence ends.”

Why the United Nations doesn’t pay its interns

Given all the dark and terrible events happening around the world right now, the plight of a 22-year-old living in a tent in Geneva may seem fairly inconsequential. And yet, the story of David Hyde – an unpaid United Nations intern who set up camp by Lake Geneva to save money – has clearly struck a chord with many all around the world. It's already had some small consequences, too: Hyde has resigned from his internship due to the media pressure.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Hyde's predicament may not seem like a big deal in the grand scheme of things: No one forced him to accept an unpaid internship; nor are such internships unique to the United Nations anyway. And yet, for many, his case highlights the U.N.'s moral  inconsistency. By offering unpaid internships that can last up to six months in one of the most expensive cities in the world, the organization appears to promote a labor practice that discriminates against the poor and favors the rich. "The U.N. is supposed to promote labor standards and human rights," Ian Richards, executive secretary of the U.N. Geneva Staff Council, points out. "Instead attention has been drawn to one of its interns sleeping in a tent." So why doesn't the U.N. pay its interns? According to Ahmad Fawzi, director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, the answer lies with a General Assembly resolution backed by member states that allows the United Nations to offer internships but doesn't allow it to offer payment for them. This means that member states would have to vote to allow interns to be paid, Fawzi says.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Fawzi and other U.N. staff members have been unable to point to that specific resolution, but another U.N. document that governs the organization's internship program does say that "interns are not financially remunerated by the United Nations," and that the interns must cover all costs themselves. The same document also notes that interns are not eligible to apply to any position at the U.N. until six months after their internship ends.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Not all specialized agencies that work with the U.N. are bound by these rules – the International Labor Organization pays its interns a stipend, for example. Many other agencies do not pay at all, however: According to a 2009 report from the Joint Inspection Unit of the United Nations system, of 15 agencies inspected, only five offered any kind of monetary compensation for interns. It's worth noting that in Switzerland the U.N. and its agencies are not regulated by local employment laws.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico There's no doubt that an internship at the United Nations can be a rewarding experience for those who choose to do it. However, a number of former and current interns reached out to WorldViews to criticize the lack of pay. "So many generations of unpaid interns have only built up resentment and a bad reputation," Mireille Velazquez, a former intern at the U.N. headquarters in Geneva, explained. Kaleem Hawa, a former intern with the World Health Organization, a U.N. agency, argued that the lack of pay for interns in such an expensive city produced "an intern community whose diversity was fundamentally at odds with the UN system's constitutionally mandated workplace internationalism." "Most UN agencies are heavily intern-powered, ranging from at least 10% to 20-30%," Zhiming Yu, currently an intern at the United Nations Institute for Social Development, wrote. "If we strike, the UN stops working. No peace on earth." Amman Rattan, a graduate of the London School of Economics, says he decided not to take a U.N. internship because he knew he could not have afforded to live in Geneva for six months without a salary. "By the way, what are the consequences of that?" Rattan added. "Like any old network, it means those who start out luckiest get the opportunities later on." At the most basic level, the potential effects of the lack of pay seem clear: Sabine Matsheka, the chairwoman of the Geneva Interns Association, told the BBC that of the 162 current interns in the city she was one of only two from Africa.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico While Hyde's tent brought light to the situation, it's hardly new. The U.N. has long had interns, and its interns have long been unpaid. The 2009 Joint Inspection Unit report suggested that the organization should consider providing some form of economic support for those on internships. In recent years, interns working for the U.N. have been organizing through groups like the Geneva Interns Association to protest their lack of pay. Just a few months back, a number of U.N. interns organized a march that argued that unpaid internships violated Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which says everyone has the "right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity."    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The U.N. does have the money to pay interns, Richards of the U.N. Geneva Staff Council says, but it is banned from paying by the General Assembly, in part because of concerns that so many interns are from developed countries. "However, by banning payment of interns, the General Assembly makes it harder for the U.N .to attract interns from developing countries," Richards adds. It may not be quite that simple. Mary Dellar, a human resources officer at the U.N. in New York, says that paying interns would face institutional hurdles. "As a publicly-funded organization, we would have to go to the General Assembly and request [money for interns]," she says. She adds that in a current climate of cost-cutting at the U.N., such a request may not be realistic, and may well result in smaller numbers of U.N. interns. For many, the hope now is that the secretary general or a U.N. member state will put forward a resolution to force the organization to pay its interns. Whether such a resolution would pass is hard to gauge: Many working at the United Nations clearly favor paying interns, but financial and political considerations can easily come into play. It's quite a remarkable debate to be sparked by an 22-year-old guy from New Zealand in a tent, but it's an important one. _This post has been updated._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **More on WorldViews**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The 22-year-old unpaid intern living in a tent in Geneva has quit his job    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico A Silicon Valley mogul wants to solve the global refugee crisis by creating a new country    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Kofi Annan: Forging a peace plan for Syria

_The writer, the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and a former secretary general of the United Nations, is the joint special envoy for Syria of the United Nations and the Arab League._ _A_ group of influential countries from the U.N. Security Council and the Middle East will meet Saturday in Geneva to agree on an action plan for peace in Syria. The situation could hardly be more grave. Since last spring, many thousands of Syrians have risen up to demand change. While at first they gathered peacefully, in the face of appalling government brutality some have resorted to arms. Others, especially members of minorities, have sat on the fence or supported the government, and they fear the alternative. The resulting maelstrom has shocked the world. Battles have raged through city after city. Whole neighborhoods have been shelled into ruins. Families have been massacred. Thousands have been killed and thousands more detained, while hundreds of thousands have fled their homes. Many civilians are trapped in combat zones, not receiving medical care or humanitarian aid. Violence has reached the capital, Damascus, and has spilled over to neighboring states. And as the chaos deepens, terrorist elements have sought to exploit it. In March, everyone agreed to a six-point plan that provided a ladder the parties could climb down and a mechanism, the U.N. Supervision Mission in Syria, to help them sustain a cease-fire so political negotiations could start. But that plan has not been implemented. After an initial lull, the violence got worse. Syria’s government, which bears the biggest responsibility, continues to use extreme violence against both unarmed and armed protesters. For its part, the opposition lacks unity and some elements have intensified their attacks against government forces and installations. Unarmed U.N. observers have had to suspend their activities. They remain at their posts, ready to reengage if the parties show the political will. The Security Council will soon decide on the mission’s future. This conflict is among Syrians, and they must be the ones who solve it. But it would be naive to think they could, on their own, end the violence now and enter into a meaningful political process. Many external powers are deeply involved. Despite formal unity behind the six-point plan, mutual mistrust has made them work at cross-purposes. Intentionally or otherwise, they have encouraged the government and parts of the opposition to believe that force is the only option. This serves no one’s interest — least of all that of the Syrian people. It is time for all who have influence on the parties, and all who bear responsibility for international peace and security, to act positively for peace. With the support of the secretaries general of the United Nations and the Arab League, I have asked participants in Saturday’s meeting to form an action group whose members will work together until peace is achieved. The participants include those with influence on the Syrian government and its opposition. Members must commit to act in unison to end the bloodshed and implement the six-point plan, avoiding further militarization of the conflict. It is abundantly clear that the violence will not stop without joint, sustained pressure from those with influence, including consequences for noncompliance. But something more is essential. I expect all who attend Saturday’s meeting to agree that a Syrian-led transition process must be achieved in accordance with clear principles and guidelines. There must be a democratic and pluralistic future for Syria that complies with international standards on human rights and protects the rights of all communities. This must include a government of national unity that would exercise full executive powers. This government could include members of the present government and the opposition and other groups, but those whose continued presence and participation would undermine the credibility of the transition and jeopardize stability and reconciliation would be excluded. The transition would also include a meaningful national dialogue and a constitutional revision subject to popular approval, followed by free and fair multiparty elections. Stability and calm must be ensured throughout by functioning institutions and protection of all groups within Syria’s diverse society. There must be a commitment to accountability and to national reconciliation. There is no substitute for the hard work of helping the Syrians forge their own political future, in full respect of Syria’s sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity. The international community has long agreed that any transition must be led by Syrians. We must come together to help the Syrian people embrace and achieve this future through peaceful means. If all participants in Saturday’s meeting are ready to act accordingly, we can turn the tide of violence and embark on a road to peace in which the Syrian people determine their future. If not, the downward spiral will continue — and may soon become irreversible. **Read more on this debate from Opinions:** Jim Hoagland: Annan gambles Syria’s future on Putin The Post’s View: The West lags behind on Syria Jackson Diehl: Obama’s Iran and Syria muddle Elie Wiesel: How to stop the Syria massacre

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Ethnic violence in South Sudan is spiraling toward all-out genocide, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Thursday in the strongest American warning yet that the African nation the United States helped to establish three years ago is at risk of collapse. International peacekeepers with a U.N. mandate must get on the ground fast to separate the warring factions, Kerry said. He warned of “widespread famine” among the roughly 1 million people displaced by fighting, and he threatened U.S. and other economic sanctions, as well as possible war crimes prosecutions, if the killing of civilians goes on. “With respect to the question of genocide, there are very disturbing leading indicators of the kind of ethnic, tribal, targeted nationalistic killings taking place that raise serious questions,” he said after meetings with diplomats leading peace talks, which have so far proved fruitless. Personal and ethnic rivalries between South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and his former deputy, Riek Machar, erupted into warfare in December. The pace and severity of attacks has escalated in recent weeks, raising the specter of a genocidal rampage like the one in nearby Rwanda two decades ago. If the tit-for-tat killings “continue in the way that they have been going, [they] could really present a very serious challenge to the international community with respect to the question of genocide,” Kerry said, stepping carefully around a legal definition that would compel the United States and others to act. “It is our hope that that could be avoided,” he told reporters here in the Ethiopian capital, where leaders of regional powers have helped renew peace talks between the factions this week. “It is our hope that in these next days, literally, we can move more rapidly to put people on the ground who can begin to make a difference.” South Sudan voted in 2011 for independence from Sudan, after decades of civil war and a fragile peace brokered partly by Washington. The United States was instrumental in getting the new government running, and it has pumped tens of millions into diplomatic and economic projects in South Sudan. Kiir has carried the official U.S. stamp of approval despite reservations within the administration and in Congress about his ethnic ambitions and ability to govern. Kerry said the United States and East African nations are committed to deploying a predominantly African military force in South Sudan. He gave no details on the force, which would supplement about 9,000 U.N. peacekeepers, but said he and regional foreign ministers had agreed Thursday on its outlines. Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus emerged from a meeting with Kerry and diplomats from Kenya and Uganda to say that the task is urgent. “There is an agreement now that we have to really be as aggressive as possible in order to have impact on the ground in South Sudan,” he said. Thousands of people have been killed since the political rupture between Kiir and Machar in December. Kiir is an ethnic Dinka, and Machar is a Nuer. U.S. officials say the two men are stoking ethnic tensions to settle personal scores. A January cease-fire agreement never took hold. Last month, civilians were massacred in mosques and targeted in hospitals. The stalled peace talks got a potential boost with the Kiir government’s release of several detainees, as demanded by Machar’s camp. But a U.N. envoy emerged from discussions with Machar this week with no announcement of a breakthrough. The Obama administration has authorized travel bans and the seizure of overseas assets for those found culpable in the violence, but it has not finalized a list of intended targets, a senior State Department official traveling with Kerry said. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview Kerry’s diplomatic outreach. “Those who are responsible for targeted killings based on ethnicity or nationality have to be brought to justice,” Kerry said. “We are actively considering sanctions against those who commit human rights violations and obstruct humanitarian assistance.” The Obama administration has not ruled out that Kiir and Machar could be among them, and Kerry hinted strongly that they will be. “The place to start is the place where it started,” he said of impending sanctions. “And that is with the former vice president and with the current president of South Sudan.” International war crimes prosecutions, if any, would come much later. Kerry blamed both sides, but he leveled his harshest criticism at Machar. “The current president of South Sudan is the elected, constitutional president of a country, and Mr. Machar is a rebel who is trying to unconstitutionally take power through force,” Kerry said. “There’s no equivalence between the two as far as we are concerned.”

U.N. agency head quits over report calling Israel an ‘apartheid regime’

JERUSALEM — The head of a U.N. agency responsible for publishing a report earlier this week calling Israel an “apartheid regime” resigned Friday after U.N. Secretary General António Guterres pressured her to withdraw the document. Rima Khalaf, a U.N. undersecretary general and executive secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) headquartered in Beirut, said her decision to resign followed a request from Guterres to remove the report from the agency’s website. The report, published Wednesday, was immediately slammed by Israel and its closest ally, the United States, who denounced it as anti-Israel propaganda. The U.N. secretary general also distanced himself from the report, saying it was released without prior consultation with the U.N. Secretariat. On Friday, a spokesman for Guterres told Reuters news agency that the secretary general had accepted Khalaf’s resignation. “This is not about content, this is about process," said the spokesman, Stephane Dujarric. He said the report was published under the U.N. name and using the U.N. logo but without “consulting the competent departments.” The report, entitled “Israeli Practices Toward the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid,” no longer appears on ESCWA’s website. Israeli officials welcomed Khalaf’s departure as long overdue. “Anti-Israel activists do not belong in the U.N. It is time to put an end to the practice in which U.N. officials use their position to advance their anti-Israel agenda,” said Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon. He said the secretary general’s call to remove the report was an important step in ending what Israelis have long maintained is bias against Israel at the world body. In a news conference held to announce her resignation, Khalaf, a Jordanian citizen, said she had expected Israel and its allies to pressure the secretary general to renounce the report. But, she said, she stood by the report’s findings. She called the research the “first of its kind” from a U.N. agency shedding light on "the crimes that Israel continues to commit against the Palestinian people, which amount to war crimes against humanity," Reuters reported. Authored by Richard Falk, a former U.N. special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories known for harsh criticism of both Israel and the United States, and Virginia Tilley, a professor of political science at Southern Illinois University, the report concluded that Israel has created an apartheid regime aimed at maintaining domination over the Palestinians. It recommended reviving the U.N. Center Against Apartheid, which closed in 1994 after South Africa ended its apartheid practices, to investigate Israel’s actions. It also urged support for a boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel. The report’s authors said although “apartheid” is associated with South Africa's former system of minority white rule, the term now applies more broadly to crimes against humanity under international law and the Rome Statute that set up the International Criminal Court. The report identified four distinct groups of Palestinians: those who live within Israel’s borders, residents of East Jerusalem, Palestinians in the West Bank and refugees. It pointed out that while they are treated differently by Israel, they all face “racial oppression that results from the apartheid regime.” Israelis, who say the term apartheid is both inaccurate and inflammatory when applied to their conflict with the Palestinians, immediately blasted the report. On Twitter, Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon compared it to the Nazi-era tabloid Der Stürmer, which promoted Nazi propaganda and was virulently anti-Semitic. The report also drew sharp criticism from the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, who called it “anti-Israel propaganda.” In recent weeks, the U.S. government has indicated that it would consider halting its funding for and participation in various U.N. programs due, among other things, to the United Nations’ perceived anti-Israel stance. “The United States stands with our ally Israel and will continue to oppose biased and anti-Israel actions across the U.N. system and around the world,” Haley said in a press release. “The U.N.'s top donors, including the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, and Canada, must stop funding U.N. bodies obsessed with demonizing Israel,” said Gilad Erdan, Israel’s minister of public security and strategic affairs. “This obsession with condemning Israel does nothing to advance peace or help the Palestinians. All countries concerned with promoting a peaceful solution should stop funding bodies that discriminate against Israel, and insist that the U.N. undergo fundamental reforms,” Erdan said.

Obama calls for renewed commitment to U.N. peacekeeping missions

UNITED NATIONS — Since the first modest force of United Nations blue helmets was deployed to maintain an Arab-Israeli cease-fire in 1948, millions of troops from around the world have participated in U.N. peacekeeping operations. They have kept Greeks and Turks apart, separated Pakistanis and Indians, and monitored the cessation of hostilities between Ethiopia and Eritrea. But the difficulties that U.N. peacekeepers face have changed substantially in recent years, and the force is showing its age. “Old challenges persist,” President Obama said Monday at a high-level meeting, convened by the United States, on the future of peacekeeping. “Too few nations bear a disproportionate burden of providing troops, which is unsustainable. Atop this, we’ve seen new challenges — more armed conflicts, more instability driven by terrorism and violent extremism, and more refugees.” Today, a handful of mostly developing countries — led by Bangladesh and Ethiopia — provide the majority of more than 100,000 troops and police devoted to 16 peacekeeping operations around the world. Often badly equipped and poorly trained, the forces are ill prepared to face conflicts in places such as South Sudan, where neither side seems interested in peace, and Mali, where troops have little defense against ongoing and asymmetrical warfare in the desert. In response to Obama’s summons, heads of government attending this year’s U.N. General Assembly filed to the microphone to pledge to do more. China, in keeping with its desire to play a larger role on the world stage, pledged an additional 8,000 people for a new peacekeeping standby force, training for 2,000 peacekeepers from other countries and $100 million for African Union stabilization forces. Obama left the session after about an hour and a half, for an appointment with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But the procession of promises, from about 50 nations in all, went on in his absence, for total pledges of about 40,000 additional troops and police. Rwanda, which became a lasting symbol of U.N. failure when an estimated 1 million civilians were killed in internecine warfare in 1994 — while a token force of fewer than 300 international peacekeepers stood by powerless — said it would contribute two infantry battalions and a female police unit. Colombia, which is seeking a new role for its armed forces as it heads toward a peace agreement ending its decades-long guerrilla war, said it would significantly increase its commitment as soon as the accord is solidified. Europe, which has largely dropped out of the peacekeeping business in recent years, was represented by several leaders. British Prime Minister David Cameron said his country would send hundreds of troops to Sudan and Somalia as trainers. Others pledged equipment and contributions to the peacekeeping budget, currently $8.3 billion, of which the United States pays 28 percent. “We know that peace operations are not the solution to every problem,” Obama said, “but they do remain one of the world’s most important tools to address armed conflict.” Although it pays more than any other country for peacekeeping, the United States is among the smallest contributors of troops, with 42 police, six military experts and 34 troops. In a presidential directive issued just before the summit meeting, Obama said he would double the number of military officers and significantly increase other contributions. “We will offer logistical support, including our unrivaled network of air- and sea-lift. When there’s an urgent need and we’re uniquely positioned to help, we’ll undertake engineering projects like building airfields and base camps for new missions,” he said. “And we’ll step up our efforts to help build the U.N.’s capacity, from identifying state-of-the-art technology to offering training to protection against IEDs,” or improvised explosive devices. The push to improve peacekeeping began last year, when Vice President Biden convened a similar summit at the General Assembly. The last major changes in U.N. operations, expanding rules for protection of civilians, came two decades ago, after Rwanda and the 1995 genocide against Muslim civilians in Bosnia. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon last year appointed an independent panel to examine the peacekeeping operation and recommend changes. During the summer, the military commanders of three of the most challenging missions briefed the Security Council on some of their problems. The head of the U.N. mission in South Sudan spoke of the difficulty of protecting civilians without required “logistical, financial and human resources that fit the mandate, expectations and realities on the ground,” including close air support, intelligence and medical evacuation capability. Irish Maj. Gen. Michael Finn, commanding the U.N. Truce Supervision Organization between Syria and Israel over the Golan Heights, said that restrictions imposed by many contributing countries on their troops to avoid risks in a conflict zone had made his job even more difficult. The commander of U.N. forces in Mali, Maj. Gen. Michael Lollesgaard of Denmark, spoke of the need for “the capability to face hostile armed groups hiding among the population and to face challenging climates, geography and infrastructure.”

The U.N. faces intense scrutiny in South Sudan after failing to stop a brutal attack on foreign aid workers

When a spasm of violence broke out in South Sudan's capital last month, a group of foreign aid workers faced a fateful decision: Should they try to flee the country or go into lockdown? The consensus they reached was that it was too dangerous to leave their compound, known as Terrain. "There was a lot of gunfire nearby," said Gian Libot, a Philippine aid worker. "But it wasn't directed at us. We were under the impression that we weren't the target of any of the fighting." After two days cooped up in Terrain's safehouse, that impression was shattered when gunfire erupted at the gate of the compound. The mood among the dozens of foreigners and South Sudanese inside went from confusion to concern to panic in minutes. Seeking protection, they frantically called contacts at embassies and the U.N. peacekeeping mission, which happened to be just down the road.  When Libot was finally discovered, he was hit with a rifle butt on his back and was ushered into a hallway, where a soldier told the group that he would kill them as a warning to foreigners, particularly Americans, to stop meddling in his country. Instead, the soldiers shot John Gatluak, a South Sudanese journalist working for a nongovernmental organization focused on media development. "They singled him out because he was Nuer," said Libot, referring to Gatluak's ethnicity. The attack at Terrain is the latest in the seemingly endless stream of horrors befalling civilians in South Sudan. And as with several cases in the past, this one has left many asking: Where was the U.N. peacekeeping force that had been called multiple times for help? Given that it has a mandate to protect civilians and to use force if necessary, how did a brazen assault go on for hours so close to the peacekeepers' base? On Tuesday, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced that his office would be asking the same question. In a statement, he said he was "alarmed" at the attack on Terrain and concerned that the U.N. mission there, known by the acronym UNMISS, "did not respond appropriately to prevent this and other grave cases of sexual violence committed in Juba," South Sudan's capital. His office will open an "independent special investigation to determine the circumstances surrounding these incidents and to evaluate the Mission’s overall response."   On Feb. 17, fighters with AK-47s and grenade launchers broke into a camp for displaced people in the northern town of Malakal. As many as 50 civilians were fatally shot, burned alive in their tents or crushed to death by panicking crowds. U.N. peacekeepers fled their posts. A summary of the UNMISS “board of inquiry report” said the organization and its peacekeepers failed through a “combination of inaction, abandonment of post and refusal to engage.” Some peacekeepers reportedly demanded written permission to use their weapons, even though their U.N. mandate clearly gives them that authority. Perhaps more important, peacekeepers did not heed warnings that violence was brewing and were not prepared to act, the report said. This lack of foresight and risk management seems to have been repeated in Juba during the Terrain attack. To be fair, U.N. peacekeepers are facing an almost impossible task in South Sudan. In the civil war there, neither side has shown much regard for the safety of civilians. More than 160,000 civilians live in U.N. camps for the internally displaced. Those camps are routinely raided, often by government-backed troops. It is rare for U.N. peacekeepers to be tasked with protecting civilians against their own government's troops.  If anything, UNMISS failed to recognize that Terrain might be a target. The aid workers there didn't think they would be targeted, either. But what they and the private security contractors hired by their aid organizations may not have realized is that renegade factions of South Sudan's army harbored violent resentment toward foreigners operating in the country. Salva Kiir, South Sudan's president and leader of its army, acknowledged that not all of his soldiers were "completely subordinate to the authority of a civilian government." A State Department official said it was likely that troops not under Kiir's control were responsible for the attack at Terrain, adding that it was conceivable that members of South Sudan's National Security Service — its intelligence organization — also took part. Aid workers recounted that almost all the attackers at Terrain were in army uniforms and that some had insignia worn by Kiir's personal guard. More damning, however, is a timeline of events compiled by the U.N. Joint Operations Center and obtained by the AP. The timeline details multiple units of peacekeepers refusing to be deployed to Terrain despite repeated calls for help. Ultimately, it was not until about four hours after UNMISS was notified of the attack that South Sudanese troops under Kiir's control entered Terrain and rescued most of those inside. The U.S. Embassy was instrumental in spurring South Sudan's army to send those troops, even if they were not able to reach the compound before many atrocities had been committed. When Molly Phee, the U.S. ambassador to South Sudan, was informed of the attack, she contacted the National Security Service and Kiir's presidential guard. "Some of the security forces had lost control over some of their men. Those who remained under control of the generals were who we called upon for assistance," Phee said on the phone from Juba. "Generals had to find trusted troops. Then those troops had to make their way through the fighting." The U.S. Agency for International Development, which partners with and funds the nongovernmental organization for which Gatluak and others at Terrain worked, said it was "reviewing the incident to determine how we can further support the security of our partners." The organization said that its partners are required to have security plans in place as "part of their award" and that USAID project funding goes toward security.  Libot, the man who hid under a bed during the attack, says he is disappointed by the peacekeepers' dereliction of duty. "This isn't the first time this has happened," he said. "I was just trusting in people who I thought knew better."

Trump calls U.N. ‘just a club for people’ to ‘have a good time’

Three days after the United Nations adopted a resolution calling on Israel to halt Jewish settlement activity on Palestinian territory, President-elect Donald Trump tweeted that the international body “is just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time.” The harsh criticism, which Trump made Monday while vacationing at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, signaled he would likely challenge more than just the 71-year-old institution’s approach to the Middle East once he takes office. While Trump did not elaborate on why he considered the United Nations ineffectual, he made it clear both before and after the Security Council adopted the resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem that he believed the United States should have blocked the move. President Obama instructed U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power to abstain from voting, on the grounds that the Israeli government’s continued support for expanding Jewish settlements could undermine any prospect of eventually reaching a two-state solution to the simmering conflict. After the Security Council voted Trump tweeted, “As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20th,” which is the day he will assume the presidency. The United Nations has come under fire for years from critics on both the right and the left. Conservatives have attacked it for infringing on individual nations’ sovereignty as well as wasting resources, while many developing nations argue that most major decisions remain dominated by a handful of countries that were influential when the United Nations was established decades ago. In recent years, some of its peacekeeping troops have been repeatedly accused of raping civilians they were sent to protect, and this August the office of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon formally acknowledged that Nepalese peacekeepers sent by the United Nations to Haiti six years ago contributed to a cholera outbreak there even as U.N. officials maintained they have legal immunity in connection to the epidemic. But the United Nations continues to play a key role in helping deliver humanitarian assistance across the globe, brokering cease-fires during conflicts and serving as a forum for sprawling issues such as how best to address climate change. Obama has worked doggedly during his time in office to support multilateral institutions such as the United Nations. He has used his speech each year before the U.N. General Assembly as a way to lay out his vision for foreign affairs and has convened summits there to tackle questions that include the global refugee crisis and the fight against terrorism. Earlier this month, the president stopped by to personally thank Ban for his work when the secretary general, who is stepping down at the end of the month, was meeting with national security adviser Susan Rice at the White House. During a new conference last month, Obama emphasized that the United States must continue to play the leading role in maintaining “the basic framework of the world order” that was established after World War II. “And I’ve said before, that’s a burden that we should carry proudly,” Obama said. “And I would hope that not just the 45th president of the United States, but every president of the United States understands that that's not only a burden, but it’s also an extraordinary privilege. And if you have a chance to do that right, then you should seize it.”

Ukrainian foreign minister’s name-calling puts world in peril

Regarding “Putin slur delights Ukrainians, angers Russians ” [news, June 16]: This sad incident of a Ukrainian diplomat calling Vladimir Putin an epithet is a textbook example of the undiplomatic nature of many Western (or Western-leaning) leaders. It demonstrates that we are trending toward a system of no diplomacy and instead the uncivilized laws of the jungle: Might makes right. Many Western leaders (such as Joseph R. Biden Jr., Madeleine Albright and Richard Holbrooke ) have publicly used racial epithets in the past, slandering an entire people (e.g., the Serbs during the Yugoslav civil wars) and never apologized. These comments are never forgotten and will frustrate the resolution of conflicts far into the future. On top of that, these “leaders” project a negative image of Western nations internationally, which also prevents the triumph of civilized and peaceful diplomacy and discourse, thus making war inevitable. As we sleepwalk toward World War III, our leaders must understand that these kinds of barbaric incidents are inexcusable and will merely exacerbate the crisis in the Ukraine and elsewhere. ****Michael Pravica,** Henderson, Nev.**

U.S. troops have turned to some unsavory partners to help find warlord Joseph Kony

U.S. Special Operations forces have opened a new front in their hunt for the African warlord Joseph Kony, moving closer to his suspected hideout in a lawless enclave straddling Sudan and South Sudan, according to military officials and others familiar with the operation. As their mission stretches into a fifth year, however, U.S. troops have turned to some unsavory partners to help find Kony’s trail. Working from a new bush camp in the Central African Republic, U.S. forces have begun working closely with Muslim rebels — known as Seleka — who toppled the central government two years ago and triggered a still-raging sectarian war with a campaign of mass rapes and executions. The Pentagon had not previously disclosed that it is cooperating with Seleka and obtaining intelligence from the rebels. The arrangement has made some U.S. troops uncomfortable. The Seleka rebels “are playing us,” said one military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to talk with reporters. The official described Seleka as a “mafia” that is trying to curry favor with the Americans even as the rebels extort local villagers and engage in illicit trade with Kony’s fugitive fighters. About 100 U.S. military advisers are deployed across four countries to guide the international campaign to catch Kony, whose brutal militia, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), has raped, abducted and killed tens of thousands of people over the past three decades. After first sending U.S. forces to central Africa in 2011, President Obama must decide next month whether to reauthorize the deployment and extend it for at least another year. Some senior U.S. military leaders have been lukewarm about the mission, citing its duration and the fact that Kony does not pose a direct threat to American interests. But the operation still draws strong bipartisan support on Capitol Hill, and many expect the White House to stay the course. “For 30 years, this individual has been creating mayhem and some of the worst atrocities on the continent,” said Rep. Edward R. Royce (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “Now is the time to double down and see the counter-LRA mission to the end.” A Ugandan guerrilla with a messiah complex and an uncanny survival instinct, Kony has eluded capture despite the best efforts of the Pentagon and the State Department, which is offering a $5 million reward for information on his whereabouts. Although Kony is still on the loose, U.S. officials and backers of the mission cite several measures as evidence of progress. The estimated number of LRA fighters in recent years has dropped by more than half, to fewer than 200. Four of Kony’s senior commanders have been killed or captured. Reported civilian abductions have fluctuated but dwindled overall. Tens of thousands of villagers who fled the LRA have returned home. Paul Ronan, project director for the Resolve, a human rights advocacy group that tracks the LRA, said the U.S. government would lose credibility if it declared victory prematurely. “This is a legacy issue for the Obama administration,” Ronan said. “If we give up on this mission, it sends a message to the rest of the continent that if you outlast us for a few years, essentially we’ll just give up.” Peter Boogaard, a spokesman for the National Security Council, declined to comment on whether Obama would extend the mission but said the U.S. strategy had proved effective. In an e-mailed statement, he said U.S. forces “do not provide intelligence or operational assistance to Seleka factions” or other armed groups in the Central African Republic, though he acknowledged that “our military advisors may meet with actors who may have information on LRA activities.” To track down Kony, the U.S. military and allied African forces are trying to navigate a territory the size of California with few roads and plenty of thick jungle terrain. But the biggest obstacle may be a wave of political turmoil that has further destabilized already weak countries. Two U.S. military camps are located in the Central African Republic, which is still embroiled in the sectarian civil war sparked by Seleka. Dozens have been killed in recent days in renewed clashes in the capital, Bangui, which has been seized by anarchy despite efforts by the United Nations and outside powers to restore calm. Another U.S. camp is in South Sudan, a country that declared independence four years ago with backing from Washington but that has since become gripped by its own civil war. U.S. military advisers are also posted at a small base in Congo, yet another weak state racked by warlords. Kony has exploited the turmoil by moving from country to country, and he is now believed to have taken refuge in Sudan. U.S. officials and analysts say Kony and LRA fighters operate primarily from the state of South Darfur and a disputed territory, Kafia Kingi, that is controlled by Sudan. Sudan is a longtime antagonist of Washington, and U.S. Special Operations forces are prohibited from entering the country. Instead, a small team of American advisers this year set up a new camp as close as possible, inside the Central African Republic, about 30 miles from the border with Kafia Kingi. Although the camp is new, U.S. forces have surveyed, selected and occasionally used landing zones in the area since 2013. The rudimentary base is near the town of Sam Ouandja, an area rife with smugglers and controlled by a local Seleka faction. “When you do a map of who has power in the area, they’re the ones. They have the guns,” said Lisa Dougan, president of Invisible Children, an advocacy group that drew worldwide attention to the LRA’s atrocities three years ago with a video — “Kony 2012” — that went viral on the Internet. Seleka and the LRA have a tumultuous history. Sometimes they engage in open warfare; other times they do business. When the two sides aren’t shooting at each other, LRA fighters often cross the border from Sudan into the Central African Republic to sell gemstones or elephant tusks in exchange for food and weapons, according to advocacy groups and U.S. officials. As a result, Seleka warlords have become as well-versed as anyone with the LRA. That, in turn, has led the U.S. military advisers — despite Washington’s distaste for the rebels — to work closely with Seleka. According to U.S. military officials, the team of U.S. troops in Sam Ouandja meets regularly with Seleka leaders, obtains intelligence from the rebels and sometimes provides medical care to Seleka loyalists. The cooperation is a sensitive subject. The Pentagon doesn’t advertise its dealings with Seleka and declined to comment in detail about the interactions. “We’re engaging with whomever has information that is relevant,” said Amanda Dory, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Africa. “Anytime we have an intelligence lead that would help us locate the LRA or Kony, we pursue those leads the best we can.” The U.S. military official who was critical of the cooperation said Seleka is trying to win legitimacy by appearing to help the Americans look for Kony. But he suggested that Seleka cannot be trusted and that the rebels are too cozy with the LRA. “The LRA doesn’t come into the area and attack or kidnap people,” the official said. “They come into the area to do business with the Seleka.” The first signs of U.S. contacts with Seleka surfaced in January when the rebels announced they had captured Dominic Ongwen, an LRA commander with a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head. Seleka leaders handed Ongwen over to U.S. forces and publicly asked for the reward. At the time, U.S. officials portrayed the incident differently, playing down Seleka’s role. Although they acknowledged taking custody of Ongwen from the rebels, they described him as a defector who surrendered. They declined to say whether Seleka received any reward money. The headquarters of the U.S. operation is in Entebbe, Uganda. Although Kony has not been spotted in his native Uganda in many years, Ugandan soldiers provide the backbone of an African Union force that works closely with U.S. advisers to hunt the LRA. Fresh U.S. troops rotate into the region every six months or so, which has made it difficult to build a strong working relationship with the Ugandans, according to people familiar with the mission. Another source of friction: disputes over the use of scarce transport aircraft. In one instance, the Ugandans arranged for a U.S. helicopter to resupply their soldiers at a remote base in the Central African Republic — but only loaded the aircraft with five heads of cabbage, according to the same U.S. military official. The Pentagon has made mistakes in equipping the operation. In March 2014, U.S. defense officials announced with fanfare that they were deploying four CV-22 Osprey transport aircraft to Uganda, along with refueling planes and 150 additional personnel. The aircraft and extra troops, however, were yanked out of central Africa after just three weeks. Maj. J.B. Brindle, a Pentagon spokesman, said the Ospreys were withdrawn because of “changing operational needs” and a high demand for the aircraft elsewhere. The U.S. Special Operations forces rely on private contractors to fly surveillance aircraft in search of the LRA. But that arrangement has foundered as well. According to a second U.S. military official, private contractors work “to the beat of their own drum” and are slow to relay surveillance data to U.S. forces on the ground. More often than not, potential leads on the LRA don’t pan out, with U.S. forces committing aircraft and personnel to far-flung searches that yield no results. “Imagine searching for 200 criminals in an area the size of California covered in jungle,” the first military official said. “Between poachers, the ivory trade and the LRA, you don’t know who’s who.”

South Sudan could repeat Rwanda’s horrors

SOUTH SUDAN “is on the brink of catastrophe,” a three-member U.N. commission on human rights declared last week after a visit. The chairman, Yasmine Sooka, warned of a repeat of the Rwandan genocide. “There is already a steady process of ethnic cleansing underway in several areas of South Sudan using starvation, gang rape and the burning of villages; everywhere we went across this country we heard villagers saying they are ready to shed blood to get their land back,” she said. “Many told us it’s already reached a point of no return.” The world responded with a shrug. After long delays, the U.N. Security Council was expected to vote on a resolution Nov. 29 imposing targeted sanctions and an arms embargo, but then Russia, China and others expressed opposition in one form or another, and the vote was put off. An earlier plan to send 4,000 peacekeepers for a regional protection force to join the 12,000 already in South Sudan has yet to be implemented. South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation and an example of U.S. intervention that officials were proud to boast about just a few years ago, is careering once again into chaos. A report from the Council on Foreign Relations says the danger of genocide is real and proposed that the United Nations and African Union run the country for 10 to 15 years to help it rebuild. Established out of the ashes of a long war in which millions died, South Sudan’s independence in 2011 was a moment of hope but it did not last. The forces of President Salva Kiir and his rival and former vice president Riek Machar went to war with each other in late 2013, a senseless conflict that ended with a peace agreement nearly two years later. But key aspects of the deal have not been implemented, and Mr. Machar fled the country. On July 11, armed men, identified as government forces, went on a rampage in the capital, Juba, at a compound where foreign workers lived, robbing, beating and sexually assaulting them. Mr. Kiir, who has often urged Washington to be patient, appears to no longer be listening to appeals from the United States and elsewhere to stop the violence. The United States only recently backed the arms embargo. The report from the U.N. team was alarming. Violence is spreading through regions of South Sudan, such as Central Equatoria, that had previously been quiet. Ms. Sooka said she found “an increase in hate speech, a crackdown on the media and civil society, deepening divisions between the country’s 64 tribes,” and a renewed drive for conflict in a nation already flooded with guns and armed groups. She added, “The scale of rape of women and girls perpetrated by all armed groups in South Sudan is utterly unacceptable and is frankly mind boggling.” She said aid workers described gang rape as so prevalent that it has become “normal.” The U.N. Security Council, the United States and the rest of the world must find a way to confront these atrocities and stop the downward spiral of South Sudan. **Read more on this topic:** The Post’s View: South Sudan’s top-down disaster George Clooney and John Prendergast: War crimes shouldn’t pay in South Sudan The Post’s View: Enough is enough. It’s time for an arms embargo in South Sudan. Josh Rogin: Obama’s failed legacy on child soldiers The Post’s View: America has to do something to stop South Sudan’s bloody unraveling

On Syria, Obama administration is leading to failure

THE OUTSIDE world seems to have grown numb to reports of atrocities from Syria — “barrel bombs” dropped on schools, Scud missiles aimed at apartment houses, blockaded neighborhoods where children die of starvation. But a report released Monday by a panel of international jurists ought to prick some consciences. Based on 55,000 images smuggled out of the country, mostly by a defector from the military police, it reports the murder of some 11,000 men detained by the Syrian government between 2011 and last August. Many of the bodies in the photographs show signs of torture; some are missing eyes. More than 40 percent of the bodies show signs of emaciation, indicating that the prisoners were systematically starved. On Wednesday, Secretary of State John F. Kerry opened the Geneva 2 peace conference on Syria by referring to this “horrific” account of “systematic torture and execution of thousands of prisoners.” He called it “an appalling assault, not only on human lives but on human dignity and on every standard by which the international community tries to organize itself.” The jurists, former war-crimes prosecutors commissioned by the government of Qatar, concluded that the “evidence would support findings of crimes against humanity against the current Syrian regime.” Yet the diplomatic initiative that Mr. Kerry launched offers no means to hold the regime of Bashar al-Assad accountable for these atrocities, or even to stop them. On the contrary: It may serve to prop up the Assad government by treating it as a legitimate party to negotiations about Syria’s future. Mr. Kerry insists the talks will lead to a transitional government that excludes Mr. Assad, but the Syrian delegation flatly rejects this premise, and there is no indication that its allies Russia and Iran think otherwise. Some diplomats at the conference, such as United Nations mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, believe it could lead to palliative measures, such as local cease- fires and the opening of humanitarian corridors to besieged civilians. Mr. Brahimi’s predecessor, Kofi Annan, was convinced of this as well and even obtained the Assad regime’s formal agreement to a plan. But the Assad forces never respected their commitments; now they are using offers of humanitarian supplies as a means to force the surrender of rebel-held areas. President Obama demonstrated last year that the credible threat of force could change the regime’s behavior. His promise of airstrikes caused Mr. Assad to surrender an arsenal of chemical weapons . Yet the president seems not to have learned the lesson of that episode. Now he makes the defeatist argument that, as he put it to David Remnick of the New Yorker, “It is very difficult to imagine a scenario in which our involvement in Syria would have led to a better outcome, short of us being willing to undertake an effort in size and scope similar to what we did in Iraq.” In fact, Mr. Obama probably could force the measures Mr. Brahimi is seeking by presenting Mr. Assad with the choice of accepting them or enduring U.S. airstrikes. That he refuses to consider options between Mr. Kerry’s feckless diplomacy and an Iraq-style invasion only ensures that the Geneva 2 conference will fail and that the atrocities will continue. **Read more about this issue:** The Post’s View: Mr. Obama’s empty words on Syria The Post’s View: Syria falls into an abyss The Post’s View: The slow-motion conflagration around Syria Michael Gerson: Syria’s brutality continues at will David Ignatius: Ousting Assad may be only the beginning

Israel worries as al-Qaeda affiliates gain control of Syrian side of Golan frontier

NAFAH JUNCTION, Golan Heights — Israel has some new neighbors. Al-Qaeda-linked rebels have, for the first time, established a permanent presence on the Syrian frontier. For 40 years, Israel and Syria have kept the peace along the 1974 armistice line here, a cease-fire overseen by U.N. troops from countries such as Fiji and the Philippines, who patrolled a demilitarized buffer zone populated by apple farmers. Today, the U.N. peacekeepers are mostly gone. And so is the Syrian government. In a series of sharp, decisive skirmishes over the past few weeks, Syrian army forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad were swept aside by al-Qaeda-linked rebels from Jabhat al-Nusra and other anti-Assad militants along nearly the full length of the Golan buffer zone. In August, Syrian rebel forces  flushed U.N. peacekeepers  from their base near the Quneitra border crossing and kidnapped a contingent of 45 Fijian soldiers stationed nearby. The Fijians were released unharmed after two weeks, but the entire contingent from Fiji has since packed up and left. A generation of Israeli commanders has warily eyed the Syrian side. But things have gotten demonstrably worse in the past month. With U.N. peacekeepers absent, the Syrian army routed and al-Qaeda  affiliates in the Jabhat al-Nusra in control, the sleepy borderland is more unstable than at any time in the past four decades. “Who is in control over there? We don’t know,” said Col. Nir Ben David, a senior officer with the Northern Command of the Israeli Defense Forces. He pointed to scattered farm towns in Syria. “Those aren’t just villages now.  Those are rebel bases  ,” Ben David said. For now, Israeli army leaders say their intelligence leads them to believe that the Islamist militants in the Syrian opposition are most eager to topple Assad, not tackle Israel. But they wonder for how long. “I think it is only a matter of time before they turn to Israel, a year, half a year. All other radical groups in the region — in the Sinai, in Lebanon — at some point they stop fighting their local enemies and start carrying out attacks against Israel,” said Eyal Zisser, an expert on Syrian affairs at Tel Aviv University. Israel occupied the Golan Heights after the 1967 Arab-   Israeli war. During the 1973 Yom Kippur war, Syrian forces punched into the Golan but were pushed back by Israeli counterattacks. Israel and Syria signed a cease-fire in 1974, which the United Nations monitors. Syrian opposition fighters have been operating along the Golan frontier during most of the three-year civil war in their country, but in recent months they have consolidated forces and notched their belts with a string of victories. The rebel groups here — led by the al-Qaeda affiliates — control 90 percent of the boundary separating Syria and Israeli-controlled Golan, according to Israeli military commanders. The majority of the 1,200 troops with the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force, known as UNDOF, have abandoned their bases in the demilitarized zone and are encamped  on the Israeli-controlled side of the border. Last week, the Philippines announced that it was bringing its 300 troops home early. Syrian rebels occupy the vacated UNDOF bases and observation posts in the buffer zone and control the single crossing gate between Israel and Syria, according to Israeli military officials. “Under the 1974 armistice agreement, the Syrian army were not allowed to be close to the border with Israel,” said Ben David, who toured the border with journalists last week. “They were stationed quite far away. Their tanks were only allowed within [about nine miles] of the border. But now, the rebels have taken tanks and guns and they are sitting right on the border.” In a statement, the United Nations said UNDOF is fulfilling its mandate, “continuously adjusting its activities and posture in response to the evolving security situation on the ground, which has continued to deteriorate.” The U.N. Security Council asserted on Friday that the force will not be disbanded. The Syrian villages sit just meters from Israel’s high-tech “smart fence ,” bristling with cameras and sensors, constructed a year ago. Many of the larger buildings in the villages are stained black from smoke and fires, while others are destroyed — some from recent fighting, some from battles four decades ago. Jeeps and black SUVs can be seen moving along the broken roads. Rockets and artillery fire boom in the background. Mortar, tank and artillery fire from the fight in Syria has reached Israel several times, injuring Israeli soldiers who patrol the border road and killing an  Israeli teenager who was traveling there with his father this summer. “From time to time, the Syrian army approaches and fires toward [the rebels], and the rebels fire back. I know that no party is interested in attacking Israel right now. But if the artillery goes over the border fence, that is a red line for us, and we have to respond,” Ben David said. “This is the first time since 1974 that on the other side of the border in the Golan Heights we do not have the Syrian armed forces or the UNDOF forces in between. Now, there is a completely different situation,” said Shaul Shay, former deputy head of the Israel National Security Council. “If my assumption is correct, that sooner or later they will turn their weapons against Israel, what is the best thing to do?” Shay said. “A preemptive operation to push them from the border? Or just wait and see? So far, Israeli policy is to wait and see. If they push back Nusra, then another group that’s even worse could fill the space.” Booth reported from Jerusalem.

U.S. troops deployed to bolster security at American embassy in South Sudan

The United States has sent an additional 40 troops to help protect the American embassy in South Sudan, just days after a spat of fighting killed hundreds in the country’s capital.  Chuck Prichard, a spokesman for the U.S. military’s Africa Command, would not comment on the makeup of the troop detachment for operational security reasons. Last week, fighting between troops loyal to South Sudan’s president and its vice president spilled into the streets of Juba, South Sudan’s capital. Hundreds were reportedly killed and many fled to nearby United Nations camps, some of which came under mortar and machine-gun fire by Sudanese forces. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said he was “appalled” at the recent attacks on U.N. personnel and condemned the killing of two Chinese peacekeepers and one U.N. staff member.  On Monday, the opposing forces declared a tenuous cease-fire that has held into the week. The world’s newest country, South Sudan was founded in 2011. Two years later, it erupted into a civil war that has since killed tens of thousands and displaced thousands more. Tuesday’s troop deployment to South Sudan is not the first time U.S. service members have been called to help their fellow citizens in the the war-riddled country. In 2014, U.S. Marines flew from their base in Spain and Entebbe, Uganda, with KC-130 and MV-22 transport aircraft to help with the evacuation of roughly 20 people from the American embassy. A year earlier, a flight of Air Force CV-22 Ospreys loaded with U.S. Navy SEALs came under fire while trying to evacuate U.S. citizens from a U.N. camp in Bor, South Sudan. A number of SEALs were wounded when Kalashnikov and heavy machine gun fire tore through the aircrafts’ fuselages.

The United Nations comes clean(ish) on cholera in Haiti

MORE THAN six years after a brigade of U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal introduced cholera in Haiti, triggering an epidemic that has killed at least 10,000 and sickened many more, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has finally uttered the word “sorry.” Mr. Ban’s tortuously worded apology, delivered recently in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly, must be the beginning, not the end, of official contrition and accountability by the United Nations in Haiti. The glacial rate at which the United Nations grasped its moral responsibility for having wreaked a public-health disaster in the Western Hemisphere’s most impoverished nation has tarnished the institution. Cowed by its lawyers, jealously guarding its prestige, the United Nations averted its gaze from the victims, ignored incontrovertible scientific evidence and trembled at its potential legal liability. Only when it became clear that its credibility was in tatters, and its authority to insist that member states adhere to international norms was in jeopardy, did the United Nations finally come to terms publicly with its culpability in the cholera outbreak. “We simply didn’t do enough with regard to the cholera outbreak and its spread in Haiti,” Mr. Ban said. “We are profoundly sorry about our role.” His statement, coming just a month before his term as the United Nations’ eighth secretary general expires, painstakingly avoided an overt admission of what is already known: that the outbreak began when Nepalese peacekeepers, failing to use basic protocols of sanitation at their base when they arrived in 2010, contaminated a nearby river that provided drinking water for Haitians. Cholera was rampant in Nepal at the time; it had been unknown in Haiti for decades. What is critical now, as U.N. officials have acknowledged, is that the organization take concrete steps to make amends, namely by leading a public health blitzkrieg to eradicate the disease in Haiti and by making reparations, to victims’ families, their communities or both. Legal accountability is not the point; a federal appeals panel ruled this summer that the United Nations enjoys diplomatic immunity from the victims’ claims. But moral accountability demands a sustained effort to wipe out a disease that has caused so much suffering in that country. It won’t be easy. U.N. officials say they have nearly raised the $200 million they sought to overhaul water and sanitation infrastructure in Haiti, and to treat cholera’s steady flow of fresh patients there. That’s a first step toward what is likely to be a long struggle for eradication. Unfortunately, they have made little progress in raising from member states what they hope will be an identical amount of money to provide payouts, scholarships and other benefits to the relatives and communities of the dead. Under Mr. Ban’s successor, former Portuguese prime minister Antonio Guterres, who takes office Jan. 1, the United Nations has every incentive to press ahead both to heal Haiti to the extent possible and to restore its own moral standing. **Read more on this topic:** Joel Dreyfuss: Only Haitians can save Haiti The Post’s View: The Herculean task facing Haiti The Post’s View: The U.N. finally owns up to its role in Haiti’s cholera outbreak Charanya Krishnaswami and Muneer I. Ahmad: U.N. hypocrisy in Haiti The Post’s View: United Nations must admit its role in Haiti’s cholera outbreak

Immigration team chases Bosnian war criminals 20 years after conflict’s end

Two decades after the end of the Balkan conflict, a three-year spasm of ethnic and religious bloodletting that came to define modern-day genocide, the war in Bosnia is still being fought in the United States. On one side is a team headed by Michael MacQueen, an official at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who has spent years tracking down alleged war criminals among more than 150,000 Bosnian refugees in the United States, gathering evidence on their wartime records and often using charges of immigration fraud to have them deported. The team’s efforts at ICE’s Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Unit have achieved some high-profile successes, including a recent federal court ruling against Almaz Nezirovic, a refugee in Roanoke who had been wanted by Bosnian authorities since 2003 on charges of tormenting prisoners as a guard at a military detention center. Based partly on MacQueen’s interviews with former prisoners, Nezirovic, 54, was arrested and imprisoned in 2012. After nearly three years of legal proceedings, his appeal was denied in federal court last month, and he is now likely to be extradited. But many other individuals pursued by ICE have less clear connections to wartime abuses. Some are former Serbian military conscripts, such as Vitomir Spiric, 43, a Bosnian in Phoenix who says he repeatedly tried to escape military service and committed no crimes. He was convicted of immigration fraud in 2010, but his case is still on appeal. “I never killed no one, I never did nothing wrong. I just kept trying to run and they kept catching me again,” Spiric, a medical courier with two children, said in a lengthy interview last week. “The war finished a long time ago, but it never ends. It never ends.” The story of MacQueen’s mission to bring hidden Bosnian war criminals to justice, and of murky cases like Spiric’s that may fall short of that description, illustrate how difficult the truth can be to extract from chaotic, long-past events — and how hard it is to neatly distinguish between victims and perpetrators in a brutal, fast-moving conflict during which people did whatever they could to survive. A number of high-level Serbian militia leaders and others accused of atrocities were prosecuted years ago before an international tribunal in The Hague. Some were sent to prison for crimes that included mass executions, rapes and the horrific massacre of Srebrenica in July 1995, in which more than 8,000 people were killed. MacQueen and his associates pursue human rights violators from dozens of countries and have succeeded in deporting more than 650 individuals. They began focusing on Bosnia a decade ago and have opened about 300 cases, traveling to Bosnia to gather evidence and tracking down suspects from Vermont to Nevada. Only 30 people have been deported. Some others have fled the country; the rest of the cases are either bogged down in court proceedings or are still being developed. MacQueen said the legal process in the United States has been slow and investigations in Bosnia have been hampered by a “conspiracy of silence” that lingers in the jittery, war-scarred region. He has been accused of waging an anti-Serbian vendetta, persecuting low-level members of its former security forces against whom there is little or no evidence of any crime. But he insisted he has no agenda other than to see justice done. “We’re not saying these people are all trigger-pullers or war criminals, and we have never said the taint of human rights abuses extends to the broader Bosnian community. But there are many ways to assist [in abuse] without pulling the trigger,” MacQueen said. “We work hard to find credible evidence and research links to human rights abuses. This is not a broad brush.” The war may be 20 years gone, he added, but “these cases are red hot.” Spiric is as eager to forget the painful past as MacQueen is to unearth it. Spiric’s version of the Balkan conflict, recounted in an often emotional interview, was a saga of flight and pursuit across shifting ethnic combat zones, of being forced to stand guard on frozen nights by Serbian military bosses, and of trying repeatedly to escape until he reached a refugee agency in Belgrade that helped him apply for sanctuary in the United States. “I had a brother in Arizona, and they said he would guarantee me,” Spiric said. “But they told me, ‘Don’t say you are from Bosnia or they will never let you in.’ I didn’t know what else to do, so I wrote what they said.” Spiric was admitted to the United States in 1997 and settled into life in Phoenix with his wife and a young daughter. But starting in 2005, he said, disconcerting things began to happen: phone calls from strangers asking about his past; a fake cable TV repairman whom he later encountered in an ICE detention facility. He was arrested and released on bail, but his wife left him. Government vehicles often parked on his street. After five years, his case has not been resolved. “I have no life now,” he said. “I can’t go home to Bosnia, not even to visit my sister’s grave. If I leave the house, I am followed. The immigration people ask you a thousand questions about things you don’t remember and they call you a liar. It’s not just me. All the people they catch here, we were from the same villages. We never did nothing to no one. We just wanted to get away.” According to court documents and to Spiric’s attorney, he has been charged with immigration fraud for failing to disclose that he had served in a certain Serbian army brigade that was linked to mass killings. But there is no public record of any criminal accusations against him. “Yes, he committed fraud, but never once did they allege that he participated in any war crimes or [persecuting] activity,” said the attorney, Paul Djurisic, who has represented numerous other Bosnians from Spiric’s region who were charged by ICE. “The government has not produced one scintilla of evidence.” Djurisic and several other defenders of the accused Bosnians suggested that MacQueen and his colleagues are on a witch hunt against Serbs to justify the continued existence of their program. MacQueen strongly denied that assertion, saying they have also prosecuted Croats and Muslim Bosnians. He said he could not speak about any pending cases but strongly defended the government’s methods of locating suspected abusers and linking them to controversial security units. The practice stems from 2005, when ICE official Richard Butler brought back a trove of Serbian military rosters and proposed checking individual military service and duty records against statements by refugee applicants. Butler claimed that many Serbian refugees had lied about their military service and that a “smaller number” aided in abusive conduct, such as guarding or driving prisoners who were likely to be killed. Even if they did not directly commit abuses, he wrote, these soldiers played “some witting role” in larger acts of persecution or genocide. MacQueen said that with legal limits and investigative dead ends often hampering his team’s efforts to pursue war crimes directly, immigration fraud has become a fallback — a way to go after individuals who his group believes may be guilty of far worse. “These people say they didn’t kill anyone, that they didn’t participate, but that’s not what the law says,” MacQueen said, adding that “acting as a lookout or blocking an escape route” can amount to assisting in a war crime. “Our bottom line,” he said, “is that we will use any legal means available to bring to bear.”

Will Syria be Kofi Annan’s tragedy redux?

Thirteen years ago, the U.N. secretary general personally issued a report to the General Assembly on the international community’s failure to prevent the massacre of Bosnians at Srebrenica, which he called “a horror without parallel in the history of Europe since the Second World War.” The searing report criticized member states’ lack of political will and the conduct of the U.N. secretariat. It was all the more remarkable because the secretary general had been the U.N. official in charge of peacekeeping operations then as well as during the genocidal massacres in Rwanda the year before. That man was Kofi Annan. Five years after Srebrenica, Annan declared, “The tragedy of Srebrenica will forever haunt the history of the United Nations.” Speaking in Rwanda on the fifth anniversary of that genocide, Annan lamented that “in their greatest hour of need, the world failed the people of Rwanda. . . . At that time of evil . . . [t]he international community and the United Nations could not muster the political will to confront it.” Five years later he admitted that “there was more that I could and should have done to sound the alarm and rally support.” There is no reason to doubt Annan’s sincerity. And his willingness to be so critical of the U.N. performance, and his own, in Srebrenica is praiseworthy. Yet the former secretary general is once again at the center of a failure by the international community in the face of a brutal slaughter of defenseless victims. Will he be obliged in a few years to repent yet another failure, this time in Syria? The best case to be made for Annan is that he is attempting a deal with the devil — in the form of Russia’s Vladimir Putin — to force Syria’s brutal dictator, Bashar al-Assad, from power. But Russia has shown no seriousness about forcing out Assad. While Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the recent agreement in Geneva gave Annan “the tools that he needs,” her Russian counterpart told reporters that nothing in that agreement required Assad’s departure. “The cardinal lesson of Srebrenica,” Annan reported in 1999, “is that a deliberate and systematic attempt to terrorize, expel or murder an entire people must be met decisively with all necessary means, and with the political will to carry the policy through to its logical conclusion.” The failure of will was the fault of U.N. member nations. But the U.N. Secretariat and its mission in the field helped delay serious action by pursuing the illusion of “a negotiated settlement with an unscrupulous and murderous regime.” Annan concluded that “At various points during the war, those negotiations amounted to appeasement.” Writing on this page last week, Annan urged all parties to avoid “further militarization of the conflict” in Syria. That ignores a central lesson from Annan’s own Srebrenica report, that the international community should have confronted the perpetrators of violence with an effective threat of force. Today, we are seeing some of the same weaknesses identified in that report: the “pervasive ambivalence within the United Nations regarding the role of force in the pursuit of peace”; an “institutional ideology of impartiality even when confronted with attempted genocide”; and an effort to “keep the peace . . . when there was no peace to keep.” Negotiations — however well- intentioned — are again providing an excuse for inaction and buying time for the Assad regime to continue the killing. The Post’s Jim Hoagland reported on this page last month that a European diplomat told him: “Kofi will not go on forever providing cover for others. . . . His resignation would allow the world to see very clearly what Russia is doing — and what the United States is not doing — that makes them both complicit in the killing of a nation. But he also knows resignation is a gun with only one bullet.” Annan should fire that bullet and stop providing the United States and other self-described “friends of Syria” with excuses for inaction. But whether or not he does, the United States and others cannot blame their failure on Annan. It is long past time to confront the real policy choices. No one is arguing for military intervention on the order of Afghanistan or Iraq. But the Obama administration should explain why Washington should not be playing an overt, forceful role in organizing and arming the Syrian opposition and exploring with Turkey a coalition of countries to create sanctuaries along the Syrian border, where the opposition could regroup and organize. It should also consider under what circumstances an intervention like the one in Libya might be possible, desirable or both. If the Obama administration believes that staying largely aloof and leaving others to provide the force behind the Syrian opposition is less risky than a more forceful engagement, let it make that case. But the administration should stop hiding behind the pretense that a negotiation with the butchers of Damascus can do anything but prolong Syria’s agony. The longer that goes on, the worse the aftermath will be. Syria will be more badly broken, with more bloody scores to settle and more power in the hands of the extremists whose specter is too often invoked to justify inaction. Mark Palmer, a member of the board of Freedom House, is a former U.S. ambassador to Hungary. Paul Wolfowitz, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is a former U.S. deputy secretary of defense and former ambassador to Indonesia. **Read more on this issue:** Kofi Annan: Forging a peace plan for Syria Jim Hoagland: Annan gambles Syria’s future on Putin Jackson Diehl: Obama’s Arab Spring mess

Samantha Power on why we fund U.N. peacekeepers, even with no peace to keep

U.N. peacekeeping has come a long way in the 20 years since the Rwandan genocide, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, told an audience at the American Enterprise Institute on Friday: “This is not your mother’s, or your grandmother’s, peacekeeping.” Thank goodness for that, since the image that many Americans have of the international force in blue helmets is of their underfunded unit running out on some 2,000 civilians who sought refuge in the Don Bosco School in Kigali in spring 1994. Power told the whole horrible story again at the conservative think tank: “Hutu militias had surrounded the school, chanting ‘Hutu power,’ drinking banana beer and brandishing machetes. Yet when orders came for the peacekeepers to evacuate, they followed orders. They had to shoot over the heads of the Tutsis to get out.” And after they did, “militia members walked in, butchering virtually everyone inside.” But “that was then,’’ said Power, who before she went to work for President Obama wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide.” “Now,’’ she said, “we have U.N. peacekeeping opening its gates” to more than 100,000 people displaced by the civil war in South Sudan, where people living “foot-deep in filthy water” told her in August that they were just glad to have drinking water and physical safety. In the old days, peacekeepers went only where they were invited, by mutual consent of all parties, to monitor cease-fire agreements. Now, they’ve been asked to disarm rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo, escort shipments of food and medicine in South Sudan and protect civilians amid 10 ongoing conflicts. There are a record 16 missions around the world, involving 130,000 peacekeepers, up from 75,000 a decade ago. One thing that hasn’t changed so much is that the United States still pays much of the tab, now 28.3 percent of the total U.N. bill. Why is that, her AEI interlocutor, Danielle Pletka, wanted to know at the outset. Power had a lot to say about that — and had to speed-walk through her remarks, since she arrived 20 minutes late from a Cabinet meeting, and then had a plane to catch. Of course, she made the moral case: “We do not want to live in a world where more than 9,000 kids are recruited in less than a year to become child soldiers, as has happened recently in South Sudan. We do not want to live in a world where religious or ethnic communities who lived together for decades in harmony, such as the Muslims and Christians in the Central African Republic, learn to hate and fear one another.” But she also argued, on practical and financial grounds, that such multinational efforts are more likely to be seen as legitimate. And they help “address the free-rider problem we see today in so many matters of international security — from the spread of Ebola to the rise of ISIL to the recruitment of foreign terrorist fighters. . . . Peacekeeping gets other countries to stand up, rather than stand by.” Sometimes, that is. A March report by the U.N.’s internal oversight office found that in 507 attacks on civilians in 2010-2013, peacekeepers almost never used force to intervene. “This is unacceptable,” the ambassador said. To change that, we have to get more developed countries to deploy more troops — and we might need to send more than the 1,400 we have now in Sinai and Bosnia. And, of course, no talk on the United Nations would be complete without an argument for “bold institutional reforms” and more oversight. Power only had time to take a few questions, so it’s not surprising she didn’t get one on Ebola, although in closing, she did mention her recent trip to West Africa to assess the international response to the outbreak. “Long before Ebola hit Sierra Leone and Liberia, brutal civil wars did,’’ she said, and we wouldn’t want to imagine the toll of the disease without peacekeeping efforts in both counties, still ongoing in Liberia: “How would Sierra Leone’s military have been able to help build Ebola treatment units or run safe burial operations, as they have done, if they were tied down fighting rebels?” Power, who tweeted photos of herself having her temperature taken at the airport when she returned from the trip, has been self-monitoring since then. After she’d left for another airport, Pletka praised Power’s talk but said “the problem is that peacekeeping is a marginal game compared to the challenges we face. And if anyone thinks that it’s going to solve the problems in the Middle East, they’ve got a big surprise coming.”

The world’s abandonment of Darfur

_Eric Reeves is a professor at Smith College and the author of “Compromising with Evil: An Archival History of Greater Sudan, 2007-2012.”_ The Darfur genocide in western Sudan — the first genocide of the 21st century and the longest one in more than a century — is about to achieve another distinction. It will be the first genocide in which the victims will be abandoned. An international peacekeeping force designed to halt violence against civilians and humanitarians — the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur, or UNAMID — is on the verge of being gutted or perhaps eliminated altogether. This is despite the fact that some 3 million people have been internally displaced or turned into refugees; almost 500,000 were displaced last year alone. E stimates vary, but we must speak of several hundred thousands of deaths — perhaps half a million — from violence and its consequences, and mortality rates are rising. The victims come overwhelmingly from the non-Arab tribal groups that have been targeted from the beginning of Khartoum’s brutal counterinsurgency against rebel forces. Although it’s been reported on only fitfully, planning for UNAMID’s diminished future is well underway. Among the planners? The génocidaires of the regime in Khartoum, who insist that the “exit strategy” — agreed to in principle by the U.N. Security Council in August — be executed as rapidly as possible. The force has already been cut by 10,000 and now stands at approximately 17,000 uniformed personnel. The regime wants 15,000 more gone this year. Criticism of UNAMID is longstanding; indeed, it preceded deployment of the civilian-protection mission in January 2008. The mission was set up to fail, largely because Khartoum was given excessive control over the deployment of personnel and equipment. This led to poor troop quality, with the regime rejecting many highly qualified peacekeeping contributions (such as a Swedish-Norwegian engineering battalion). Essential weaponry and aircraft were also denied. Despite a status-of-forces agreement that was supposed to give UNAMID unrestricted access, Khartoum has systematically obstructed, delayed or compromised countless protection and monitoring missions. As badly as UNAMID has performed, however, it is all that allows international humanitarian organizations to remain in Darfur. If UNAMID withdraws, or is hopelessly compromised, these organizations may be forced to end their work. To date, some 25 to 30 international relief organizations have been expelled by Khartoum or have withdrawn because of a lack of security. This has occurred against a backdrop of extreme malnutrition in many locations, a desperate lack of clean water and sanitation, and a rapidly collapsing system for providing primary medical care. Decisions about reconfiguring UNAMID are being made at this very moment, and yet we hear nothing of significance from the Obama administration about the urgency of preserving key elements of the force. Yes, a facile international chorus has declared “Darfur won’t be abandoned,” but there are reasons to be skeptical. Leading this chorus is the expedient Hervé Ladsous, head of U.N. peacekeeping operations, who not so long ago argued that a drawdown of UNAMID was justified by improved security conditions, even as violence has escalated for three years. Moreover, a brute geopolitical fact defines current planning. UNAMID must be reauthorized before June 30. But Khartoum has veto-wielding friends on the Security Council in the form of China and Russia; they are likely to support the regime, even in its most unreasonable demands. Russia is of particular concern, given President Vladimir Putin’s general hostility to any Western initiative. In a revealing show of perverse solidarity, Russia sided with Khartoum in rejecting a recent report by Human Rights Watch that documented the mass rape last fall of more than 220 girls and women by Khartoum’s army troops in the town of Tabit. The evidence in the report is so overwhelming that the Russian denial of its findings suggests an unwillingness to look at the reality in Darfur except through Khartoum’s eyes. Depending on the character of the newly authorized force — assuming one is authorized at all — humanitarian organizations may be forced to withdraw from what is already a terribly insecure environment. The epidemic of sexual violence will continue to accelerate, with the Arab militias most responsible operating with total impunity. More than half of Darfur’s pre-war population of 6.5 million people needs assistance, and yet humanitarian capacity is shrinking. U.N. agencies such as the World Food Program cannot function without implementing partners, precisely the function that has been fulfilled by the organizations contemplating withdrawal. If they leave, the death toll could be catastrophic. The United States, Britain and France need to muscle up politically in the Security Council now or the fate of Darfur will be dictated by the very men who began the genocide 12 years ago. This would be unprecedented in the grim history of genocide. **Read more:** Eric Reeves: Civilians in Sudan’s Darfur region face wholesale destruction

Gaza and the U.N.’s dilemmas of protection

As a thunderstorm rolled across Manhattan, and the thunder of Israel’s bombardment resumed with new vigor, the U.N. Security Council met at midnight on Sunday to adopt a presidential statement on the situation in Gaza. The Security Council called for full respect of international humanitarian law and the protection of civilians. It also offered its “full support” to international efforts to secure an immediate cease-fire and urged Hamas and Israel to implement the council’s past resolutions on Gaza.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday This was just one piece of the U.N. response. In the Middle East, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon lent his support to Egyptian and U.S. efforts to broker a cease-fire. In Geneva, the U.N. Human Rights Council mandated a full investigation into allegations of war crimes. In New York, the secretary- general’s special advisers on genocide prevention and the responsibility to protect issued a statement calling for an immediate cease-fire, supporting an investigation into war crimes and demanding accountability. On the ground in Gaza, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency does what it can to shelter the displaced and provide humanitarian assistance. All too often, the United Nations has itself been abused and targeted – abused by Hamas, which has stored weapons in U.N. compounds; targeted by Israel despite the protections owed to it by international law and despite declaring its locations in detail.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday Whatever might be said about the effectiveness of this response, it cannot be said that the world body is sitting idly by in the face of civilian destruction. Having learned some of the lessons from international failures to protect civilians in Rwanda and Bosnia, and more recently in Sri Lanka, much has changed in the United Nations’ approach in the past decade. With the U.N. General Assembly’s commitment to the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) in 2005, to the secretary-general’s action plan to put “Rights up Front” in the organization’s work, the protection of civilians has become a core priority. Indeed, some 100,000 personnel are deployed in missions across the world charged, among other things, with protecting civilians from harm. Compared with its response to past crises in the region, the United Nations’ rapid and multifaceted response to the crisis in Gaza, squarely focused as it is on the question of civilian protection, testifies to these underlying shifts. But it also exposes some of the limits to what can be achieved. Critics have pointed to the things that the United Nations has _not_ yet done: There is no arms embargo or discussion of broader sanctions, no no-fly zone, no referral of the situation to the International Criminal Court, no special envoy, and there are no human rights monitors. The Security Council stopped short of demanding a cease-fire, and the parties have conspicuously ignored its calls thus far.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday Gaza offers a sober reminder of the limits of what outsiders can do in the face of deeply entrenched conflict and that the Security Council and other key institutions do not sit above the political milieu, but are very much part of it. When it comes to Gaza, the council has few obviously good options available to it and a difficult political terrain to traverse. It also needs to be careful to avoid making matters worse. The best way to protect civilians is to end the armed conflict. Negotiating a cease-fire is therefore crucial. But neither of the parties is yet serious about agreeing with the other on terms. Both have their reasons for prosecuting this fight. Reeling from its costly setbacks in Egypt, Hamas faces serious economic and political challenges, which it believes can be addressed by striking at Israel. Most significantly, the loss of trade in and out of Egypt gives new urgency to the strategic goal of lifting the Israeli blockade. For its part, the realignment of Egypt combined with Saudi Arabia’s well known animosity toward Gaza’s radicals has apparently prompted Israel to believe that it has a rare opportunity to deal a significant, or perhaps even decisive, blow against Hamas. There is little sign yet of either side judging that the costs of fighting outweigh the benefits. As a result, neither side has yet offered terms that the other could realistically accept, and neither has shown much willingness to negotiate seriously. The bitter history of crisis diplomacy shows only too well that when the parties want to fight, because they believe it serves their immediate interests, there is relatively little that outsiders can do to stop them. Only when this balance begins to change, whether because Hamas proves more resilient than Israel expected or more vulnerable, will they show a serious interest in negotiations.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday Outsiders can sometimes help conflicts become “ripe” (to borrow a term from George Mason University’s I. William Zartman) for negotiation earlier than they otherwise would. For example, they could make it more difficult or costly for one or more of the parties to fight, altering the balance of costs and benefits in favor of negotiation. But in this case none of the measures sometimes used to achieve this look promising at this point. An arms embargo would make little immediate difference (and could signal that the world expects a drawn-out conflict), given that both sides have ready access to arms and ammunition. Unless imposed over the whole of Israel, a no-fly zone would succeed only in forcing Israeli aircraft to launch air attacks from a greater distance, reducing their accuracy; a broader no-fly zone would undermine Israel’s “Iron Dome” defense system, resulting in additional civilian casualties. General sanctions do not have a good track record of being decisive in the immediate term, whilst more targeted sanctions against individuals would be premature ahead of an investigation into their culpability.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday Even if one of these options was potentially viable, it is unlikely that there would be sufficient consensus in the Security Council to adopt it. Just like the Middle East region itself, which is deeply divided on Gaza, the council has found it difficult to reach a common position on Gaza. That is hardly surprising, given the balance of political allegiances at play and the sheer complexity of the situation. Gaza is hardly unique in this regard. Three years into Syria’s civil war, the Security Council is still struggling to find common positions on how best to protect that country’s civilians. Obviously, it is one thing to agree on a principle such as civilian protection, or R2P; it is another thing entirely to figure out how best to realize that principle in practice and how to build sufficient consensus around particular measures. Some situations, such as in Gaza, do not have straightforward solutions. But that does not mean that nothing can be done to protect civilians. Things can, and are, being done on multiple tracks. During his term as U.N. secretary-general, Ban has focused heavily on the question of accountability. Exploring ways of enhancing accountability would be one way of breaking the cycles of escalation and impunity that have led both sides of this conflict to treat civilian life so cheaply. The Human Rights Council’s investigation is an important first step in this regard. It is imperative, however, that the parties cooperate with the investigation and that its findings lead to those alleged to be responsible for war crimes, on both sides, being held accountable. Only when civilian life is made more expensive will the parties take genuine steps to protect it. That is one way in which the United Nations might usefully put its responsibility to protect into action. _Alex J. Bellamy is a professor of international security at the Griffith Asia Institute in Australia, director (international) of the Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect and nonresident senior adviser at the International Peace Institute in New York._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday Past Monkey Cage posts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be found here. Recent posts include:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday _Marc Lynch:Political science after Gaza_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday _Charles Kurzman:Failing to forecast the Israeli-Palestinian crisis_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday _Jonathan Caverley:Paying for Israel’s wars_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday _David Malet: ‘Foreign Fighters’ for Israel_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday _Brent E. Sasley:Does the Gaza operation threaten Netanyahu’s political future?_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday

Kofi Annan: Syrian government agrees to withdraw forces from population centers

UNITED NATIONS — The Syrian government has agreed to immediately begin halting the use of heavy weapons in residential areas and to withdraw its forces from population centers by April 10, envoy Kofi Annan told the U.N. Security Council on Monday. The latest Syrian commitment, made by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem in a letter to Annan on Sunday, came amid reports that government forces continued to bombard targets in the city of Homs. Some U.N. diplomats voiced skepticism about Syria’s pledge, saying the government has consistently reneged on previous commitments. “We have seen over the course of the last months promises made and promise broken,” said Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. “Past experience would lead us to be skeptical and to worry that over the next several days that, rather than a diminution of violence, we might yet again see an escalation of the violence.” Still, Rice said the 15-nation Security Council would grant Annan additional time to test Syria’s pledge to rein in its forces and would consider his proposal to pull together a U.N. monitoring mission to ensure compliance in a possible cease-fire. “In general, the council members expressed a willingness to consider Mr. Annan’s plan for a monitoring mission,” said Rice, who holds the council’s rotating presidency and who briefed reporters on the plan. Annan, a former U.N. secretary general who is serving as the joint Arab League-U.N. envoy for Syria, presented the council with a detailed, closed-door briefing on his efforts to implement a six-point plan to end the violence in Syria. He told the council that he had underscored the “urgency” of the crisis with Syria’s leadership and that he had “pressed the government to cease troop movements, cease the use of heavy weapons and pull out of population centers,” Rice told reporters after the meeting. Annan told the council that his deputy, Nasser al-Kidwa, the former Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, had urged opposition groups inside Syria “to cease their operations within 48 hours of a compete cessation of government hostilities.” Annan also said he is awaiting a response from the Syrian government on other elements of the peace plan, including a request to provide access to humanitarian aid workers and journalists, to observe a daily pause in the fighting and to participate in political talks with the opposition. After the Security Council meeting, Syria’s U.N. envoy, Bashar al-Jaafari, said his government is “committed to the success” of Annan’s mission but that opposition forces would also have to put down their arms. “We are expecting Mr. Kofi Annan and some parties in the Security Council to get the same kind of commitment from the other parties,” Jaafari said. “The plan wouldn’t be successful unless everybody is committed.” Jaafari lashed out at the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other governments that met in Istanbul over the weekend and committed to step up support for the armed opposition in Syria. The meeting of the “Friends of Syria” resulted in a pledge from Arab nations to provide $100 million to pay salaries for opposition fighters and a commitment from the Obama administration to provide “non-lethal” assistance, including communications equipment and night goggles, to help the rebels move about Syria undetected. “This is a parallel track set up by the enemies of Syria to compete with Kofi Annan’s mission . . . maybe to undermine the mission,” Jaafari said. He said that the United States and other governments sending money and other supplies to the armed opposition “should be put in the confessional seat in the Security Council, and ask them what they are doing. . . . This is a violation and a declaration of war against the sovereignty of Syria.” **More world news coverage:** \- Burmese government says it was surprised by scale of Suu Kyi victory \- Pakistani boy kills himself over school uniform cost \- For China’s driving test, be prepared for almost any contingency \- Read more headlines from around the world

U.N. monitors find signs of bloodshed at site of Syrian massacre

UNITED NATIONS — A team of U.N. monitors began on Friday the grim task of investigating a massacre in central Syria, as new evidence of horrific violence gave momentum to calls for international sanctions to halt the bloodshed. The visit to the village of Qubair, where at least 78 people were reported killed by pro-government militias this week, came a day after the monitors had been blocked by Syrian security forces from reaching the site. The U.N. personnel, accompanied by a handful of reporters, encountered a virtual ghost town inhabited by swarms of flies and reeking of charred flesh, according to U.N. officials. Video footage released by the United Nations showed a series of disturbing scenes, including one of blood-spattered walls and another of homes bearing the pockmarks that have become the signature of the Syrian government’s shelling campaigns. U.N. spokesman Kieran Dwyer said that the monitors were unable to talk to any witnesses of the attack but that they found evidence of fresh armored-vehicle tracks and homes damaged by rocket fire, grenades and a range of other weapons fire. The “circumstances surrounding this attack are still unclear,” Dwyer said. Surviving residents of the tiny village, a cluster of about 20 homes, said security forces had visited them the night before and threatened them with death if they cooperated with the monitors. Nonetheless, one resident said he covered his face and led the monitors on a tour of the devastation. “We took them to the graves where we buried the bodies, we showed them the burned houses and the bloodstains in the other houses,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he feared for his safety. The evidence of what would be the second large-scale killing of Syrian civilians in three weeks has put additional pressure on the United States and its allies to scramble for a new strategy to contain the deepening sectarian violence. On Friday, in another indicator of the escalating violence, unusually fierce clashes broke out in Damascus, with residents reporting gunfire and explosions late into the night. And early Saturday, Syrian troops shelled the southern city of Daraa, killing at least 15 people, activist groups said. Diplomats at the United Nations said representatives of the United States, Britain and France planned to begin work next week on a legally binding resolution that would for the first time impose international sanctions on Syria if it fails to halt its crackdown on civilians. The push to ratchet up pressure reflects deepening concern that the prospects for averting a full-fledged civil war — and possibly regional unrest — are slipping away. U.S. officials, in particular, are pushing Russia, which has withheld support of international action in Syria, to abandon President Bashar al-Assad, tighten bilateral sanctions, and support efforts by the armed and political opposition to challenge Assad’s rule. In Washington, after meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan acknowledged that his peace plan was not working and that curbing the violence in Syria was “a real, real challenge.” He said that he and Clinton had discussed “how we can put additional pressure on the government, on the parties to get the plan implemented.” “Some say the plan may be dead. Is the problem the plan, or the problem is implementation?” Annan said as he stood next to Clinton. “If it’s implementation, how do we get action on that? And if it’s the plan, what other options do we have?” State Department officials said Annan’s discussions with Clinton focused on getting countries to line up behind plans to both increase pressure on the Syrian government and create a blueprint for a peaceful transfer of power after Assad is gone. Annan has met separately with Russian officials, and on a Friday, a special U.S. envoy held parallel meetings in Moscow, amid what U.S. officials termed a “constructive” effort to narrow differences. Despite Russian resistance to adding new economic pressure against its ally, separate teams of diplomats were continuing to explore the possibility of new sanctions, “to both tighten them and look at how we can pile more on,” unilaterally if necessary, said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. She suggested that that a tougher U.N. resolution could be considered “when the moment is appropriate” but declined to elaborate. Both Russia and China have opposed any consideration of resolutions authorizing mandatory sanctions or military force against Syria. Representatives from Britain and France said that they would begin pressing for the adoption of a legally binding resolution and that the United States would back that effort. Diplomats said that no one has formally produced a draft negotiating text but that Britain and France are weighing several possible measures, including an arms embargo, a travel ban and asset freeze on key regime figures, the establishment of a commission of inquiry to probe crimes, and a referral to the International Criminal Court for possible prosecution of regime leaders. It remained unclear whether all of those elements would be included in the draft, or whether the United States would support a referral to the criminal court, which it has never joined. Annan, meanwhile, has floated a proposal to establish a new negotiating bloc — or contact group — that would include the United States, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other key U.N. and regional powers. Obama administration officials remained cool to the idea of including Iran in international talks. Clinton dismissed the idea in a news conference Thursday, suggesting that Iran’s hands were too bloody. “It’s extremely hard to imagine that a country that has played such an extreme role in supporting and perpetrating and — supporting the violence that’s going on could be constructive in this context,” Nuland said. She said Iran had provided support not only for Syria’s security forces but also for the pro-Assad “shabiha” militants accused of carrying out the recent massacres of civilians. But Russia has warmly embraced the plan and has called for convening a meeting of the new group in Moscow as soon as possible. Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, said any plan for a negotiated solution is unlikely to succeed. “There is no soft landing for this regime,” Landis said. “Everything is built on loyalty to the Assad family. Once the Assads step down, this entire edifice of this regime is going to disintegrate into a giant cloud of dust.” **More world news coverage:** Syria rebels gaining ground, strength Spain requests bailout help Philippine president seeks military aid

The U.N. Human Rights Council whitewashes brutality

_Nikki Haley is the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations._ The president of Venezuela, whose government shoots protesters in the street, recently thanked the international community for its “universal vote of confidence” in that country’s commitment to human rights. The Cuban deputy foreign minister, whose government imprisons thousands of political opponents, once said Cuba has historic prestige “in the promotion and protection of all human rights.” How can these people get away with saying such things? Because they have been elected to the U.N. Human Rights Council, whose members are — on paper — charged with “upholding the highest standards” of human rights. Last month, a U.S. Senate subcommittee met to consider whether the United States should remain a part of the council. Expert witnesses shared their viewpoints, not on the question of whether America supports human rights — of course we do, and very strongly. The question was whether the Human Rights Council actually supports human rights or is merely a showcase for dictatorships that use their membership to whitewash brutality. When the council focuses on human rights instead of politics, it advances important causes. In North Korea, its attention has led to action on human rights abuses. In Syria, it has established a commission on the atrocities of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. All too often, however, the victims of the world’s most egregious human rights violations are ignored by the very organization that is supposed to protect them. Venezuela is a member of the council despite the systematic destruction of civil society by the government of Nicolás Maduro through arbitrary detention, torture and blatant violations of freedom of the press and expression. Mothers are forced to dig through trash cans to feed their children. This is a crisis that has been 18 years in the making. And yet, not once has the Human Rights Council seen fit to condemn Venezuela. Cuba’s government strictly controls the media and severely restricts the Cuban people’s access to the Internet. Thousands are arbitrarily detained each year, with some political prisoners serving long sentences. Yet Cuba has never been condemned by the council; it, too, is a member. In 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine and took over Crimea. This illegal occupation resulted in thousands of civilian deaths and injuries, as well as arbitrary detentions. No special meeting of the Human Rights Council was called, and the abuses continue to mount. The council has been given a great responsibility. It has been charged with using the moral power of universal human rights to be the world’s advocate for the most vulnerable among us. The United Nations must reclaim the legitimacy of this organization. For all of us, this is an urgent task. Human rights are central to the mission of the United Nations. Not only are they the right thing to promote, they are also the smart thing to promote. In April, I dedicated the U.S. presidency of the U.N. Security Council to making the connection between human rights and peace and security. Next week, I will travel to Geneva to address the Human Rights Council about the United States’ concerns. I will outline changes that must be made. Among other things, membership on the council must be determined through competitive voting to keep the worst human rights abusers from obtaining seats. As it stands, regional blocs nominate candidates that are uncontested. Competition would force a candidate’s human rights record to be considered before votes were cast. The council must also end its practice of wrongly singling out Israel for criticism. When the council passes more than 70 resolutions against Israel, a country with a strong human rights record, and just seven resolutions against Iran, a country with an abysmal human rights record, you know something is seriously wrong. The presence of multiple human rights-violating countries on the Human Rights Council has damaged both the reputation of the council and the cause of human rights. When the world’s preeminent human rights body is turned into a haven for dictators, the idea of international cooperation in support of human dignity is discredited. Cynicism grows. There is already more than enough cynicism to go around these days. I believe the vision of the Human Rights Council is still achievable, but not without change. It is the responsibility of the United Nations to reclaim this vision and to restore the legitimacy of universal human rights. **Read more on this issue:** The Post’s View: Venezuela is heading toward cataclysm The Post’s View: How Trump could bring real change to Cuba The Post’s View: The United Nations’ human ‘rights’ council

The murky business of China’s guns sales in Africa

A CONSEQUENCE OF China’s rise as a global economic superpower has been the nation’s quest for resources, influence and riches in Africa, extracting minerals and food, building highways and schools, and selling cheap cellphones and pharmaceuticals. In July, President Hu Jintao pledged that China would lend $20 billion to African governments for agriculture and infrastructure. The underside of this complex relationship is the arms trade. As The Post’s Colum Lynch reported Aug. 26, China has been flooding sub-Saharan Africa with assault rifles and ammunition, some of which have wound up in conflict zones in violation of U.N. sanctions. China isn’t alone in this murky business — Russia and Ukraine are competing — but China does stand apart for challenging U.N. authority and seeking to curtail investigations that might shed light on its arms deals. China, subject to sanctions by the European Union after the Tiananmen massacre of 1989, has a philosophical aversion to sanctions, although it has gone along with many of those imposed by the United Nations, which currently enforces arms embargoes against 13 countries or groups. Chinese weapons continue to leak through the net. For example, the United Nations imposed sanctions on Sudan in 2004 after the brutal, forced relocation of millions of civilians from Darfur by armed militias. In 2011, Mr. Lynch reported, U.N. inspectors found Chinese-manufactured high- explosive incendiary cartridges in Darfur after Sudanese forces had battled rebels there. China refused to cooperate with an effort to identify the origin of the cartridges. Such an investigation might shed light on China’s undisciplined arms trade, which is driven by relentless mercenary interests and a desire to cozy up to oil-soaked and mineral-rich African leaders. The trail of these weapons is often difficult to discern. Sanctions are busted in the middle of the night, weapons are diverted from state factories to illicit traders and sub-national militias. In the interests of cleaning up the nastier side of this business, the United Nations in July held a conference to negotiate the text of an arms trade treaty. Such a compact might bring more transparency and accountability to arms transfers, but in the end, no agreement was reached. The United States, the world’s largest arms exporter, has broadly supported the idea of a treaty. China took a position at the conference that any arms trade treaty must not interfere with the sovereign right of nations to make their own decisions on arms transfers. By this logic, there’s no need to wait for a treaty. China’s leaders ought to realize that with global power comes global responsibility. They can act on their own to be more careful about where China’s weapons are sold and where they wind up. ****

Central African Republic needs more international help as cease-fire falters

LAST WEEK’s cease-fire between warring Christian and Muslim factions in the Central African Republic was a modest agreement, designed only to halt fighting without charting a road map forward. But it took just two days for the deal to be declared dead by the Muslim militia’s military chief. That all but ensures the conflict, which has displaced almost a million people, will add more casualties to its present death toll of more than 2,600. The violence has fueled a humanitarian crisis in which most of the Christian- majority nation needs assistance, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development. At least 28,000 children are expected to experience severe malnutrition this year if conditions don’t improve. Since the Muslim- led government collapsed this January, Muslims have fled from Christian strongholds, with 150,000 having left the country altogether. The cease-fire failed mainly because there were no credible representatives from the warring groups. No effective command-and-control structure exists, making the agreement difficult to enforce among various divisions within the factions. Interim President Catherine Samba-Panza’s transitional government has been unable to restore security. Only 8,000 African and French soldiers are managing what United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called a “state of anarchy.” This makes urgent the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers, totaling 10,000 military personnel and 1,800 police, who are scheduled to arrive in September. The United Nations must ensure that these peacekeepers deploy on time. Considering that this force will need to manage an entire nation’s law and order, more neighboring and Western countries should also send troops. Amid the despair, there’s been one positive: The international community has stepped up its involvement. The cease-fire agreement, however brief, would not have been possible without diplomacy by the Congo Republic. The United States has sent $118 million in humanitarian aid and offered tactical support. The European Commission has given $47 million in aid. But it’s not enough. Less than a third  of the U.N.’s goal of $209 million for displaced refugees has been met. The African Union and neighboring countries haven’t made a concerted push for reconciliation between the two sides. Beyond more aid, the United States can leverage the Central African Republic’s neighbors to help support truce efforts and assist the country in rebuilding its institutions. The experience of Rwanda should have taught the consequences of inaction. As the cease-fire collapse demonstrates, the Central African Republic will keep falling down a dark hole without outside help. **Read more on this topic:** The Post’s View: International aid can’t arrive soon enough for the Central African Republic Ban Ki-moon: Central African Republic needs immediate help Michael Gerson: In Central African Republic, the only rule is terror Peter Bouckaert: The Central African Republic has become a nightmare for Muslims Dieudonné Nzapalainga and Omar Kabine Layama: Central African Republic needs international help before it succumbs to religious war

U.S., allies expel Syrian diplomats over massacre

The United States and 10 other countries expelled Syrian diplomats Tuesday after blaming government forces for last week’s massacre of more than 100 villagers in central Syria, but they again stopped short of calling for more aggressive action to end the violence. Despite expressions of outrage and agreement that the situation in Syria has reached what U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan called a “tipping point,” the Obama administration and its major allies said they would continue to rely on diplomatic, political and economic pressure against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. U.N. monitors who visited the village of Houla, outside Homs, found that all but about 20 of 108 victims had been “summarily executed,” including “entire families . . . shot in their houses,” Rupert Colville, spokesman for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights told reporters in Geneva. The rest, he said, were killed by artillery fire. Nearly half of the victims of Friday’s massacre were younger than 10. Annan, who traveled to Damascus, the Syrian capital, in a bid to salvage a six-point U.N. peace plan, said he had appealed to Assad for “bold steps — not tomorrow, now — to create momentum for implementation of the plan.” Annan called for an immediate end to violence by the Syrian military and government-backed militias and urged armed rebels to stop attacks. Others used sharper language to assign blame for one of the worst atrocities since the anti-   Assad Syrian uprising began 14 months ago. “These were regime-sponsored thugs who went into villages, went into homes and killed children at point-blank range and their parents,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. She said the Syrian “thug force mirrors the same force that the Iranians used” to put down a nascent political uprising in 2009 and suggested that Assad was acting on Iran’s advice and assistance. Herve Ladsous, the U.N. undersecretary general in charge of peacekeeping, said the government was responsible for those killed by shelling. The rest, he said, were shot or stabbed in an assault that “probably points the way to the shabiha.” The term refers to pro-government militias belonging to Assad’s Alawite sect; Houla residents said the shabiha had gone house to house on a killing rampage in the Sunni village Friday night. As more details of the massacre emerged, 11 governments — including the United States and its major NATO allies — made coordinated announcements that they were expelling top Syrian diplomats. The Obama administration said it had given the Syrian charge d’affaires, Zuheir Jabbour, and several other senior diplomats 72 hours to leave the country, although the embassy in Washington would remain open with low-level staff. But despite the harsh denunciations — Nuland called the killings “absolutely indefensible, vile, despicable,” and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius described Assad as “the murderer of his people”— arguments against international military intervention “are still the same,” said a senior European diplomat. “We’re just not convinced that our intervening is going to make the conflict any nicer,” said the diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity about internal deliberations. “We are worried that we are going to unleash something that we will not be able to control.” The international community is too divided to come up with effective ways of putting pressure on the Assad regime, said Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center. Russia, with veto power in the U.N. Security Council, remains opposed to tougher action against its chief Middle Eastern ally, as does China. “This gruesome incident could give real momentum to diplomatic efforts, but, so far, it’s not had much effect,” Shaikh said. “There is still the hope among key Western powers that the Russians will come round. But I don’t think it’s really changing tack.” But the Russians are only one part of the policy conundrum in Syria. The Syrian opposition, despite Western efforts to help it organize, remains fractured. It is dominated by Sunnis, a fact that causes alarm among Syria’s powerful minority groups, and has no political consensus on what to do should Assad fall. Locally based opposition groups resent the exile-based political leaders who have won the backing of the United States and other powers, and there is little coordination between the armed rebels and the political groups. Some regional powers, led by Saudi Arabia, see deposing Assad as a way to damage arch enemy Iran. The Saudis and others in the region are funding arms shipments to the rebels and have called for outside military intervention. But Syria’s closest neighbors — Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon — fear the chaos and sectarian strife that could follow a Syrian collapse. Before any intervention, Turkey wants a strong legal framework, ideally with a U.N. resolution, and assurances of participation from Western powers. Although NATO boasts of its successful Libya intervention, most of its members are opposed to similar action in Syria, with its far stronger military and air defenses. The Pentagon, while saying it has formulated potential options for President Obama, emphasized Tuesday that it has gotten no White House request for military plans. The Syrian dilemma has provided partisan political fodder at home. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Tuesday criticized what he called Obama’s “lack of leadership” and “policy of paralysis.” Romney said the administration should “increase pressure on Russia” to stop arming Syria and blocking stronger U.N. action and should start arming the Syrian opposition. But among the allies, “the judgment now is that if you go down a road where you’re taking some fairly tough decisions in terms of your bilateral decisions with Russia,” there is a price to be paid, the European diplomat said. “We need Russia for other things,” including nuclear negotiations with Iran and North Korea. Annan’s deputy, Jean-Marie Guehenno, is scheduled to brief the Security Council on Wednesday. Council diplomats said they expect to hear later in the week from Annan, whose U.N. mandate to arrange a cease-fire and negotiations over a new government has a month remaining. “Our next U.N. step is to pursue a Chapter 7 resolution,” Nuland said. Although such resolutions can be worded to endorse military intervention, the administration has made clear that it would utilize that step to expand economic and diplomatic sanctions on Syria. A new council resolution would also require agreement from Russia and China. Sly reported from Beirut. Staff writer Colum Lynch in New York contributed to this report. **More national security coverage:** \- U.S. denies N. Korea spy operation \- Fine Print: Treaty on the seas is in rough Senate waters \- U.S. officials in Azerbaijan among targets of Iran-linked plots \- Read more national security news

South Sudan thought it solved its child soldier problem. It hasn’t.

JUBA, South Sudan — Just months ago, the signing of a U.S.-backed peace deal provided a road map to end South Sudan’s brutal civil war. But the conflict has raged on — and aid agencies say even more child soldiers are being drawn into the fighting. About 16,000 children have been recruited by government and rebel forces since the war here began in 2013, according to the United Nations. They are foot soldiers and cooks and cleaners, boys and girls as young as 9. Many were taken from their homes and schools and forced onto the battlefield. “We’ve seen huge increases in these violations throughout the entire year,” said Ettie Higgins, the UNICEF deputy representative in South Sudan. In the rare instances when children have been released, UNICEF officials report treating boys with bullet wounds and deep psychological scars. Scores have lost track of their families. When leaders of the South Sudanese government and the rebels signed the peace agreement in August, both sides claimed they had stopped using child soldiers. But the cease-fire was immediately and repeatedly violated. Thousands of children were still on the battlefield, Western officials said. The United States this year named South Sudan as one of eight countries that violated the Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2008. That would normally cause U.S. military aid to be blocked. But President Obama issued a partial waiver. “The way the United States government has ignored the intent of the Child Soldier Prevention Act throws into question our commitment as a country to keep children safe,” said Jessica Bousquette, the policy adviser for child protection at World Vision International, a U.S.-based Christian humanitarian organization. “The administration says it does not condone the use of children as soldiers, yet it continues to provide military assistance to countries, like South Sudan, who we know are recruiting or using child soldiers.” U.S. officials counter that the bulk of the approved funding goes toward monitoring the cease-fire through a regional force that includes South Sudanese military officials. The U.S. government helped shepherd South Sudan through its independence from Sudan in 2011 and has spent billions on the country’s development. The civil war began primarily over a split between President Salva Kiir, a Dinka, and former vice president Riek Machar, a Nuer, but devolved into a conflict between the ethnic groups. In much of the country, the war has been unrelenting, with tens of thousands killed and civilian adults and children targeted. U.N. officials reported in June that attackers in northern Unity state had castrated boys and left them to bleed to death, and raped and killed young girls. Last month, a report from the African Union said that security forces, which are dominated by the Dinkas, had forced Nuers to eat the flesh and drink the blood of dead bodies. The use of child soldiers is made possible, experts say, by the chaos that has enveloped the country. About 1,100 schools have been shuttered, according to UNICEF. Some of the commanders have only loose ties to the central government or rebel leadership. Thousands of people are on the brink of famine. While many children are abducted and sent to fight, others choose to join armed groups after losing their relatives or shelter. “The simple fact is that if you don’t have food and you don’t have family, fighting becomes an option,” said Perry Mansfield, World Vision’s South Sudan country director. The history of child combatants in southern Sudan goes back decades, to the region’s protracted war against Sudan’s central government, during which both sides used children on the front lines. By 2005, when a peace agreement was signed by the central government and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army, the bulk of southern Sudan’s child soldiers, estimated at more than 10,000, had been disarmed. Then, in late 2013, two years after independence, the world’s newest country was again riven by war. And again, children were heavily recruited. By last November, there were 12,000 youths fighting on both sides, according to UNICEF. One rebel force, dubbed the White Army, is thought to have sent hundreds or even thousands of children into battle, according to reports from the United Nations and aid groups. Some commanders say that in South Sudanese culture, boys are considered mature enough to fight. The country’s child protection law, however, says that only those 18 and older can join the military. It has been “hard for cultural leaders in the communities to transition to constitutional law,” said Pete Walsh, the country director for Save the Children. Walsh recently returned from a South Sudanese prison where he saw adults detained along with children as young as 4. Young people are often held on nebulous accusations or no charges at all, he said. “There’s an utter failure by commanders on both sides to put in any pretense of protection of civilians,” said Skye Wheeler, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, which will release a report on child soldiers in South Sudan next month. Wheeler recently interviewed children who were among a group of about 300 who had been abducted by rebels from a school in Unity state, forced into trucks, handed weapons and driven to the front line. “It’s absolutely brutal forced recruitment,” Wheeler said. In Malakal, in Upper Nile state, children were taken by force from outside a U.N. compound by recruiters working for South Sudanese government forces, Human Rights Watch reported in February. Early this year, about 1,800 children were released from one armed faction in the eastern county of Pibor, in a series of ceremonies held by UNICEF. Many had never been to school. The government of South Sudan has a program devoted to the disarmament of children that was involved in the release in Pibor. But officials see dim prospects for more such ceremonies, as commanders appear unmoved by their pleas to free the child fighters. Many aid workers and researchers say they worry that children who are released will be abducted by another armed faction. “Their villages are destroyed. There is no school. Many children think it’s better just to be in the army,” said Oluku Andrew Holt, the head of the child disarmament program. Although the warring parties say they want peace, the deal that many foreign observers hoped would end the war seems to be failing. The United Nations reported this month that both sides are stockpiling weapons, in violation of the cease-fire and with an eye, it would seem, to extending the conflict. **Read more** From Indiana to South Sudan: An immigrant’s wrenching journey home South Sudan report shows war’s horror: People were ‘forced to eat other humans’ South Sudan’s president warned journalists they could be slain. Four days later, one was.

Michael Gerson: The Central African Republic needs help

Rwanda’s ethnic conflict was a quarrel in a faraway country between people of which we know nothing — until it became a byword for moral abdication in the face of genocide. The same was true in Afghanistan, before it incubated a global threat. Americans have learned, or should have learned, to be more discriminating in their indifference. The Central African Republic (CAR) now bids for historical notoriety. What began as a military coup by the Muslim Seleka coalition this year became a national rampage of looting, rape and summary executions. The conflict has attracted foreign jihadists from Chad and Sudan, set off retribution by Christian militias, caused the collapse of civilian authority and resulted in massive dislocation and food shortages. One vignette from a recent report by Human Rights Watch: In April, a funeral procession crossed the Ngaragba Bridge toward a cemetery. A unit of Seleka soldiers fired a rocket-propelled grenade into the crowd and began cutting down those who tried to flee. A priest appealing for calm was killed. “After the Seleka convoy started shooting at the crowd,” reported an eyewitness, “a woman with a baby on her back was on the street past the bridge when she was shot by a Seleka fighter and left dead in the street with the baby crying on her back.” The international response to the CAR crisis has been relatively swift, though hardly sufficient. The French — as in Mali — have taken the military lead in attempting to disarm militias and hit squads, resulting in recent casualties and significant domestic criticism for President François Hollande. France has emerged as one of the few Western countries with its conscience and confidence intact after the global exertions of the past decade. A few thousand African Union troops are also on the ground in CAR, with a few hundred more (from Burundi) being transported by the United States. America has taken an active but secondary role — pushing at the United Nations to authorize the French/African Union deployment and currently recruiting other African nations to contribute forces. Apart from the essential task of protecting civilians from murder, the most important intervention may come in urging CAR religious leaders to reduce tensions — to calm the paranoia on both sides and encourage trust. CAR has a long history of political instability, but not of Muslim/Christian conflict and hatred. Taking religion seriously is an often-neglected aspect of successful diplomacy, and engaging religious leaders, in this case, may be the best way to strengthen the majority impulse of coexistence. These measures are important for their own sake; they also relate to a broader regional challenge. While many African countries are making tremendous progress, a number of weak and failed states have attracted parasitic Islamist movements, organized in loose confederations, that exploit disorder and grievance to seek influence and safe havens. This is the story of Mali, Somalia, northern Nigeria, CAR and elsewhere. The result is an emerging problem comparable in scope and threat to the one found in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Across North, East and West Africa, terrorist groups trade narcotics, take hostages and demand ransom to fund operations. They exploit porous borders, tribal resentments, extreme poverty and fragile governments. We have witnessed (as we saw in the 1980s and ’90s) a series of terrorist attacks of escalating sophistication and ambition. Suicide bombings in Uganda and Niger. Violence against U.S. targets in Libya and Tunisia. Attacks on churches, schools and military posts in Nigeria. The assault on the Amenas gas plant in Algeria (which took the lives of three Americans). The massacre at the Westgate mall in Nairobi. So far, these threats have been regional instead of global. But it would not take much of a change in capability and ambition — perhaps through the emergence of a charismatic, anti-American leader — to change that. Over the past decade, the United States has gradually developed a regional response, designed to be proactive while avoiding large-scale, direct intervention: promoting economic development, instructing African governments in counterterrorism, conducting joint-training operations and sometimes deploying military planning cells, commandos or drones. Central to these efforts is U.S. financial and logistical support for proxies and peacekeepers — now needed in CAR. Americans and their representatives in Congress are often skeptical of peacekeeping operations and reluctant to fund them. But the argument in their favor is this: They promote stability, serve our interests and save innocent lives without sending in the Marines. _Read more fromMichael Gerson’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook _. **Read more about this topic:** Anne Applebaum: Can the E.U. become the world’s policeman? The Post’s View: What to do about China’s arms sales to Africa The Post’s View: Hillary Clinton’s clarity on threats in North Africa

Foreign news: Tanzanian troops arrive in Congo; Pickax attacker kills one in Milan

A contingent of about 100 Tanzanian troops arrived in eastern Congo on Saturday, a first step in assembling the new U.N. intervention brigade, said a U.N. spokesman. The Tanzanian troops are the first batch to form the special brigade to be deployed in eastern Congo following a U.N. Security Council resolution in March, said peacekeeping mission spokesman Lt. Col. Felix Basse. The unit’s mandate allows it to fight armed groups, rather than merely defend civilians. Malawi and South Africa have pledged to contribute troops to the U.N. force, the need for which became clear in November, when the U.N. peacekeepers stood by as Congo’s M23 rebels took the provincial capital of Goma. **— Associated Press** An immigrant illegally living in Italy went on a rampage with a pickax in Milan at dawn Saturday, killing a passerby and wounding four others, two of them critically, in an apparently random attack, police said. The attack, which police say was carried out by a Ghanaian immigrant with a criminal record, immediately revived a perennial political debate over whether Italy should crack down harder on immigrants or facilitate their path toward citizenship, as recently lobbied for by Italy’s first black cabinet minister, who had emigrated from Congo. The 21-year-old assailant was arrested shortly after the attacks in a residential area on Milan’s northern outskirts, police said. **— Associated Press** **Guatemalans celebrate sentencing of ex-leader:** Former autocratic leader Efrain Rios Montt’s conviction of genocide is a historic moment in a country still healing from a three-   decade civil war that killed some 200,000 people, mainly indigenous Mayans, human rights activists said. Relatives of those killed and activists celebrated the 80-year sentence handed down by a tribunal Friday, saying the trial had offered the country’s oppressed indigenous communities their first chance to be heard. **Suicide blast kills 3 in Iraq:** A suicide tanker truck packed with explosives blew up outside the home of an army intelligence officer, killing three people and wounding 18 others in al-Shurqat, 155 miles northwest of Baghdad, officials said. The blast heavily damaged the house of Brig. Khalaf al-Jubouri, who was not at home at the time. Jubouri’s son and nephew were among the dead. **Georgian premier nominates presidential candidate:** Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili named a pro-Western ally as the ruling party candidate for October’s presidential election, in which incumbent Mikheil Saakashvili is barred from running. Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream coalition won control of parliament last October, defeating the party of Saakashvili, a leader of the 2003 Rose Revolution protest movement, and is favored in polls to take the presidency. **Jihadists claim Mali attacks:** The radical jihadist group known as the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, which ruled the northern Malian town of Gao for nearly a year, said it was behind the latest suicide attacks in the region. Three bombers killed themselves Friday in Gossi, wounding two soldiers, and another attacker in Menaka was killed before he could detonate his explosives. “The mujahideen struck, and they’re going to keep striking the enemy,” a spokesman said. **French tests ease fears of coronavirus transmission:** Three people who came into contact with France’s only confirmed case of coronavirus have tested negative for the SARS-like disease, with results pending on two others, Health Minister Marisol Touraine said. The infected man remains in serious condition in a hospital in the northern city of Lille. **** ******Gabonese protest ritual killings:** Thousands of Gabonese people marched to protest ritual killings, in which people are slain so their body parts can be used in amulets to bring good luck. Sylvia Bongo Ondimba, Gabon’s first lady, led the event with Christian and Muslim religious leaders. The president of the Association for the Fight against Ritual Crimes, Elvis Ebang Ondo, estimates that Gabon has 20 mutilation killings a year. **Iran lifts ban on Reuters news agency:** Iran’s semiofficial ISNA news agency said a court has lifted a ban on the Reuters news agency, allowing it to restart its operations in Iran. The ban came after Reuters published a report on martial arts training of Iranian women in April 2012. **— From news services**