January 17, 2008: Over the last few
years, NGOs and the media have made a lot of noise about corruption and
misbehavior by UN peacekeepers and administrators. As a result, the U.N. Office
of Internal Oversight Services (which investigates such matters) has found
itself buried in a growing number of cases. Currently, there are 250
investigations going on. Two thirds involve corruption, the rest are about
peacekeepers and UN staff having sex with the people they are supposed to be
helping.
The sex was always there, but over the
years, some of the soldiers got more creative, and greedy. They either demanded
it for free, or in exchange for access to relief supplies and services. Some
soldiers went into business, and set up brothels. Some may have been influenced
by UN staff, who were notoriously corrupt (at least in some countries). So far,
the UN investigators have found stealing going on in about 12 percent of the
money handled by peacekeeping officials.
This corruption has been an open secret
for decades, but has gotten worse of late. Perhaps it was the extent of the
payoffs and stealing in the Iraqi "Oil for Food" program that got the heat
turned on. The corruption in the Iraqi program was also an open secret. But
after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, many records, and Iraqis willing to
testify, became available. It was hard to ignore the rumors after that, and
suddenly UN corruption in peacekeeping operations became newsworthy.
