Top UN whistleblower resigns, citing impunity and lack of accountability
UN whistleblower Anders Kompass, who exposed the sexual abuse of children by French and African peacekeepers in Central African Republic, is to resign in protest over what he sees as the organisations failure to hold its senior officials to account. The complete impunity for those who have been found to have, in various degrees, abused their authority, together with the unwillingness of the hierarchy to express any regrets for the way they acted towards me sadly confirms that lack of accountability is entrenched in the United Nations, Kompass told IRIN. This makes it impossible for me to continue working there.
Kompass, field operations director at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, passed a confidential internal report on the abuse of children by French troops in CAR to the French authorities in 2014 after the UN failed to raise the alarm and stop the exploitation. The alleged abuse involved hungry children as young as eight in the MPoko camp for displaced people, coerced into sex in return for food or a little money.
Instead of investigating those allegedly responsible for what proved to be an even wider crime including the involvement of its peacekeepers the UNs Office for Internal Oversight Services launched an internal investigation into Kompass conduct. Accusing the former Swedish diplomat of leaking, it condemned his misconduct, suspended him from his job, humiliatingly marched him out of his office, and demanded his resignation.
An independent panel later found senior UN managers to have abused their authority in the handling of the scandal. Paula Donovan of Code Blue, a campaign to end sexual exploitation by UN peacekeepers, says the UNs attitude left Kompass no alternative but to quit. Im not sure how you can work with a system thats gone out of its way to prove it can defeat anyone who tries to expose it, she told IRIN. Despite the platitudes, the assertions of intolerance for wrongdoing, its all just empty phrases.
http://www.irinnews.org/analysis/2016/06/07/exclusive-top-un-whistleblower-resigns-citing-impunity-and-lack-accountability
Incredible that someone who fought to expose heinous crimes should have been treated this way.
pmorlan1
(2,096 posts)Those in power who abuse that power deserve NO respect. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is the job of all of us to call it out when we see it and not go along to get along. I applaud Anders Kompass for calling it out!
enough
(13,237 posts)HuckleB
(35,773 posts)laserhaas
(7,805 posts)To hear how blatant & flagrant and widespread
These reprehensible acts of inhumanity are
Manifest Injustice rules our world ....overwhelmingly