Analysis: Scandal time at the U.N.
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By Roland Flamini
Chief International Correspondent
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Washington, DC, Mar. 2 (UPI) -- A U.N. inquiry into all of its 16 peace keeping missions around the world following alleged incidents of rape by U.N. troops in the Congo has so far uncovered similar cases in five other locations. 
We are going to have to face the fact that the situation is going to get worse before it gets better, Jean-Marie Guehenno, head of the U.N. peacekeeping operations said at a recent news conference. But that's a good sign because it means that we're getting a grip on the situation.
Last year, peacekeepers in the Congo were accused of rape, sexual harassment and bribing children -- some as young as 12 or 13 -- into having sex. Guehenno said in Washington that as a result of a U.N. investigation, six soldiers from Morocco had been arrested and repatriated, and one member of the South African contingent was under indictment. A French civilian staffer was in jail in France facing charges of making pornographic videos of pedophilia. 
The investigation was extended to other peacekeeping operations, and similar abuses have so far been reported in Liberia, Ivory Coast, Burundi and two other unnamed countries out of the 16 where the United Nations deploys 64,000 military personnel and police. But disciplinary action against the suspects can only be taken by the participating country, not the United Nations. Guehenno said the United Nations will lock future peacekeepers into observing a stricter code of behavior by including it in the agreement with participating nations.
Guehenno conceded that the world organization's drive against Blue Helmet sex offenders after more than 40 years of U.N. peacekeeping operations could be perceived as more than somewhat belated. In the 1960s, what was not seen was tolerated, he said. Now we have to hold our people to higher standards. We have to do a good job to maintain the standard of global morality.
The United Nations' troubles with its peacekeeping operation come at a time when the organization is facing what many regard as the worst internal problems since its founding in 1945. On Feb. 20, the head of the U.N. refugee agency, Ruud Lubbers, the former Dutch prime minister, resigned following allegations of sexual harassment. A confidential U.N. report leaked to the press alleged Lubbers had engaged in unwanted physical contact with a female employee at his agency in Geneva. 
Lubbers said claims of sexual harassment by this and other women, none of whom had actually filed official complaints, had not been confirmed. But guilty or not, in the current wave of jitters sweeping through the United Nations, there was no question of giving Lubbers the benefit of the doubt.
The larger crisis that has haunts the organization, reaching up its highest levels, is the scandal in connection with the oil-for-food program in Iraq. The case of alleged corruption that is now the subject of at least three investigations is a complex story of millions of dollars collected from Iraqi oil sales siphoned off in different directions instead of going toward the purchase of food and medicines for the hard-pressed Iraqis under the Saddam Hussein regime. 
At best, the scandal reflected lapses in the United Nation's management of a program mandated by the U.N. Security Council, which in turn was ultimately responsible for its oversight. While the investigations -- one requested by Annan himself -- were going on, and the atmosphere of New York's glass headquarters became increasingly unsettled, a string of senior resignations were announced, starting with Kofi Annan's chief-of-staff and longtime associate, 70-year-old Iqbal Reza. 
Others included the United Nations' chief investigator Dileep Nair, the head of personnel management Catherine Bertini, the U.N.'s controller Jean-Pierre Halbwachs, and Annan's deputy chief-of-staff Elisabeth Lindenmayer. No one has linked their departures to the oil-for-food crisis. Annan's press spokesman Fred Eckhard said the simultaneous clean sweep of virtually everyone close to the secretary-general was no more than a coincidence -- and then resigned. 
Annan has said he will stay the course until the end of his term at the end of 2006, and diplomatic sources say that despite the sequence of mishaps he is safe, but unlikely to have enough clout to clean up the U.N. mess. That challenging task will be left to his successor.