Congressman Keith Ellsion during Eid Festival in Minneapolis, MN
NAIROBI, Kenya (HOL) -- The United States, being the leading financier of the African Union mission in Somalia, has a responsibility to ensure that the continental mission investigates recent reports of rape and abuses against Somali girls and women by Ugandan and Burundian peacekeepers operating in the country's capital, said a US congressman.
“The violence described in the Human Rights Watch report is disturbing,” said Congressman Keith Ellison, a Democrat representing Minnesota's 5th Congressional District, where many Somali Americans live.
“Women in Mogadishu should not fear soldiers sent to protect them," he said in a statement sent to Hiiraan Online. "As the largest international funder of AMISOM, the United States has a responsibility to ensure that this investigation is transparent, thorough, and holds the perpetrators accountable."
Ellison's concern comes at a time when Somalia's government and the international community, especially the US, EU and the UN are maintaining a deafening silence on rape allegations against peacekeepers who, according to Human Rights Watch report, use humanitarian aid and money to buy sex on military bases.
Many Somalis are now wondering aloud if the international donors are seriously interested in promoting human rights values in the country. Or if the international actors in Somalia have indeed ulterior motives to cover up peacekeepers' abuses. These same actors, who bankroll the AU force, habitually issue statement on everything that occurs in the country from differences over the formation of mainly clan-based federal states to the Muslim Eid festival.
That reticence, however, didn't not stop rights activists from expressing their shock at rape reports against AMISOM.
Bahame Tom Nyanduga -- who was last May named as the UN's independent expert on human rights situation in Somalia -- said he was "particularly disturbed by the continuing reports of sexual violence against women and girls" in Somalia.
"Allegations that perpetrators of sexual violence as well as sexual abuse and exploitation include.... some elements from AMISOM are of a grave concern to me," Nyanduga said in a report recently presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
File: A Somali woman walking along the street while soldiers with the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) are patrolling the area
"I call on AMISOM to take the necessary measures to investigate and punish the alleged perpetrators," Nyanduga said.
Nevertheless, the AU mission, perhaps taking a cue from the big powers' silence on the matter, continues to deny the rape allegations against its soldiers despite wide-spread field reports of the same, some of which have even talked of the existence of kids sired by those peacekeepers who first arrived in the country in 2007.
"Sexual exploitation is not a secret at AMISOM’s Mogadishu bases," where soldiers routinely pay teenage girls for sex, said the New York-based Human Rights Watch report last month.
The statement by the Commission of the African Union, the secretariat of the Union entrusted with executive functions, said the findings in the Human Rights Watch report "constitute a misrepresentation of the sacrifices, achievements and genuine commitment of AMISOM and the Troop and Police Contributing Countries (TCCs/PCCs), in support of the people and the Federal Government of Somalia in their quest for sustainable peace, security, stability and reconciliation."
Tellingly, the AU's statement carried a title that summed up its position: "The African Union strongly rejects the Conclusions contained in the Report of the Human Rights Watch on allegations on sexual exploitation and abuse by AMISOM."
The Human Rights Watch report -- which particularly accuses Ugandan and Burundian forces within the AU mission of raping women seeking treatment at their facilities -- called on troop-contributing countries, the African Union and donors to AMISOM to "urgently address these abuses and strengthen procedures inside Somalia to seek justice."
The group's research focused on incidents in Mogadishu, where Ugandan and Burundian soldiers are present, but also noted that it "does not preclude the possibility that similar abuses have occurred elsewhere."
"The AU and AMISOM should foster an organizational culture of “zero tolerance” of unlawful activities on their bases," Human Rights Watch said in its report entitled “The Power These Men Have Over Us: Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA) by African Union Forces in Somalia."
The international group has also urged the Somali and AU leadership to hold rapists and abusers responsible because they "misused their positions of power to exploit Somalia’s most vulnerable women and girls."
Congressman Ellison said he would follow up on AU's promise that it would investigate the allegations "thoroughly" and take "appropriate measures" against the perpetrators.
He issued the statement after a conference call with Mr. El-Ghasim Wade, the Interim Director of the African Union Mission in Somalia to discuss reports that Somali women and girls have been raped and assaulted by AMISOM soldiers in Mogadishu that attracted an outcry by Somalis around the world.
Ellison said that he would "make sure this can’t happen again.”
"Impunity for sexual and gender based violence and for any other human rights violation should not be tolerated by any state, government or organization," said Nyanduga, the UN's independent expert, urging the UN mission in Somalia to fulfill its obligation and play "a crucial role" in fighting against impunity in the country.
HOL English News Desk