UN peacekeepers: DW docu raises questions about vetting process
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A Deutsche Welle documentary has alleged that some members of the Rapid Action Battalion's intelligence wing -- which, according to the German broadcaster, has records of human rights abuses -- were deployed at UN peacekeeping missions.
The 20-minute-long documentary, headlined "Torturers deployed as UN peacekeepers," also showed how Sri Lanka sent officers accused of war crimes during the country's civil war to peacekeeping missions.
It points to vetting procedures for peacekeepers, stressing that such deployments may undermine the very purpose of peacekeeping missions.
As of March this year, about 6,000 Bangladeshi peacekeepers were actively deployed worldwide, said the documentary.
DW found that more than 100 Rab officers went on peacekeeping missions, 40 of them deployed after the Committee against Torture, a UN body, published a report in 2019 on alleged abuses by the security forces in Bangladesh.
It mentioned the names of three Rab personnel who were on peacekeeping missions. The three worked for Rab's intelligence wing with two serving as its deputy directors.
The documentary brought allegations against the intelligence wing saying that the unit "runs a secret network of torture cells across Bangladesh, some of them located in safe houses, others hidden deep inside Rab's compounds".
It raised questions as to how the officers could be sent to the peacekeeping missions despite being the part of the intelligence wing.
Contacted about the DW documentary, Commander Arafat Islam, director of legal and media wing of the Rab Headquarters, said the UN mission is not an issue of Rab.
"So, we have no observations to make," he told The Daily Star.
In the documentary, Andrew Gilmour, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, said the UN's hands are seemingly tied.
He explained there was a time in the past when the majority of UN peacekeepers came from places like Sweden and Ireland.
But over the years, as the Cold War drew to a close in the early 1990s, faced with deadlier missions, Western governments increasingly started to pull their troops out of peacekeeping operations, preferring to pay for them instead.
The DW interviewed a political source from a western European country with inside knowledge of the workings of the UN who said democratic governments had to weigh whether they could pay a certain blood toll.
If soldiers deployed to UN missions returned in body bags, he explained, their governments could soon have a parliamentary inquiry on their hands. That, however, was not a problem countries like Bangladesh had to deal with, the source told DW.
And the result: "Very, very few highly trained, Westernized troops for the United Nations," said Gilmour.
He further said, "There are almost never enough" troops. "So that means it's not as if the UN then can say, OK, we'll take this group because we think this country respects human rights. And I'm sorry guys, we're not going to take you."
The UN "don't have that option," Gilmour continued.
He said, "...Where literally thousands of people could be killed in the absence of UN peacekeepers, which -- when you have to balance things -- perhaps sending two or three bad apples is a less-bad option than thousands of people getting killed."
Bangladesh is currently the third largest contributor to the UN peacekeeping missions in different parts of the world. The country has been lauded on various occasions for its contribution to bringing in peace and stability in conflict zones, risking their own lives.
The documentary said that in 2012, after several sexual abuse scandals by peacekeepers made headlines, the UN implemented a new human rights policy for its personnel.
According to that policy, while troop-contributing countries generally continue to select and vet the military personnel they send to missions with the exception of Force Commanders and their deputies, they have to attest for each soldier that they have not committed or are alleged to have committed any human rights violations.
In response to the query of DW, UN in writing replied, "We do not have the resources to screen each and every person and have a long-standing policy that places specific responsibility on troop and police contributing countries."
In the case of Bangladesh, the UN spokesman went on: UN Peacekeeping "has continuously engaged bilaterally with national authorities to convey concerns about serious allegations of human rights violations by defense and security forces, in particular by members of Rab".
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