| An article in French from le Monde. Excerpt translated (perhaps without nuance, given my current French skills): |
The military members of the UN Mission in Western Sahara are responsible for graffiti defacing the walls of a prehistoric site which contains 6000 year old drawings ....
The vandalized site, known as the Devil's Mountain, is considered sacred by the Saharans. The study which exposed the extent of vandalism attributed to UN forces stresses that this kind of behaviour has become common within the MINURSO despite the existence of such legislation as the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, signed in 1954. The report concludes (as quoted by The Times) by saying that "the personnel of the MINURSO contributed significantly to damage of archaeological sites."
"I was appalled. One would have thought that some of them would have been better educated. These are officers, not second-class," said Julian Harston, the UN special representative in Western Sahara, who promised that the guilty will be punished and sent back to their country of origin.
This case adds to the list of similar cases involving UN missions in Africa, including Côte d'Ivoire, Eritrea, Burundi, Sudan, Liberia, and especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) , where personnel of the UN Mission in DRC (MONUC) had been involved in 140 cases of alleged sexual abuse or exploitation between December 2004 and August 2006. |