Getting the Propaganda Straight–UN officials bicker over claims Gaddafi used rape as a weapon

NOVANEWS
 

UNITED NATIONS — Top United Nations officials are at loggerheads over whether rape is being used as a weapon in Libya, issuing contradictory statements and squabbling in a way that critics say is causing an unnecessary distraction as the war in the country rages on.

Margot Wallstrom, the UN’s special representative on sexual violence in conflict, is the latest official to weigh in on the issue after delivering her first speech before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Friday following her March 2010 appointment.

She railed about a statement made Thursday by UN human rights investigator Cherif Bassiouni, who described allegations of mass rape in Libya as little more than “massive hysteria” intended as a scare tactic.

The Egyptian-born Bassiouni in turn had been casting doubt on comments Wednesday by the chief UN war crimes prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who said International Criminal Court investigators had evidence linking Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to a policy of raping opponents.

Canadian jurist Philippe Kirsch is linked to the squabbling as a member alongside Bassiouni of the three-person panel that probed alleged human rights abuses in Libya by visiting both government-controlled areas and areas controlled by the rebel National Transitional Council in late April.

“It is unfortunate that UN investigators of Libyan human rights violations have chosen words which downplay rape allegations and suggest that the main problem was the use of such claims to spread the fear of atrocities, rather than the commission of the atrocities themselves,” Anne Bayefsky, a Canadian political science professor who heads the New York-based monitoring group Eye on the UN, told Postmedia News.

“Investigator Bassiouni’s use of the word ‘hysteria’ in this context is especially insensitive in light of the oft-repeated use of such vocabulary to diminish the credibility of rape victims.”

Noting that Libyan law submits women to flogging for having sexual relations outside marriage, Bayefsky added that Bassiouni’s ‘hysteria’ comment was all the more inappropriate “in light of the discrimination and permanent degradation which meets rape victims in Libyan society.”

Wallstrom, a former Swedish minister, told reporters that armed groups continue to use rape as a weapon of war because it is “cheaper, more destructive and easier to get away with than other methods of warfare.”

She said that at least 200,000 women and girls in the Democratic Republic of Congo had been raped during decades of violence — some estimates are 20 times higher. Wallstrom also said rape remains the most reported crime in Liberia, where it was rampant during 14 years of civil war.

On Bassiouni’s use of the word hysteria, she said officials should “avoid such language.”

“This has been called history’s greatest silence,” she said of the crime of rape. “For too long, it was not considered proper to mention rape and sexual violence.”

Wallstrom defended Moreno-Ocampo’s claims, saying there were “consistent reports from people, from organizations, from UN entities and others on the ground.

“It is difficult to give a figure, but this is part of the arsenal of the Gadhafi troops,” she said.

Moreno-Ocampo was at the UN in New York when he said there was evidence the Libyan authorities bought “Viagra-type” drugs and gave them to troops as part of an official rape policy.

Next day in Geneva, Bassiouni said he had heard such claims when his team visited rebel-held eastern Libya — and then heard them again when they went to Tripoli, the government-held capital.

“My interpretation of it is, when the information spread out, the society felt so vulnerable . . . it has created a massive hysteria,” Bassiouni said.

Still, the group’s report accused Gadhafi government forces of murder, torture and abduction. It also found evidence that rebel forces were guilty of some violations.

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