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PEACEKEEPERS: ALLEGATIONS OF ABUSE AND

ABSENCE OF ACCOUNTABILITY AT THE

UNITED NATIONS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, 

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND 

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

APRIL 13, 2016

Serial No. 114–200

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

PAUL COOK, California 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

DANIEL DONOVAN, New York 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

DANIEL DONOVAN, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

AMI BERA, California 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Mr. Brett Schaefer, Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs, 

Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, The Heritage Foundation ................ 4

Aicha Elbasri, Ph.D., author (former spokesperson, United Nations-African 

Union Mission in Darfur, United Nations) ........................................................ 25

Mr. Peter Gallo (former Investigator, Office of Internal Oversight Services, 

United Nations) .................................................................................................... 39

Mr. Jordie Hannum, senior director, Better World Campaign ............................ 55

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Mr. Brett Schaefer: Prepared statement ............................................................... 7

Aicha Elbasri, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ............................................................. 29

Mr. Peter Gallo: Prepared statement ..................................................................... 42

Mr. Jordie Hannum: Prepared statement ............................................................. 57

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 88

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 89

The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of New Jersey, and chairman, Subcommittee on Africa, Global 

Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations: 

Photographs referenced by Aicha Elbasri, Ph.D. ............................................... 90

Statement from Ms. Beatrice Edwards of the Government Accountability 

Project ................................................................................................................ 93

Proposal for Reform by Mr. Peter Gallo ............................................................. 100

Statement from AIDS-Free World’s Code Blue campaign ................................ 103

(1)

PEACEKEEPERS: ALLEGATIONS OF ABUSE 

AND ABSENCE OF ACCOUNTABILITY AT THE 

UNITED NATIONS 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13, 2016

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m., in room 

2200 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. Smith 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. SMITH. The subcommittee will come to order, and good afternoon to everybody. 

First of all, let me apologize for being late. We had a series of 

four votes and it has disrupted everyone’s schedule, but especially 

yours. So, I do apologize to you for that. 

Today’s hearing, examining the consequences of sexual exploitation by the United Nations peacekeepers, marks the second in 

the series we are holding this year on the critical issue of lack of 

accountability at the United Nations and its subsidiary institutions. It follows our February hearing which exposed illicit technology transfers to rogue regimes, corruption at the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the harassment of whistleblowers 

who sought to redress these wrongs. 

It also follows on the series of hearings that this subcommittee 

held about a decade ago when we examined allegations of sexual 

exploitation and abuse of minors by U.N. peacekeepers in the 

Democratic Republic of the Congo and the need for true reform 

that would end the victimizing of the vulnerable by those who are 

supposed to be the protectors. I would note, parenthetically, that 

as a result of that, we did have Jane Holl Lute, who was then 

working at the United Nations, who I think was equally disappointed and frustrated, despite her Herculean efforts, to get the 

U.N. system to recognize that the peacekeepers, to a person, have 

to be protectors and never predators. 

Sadly, what was happening in the DRC more than 10 years ago 

today is repeated in places such as Central African Republic and 

in Haiti. At the time of our hearing on the DRC, I noted that we 

were there to examine credible evidence of gross sexual misconduct 

and exploitation of refugees and vulnerable people by U.N. peaceVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:43 Sep 08, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\041316\99758 SHIRL
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keepers and civilian personnel assigned to the U.N. peacekeeping 

mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

These allegations typically involved peacekeepers’ sexual conduct 

with Congolese women and girls, usually in exchange for food or 

small sums of money. According to the United Nations, these contacts occurred with sickening frequencies and may involve girls 

under the age of 18, with some as young as 11 to 14 years of age. 

Even more troubling were the allegations of rape, forced prostitution, and demands of sex for jobs by U.N. civilian personnel. 

We will hear from witnesses today who will tell us how little 

things have changed and how a culture of turning a blind eye and 

covering pervades the U.N. bureaucracy, not just in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, but in the very U.N. entities 

that are supposed to investigate wrongdoing and ensure accountability. 

Perhaps even worse still, we will hear from a witness who will 

tell how in Darfur U.N. peacekeepers stood idly by while civilians 

were killed by Sudanese militias aligned with the government and 

how the U.N. sought to cover up accurate reports of what was happening. This is so horrifying that it brings to mind the atrocities 

that were committed in Srebrenica in 1995, when Dutch peacekeepers shut their eyes and ears to the killing of unarmed citizens, 

as a matter of fact, facilitated their getting on buses in order to go 

to their horrific deaths. 

I will never forget, soon after that happened we had the chief 

translator who was there with Koratich and the Dutch peacekeeping commander. He lost pretty much the entirety of his family 

and couldn’t believe the enabling that happened in that so-called 

U.N. safe haven, again, which cost the lives of well over 8,000 Muslims. And I have been back to Srebrenica and it is a black mark, 

if ever there was one, on the U.N. efforts. 

What compounds the tragedy today is that peacekeeping is essential to healing a broken world. The protectors can never be the 

predators. 

During our February hearing on WIPO I noted that a culture of 

corruption has beset the U.N. and other international organizations, and how the sexual exploitation of minors occurring in U.N. 

peacekeeping missions transformed ostensible emissaries of mercy 

into envoys of exploitation. I also stated my belief that by shining 

a light we could help victims, help end corruption, bring healing, 

and, hopefully, true systemic reform. 

That is my hope and desire for today’s hearing, which will be a 

further catalyst to action on the part of this subcommittee, which 

is why we want to experts to convey your best insights and wisdom 

to us, that by calling attention to what is happening will spur reform. 

It is said that the Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has finally 

awakened to the true extent of the corruption and is taking steps 

to end the culture of impunity and dysfunctionality that has characterized U.N. peacekeeping and U.N. oversight. I certainly—and 

I am sure it is shared by our distinguished witnesses—hope that 

that is true, and that it is not merely cosmetic. 

The U.N. has laudable and, to be fair, very difficult goals, but we 

must be steadfast in holding the U.N. accountable for its action 

3

and the way the results, good and bad, of the U.N. work. American 

taxpayers provide more support for the U.N. peacekeepers than 

those of any other country and, with that, we in Congress bear a 

fiduciary onus not only to the taxpayers, but also to those innocents in countries who have been harmed by the actions more than 

a few rotten apples. 

I hope that today’s revelations and testimony will ensure that 

the spotlight continues to shine on the U.N. and that, as a result, 

what is broken will be fixed and people in need of healing will be 

given respite from their afflictions. 

I would like to now introduce our distinguished witnesses. 

I do believe we should be joined shortly by Ranking Member 

Karen Bass. When she does come, if you don’t mind, our witnesses, 

I will turn to her for comments that she might have. 

Let me begin, first, with Mr. Brett Schaefer who is Jay Kingham 

Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs at The Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom. The United Nations 

is one of his areas of expertise. He speaks frequently and publishes 

on issues related to the world body and its activities. He regularly 

addresses business leaders, congressional staff, and academics, has 

testified before Congress before, and has appeared on a variety of 

radio and TV programs speaking on these issues. Mr. Schaefer 

joined Heritage in 1995 and worked at the Pentagon as an assistant for international criminal court, a policy from March 2003 to 

March 2004. 

Then, we would like to go to Dr. Aicha Elbasri, who was the 

spokeswoman for UNAMID, the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur between 2012 and April 2013. She is the winner of 

the 2015 Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling for blowing the whistle 

on the U.N. coverup of atrocities mainly committed by Sudan’s 

Government forces, sometimes under U.N. watch. Between 2000 

and 2013, she held a number of reporting, media, and communication positions within the U.N. system in New York, the Middle 

East, and Africa. Dr. Elbasri is a published author and has contributed articles to various newspapers and magazines in the United 

States, the UK, France, and the Arab Region. 

We will, then, hear from Mr. Peter Gallo, formerly with the Office of Internal Oversight Services, the United Nations. Mr. Gallo 

joined the U.N. in March 2011, where he was an investigator in the 

Investigations Division of the Office of Internal Oversight Services. 

Prior to joining the U.N., he spent 18 years as an investigator in 

the private sector in Asia, where he was recognized as an authority 

on money laundering. Mr. Gallo was admitted to the practice of law 

in his home country of Scotland, Hong Kong, and in New York. He 

has had a number of articles published on money laundering and 

investigations management, spoken at numerous conferences, and 

taught courses in these subjects as an adjunct lecturer in Hong 

Kong. 

We will, then, hear from Mr. Jordie Hannum who has almost 20 

years of legislative, analytical, and advocacy experience, including 

roles on Capitol Hill, political campaigns, and within NGOs. As a 

senior director of the Better World Campaign, he guides its legislative and advocacy efforts around the support for United Nations. 

During his tenure, he has testified in front of Congress on the 

4

U.N.’s value, traveled to South Sudan, researched civilian protection, and written on the importance of U.S. engagement in peacekeeping. Previously, he worked on a senatorial campaign, a Presidential campaign, and here in the House. 

So, welcome to all four of our distinguished witnesses. 

Mr. Schaefer, the floor is yours. 

STATEMENT OF MR. BRETT SCHAEFER, JAY KINGHAM FELLOW IN INTERNATIONAL REGULATORY AFFAIRS, MARGARET THATCHER CENTER FOR FREEDOM, THE HERITAGE 

FOUNDATION 

Mr. SCHAEFER. Mr. Chairman and other members of the subcommittee, thank you very much for the opportunity to come here 

today to discuss the problems and concerns with U.N. peacekeeping, including recent allegations of abuse and the absence of 

accountability. 

In my opinion, it is in the interest of the U.S. to have an effective 

United Nations. For this to happen, the U.N. must carry out its responsibilities competently and effectively and efficiently. It must 

operate in a transparent and accountable fashion. It must hold 

itself and its employees and representatives to the highest standards of conduct. This is particularly critical for U.N. peacekeeping 

where the organization sends civilian and uniformed personnel to 

protect and assist the most vulnerable. Unfortunately, the current 

organization falls gravely short. 

First, U.N. peacekeeping is being conducted with unprecedented 

pace, scope, and ambition. These increasing demands have revealed 

ongoing serious concerns and problems, including poor transparency, mismanagement and corruption that have led to waste, 

fraud, and abuse in procurement and contracting; negligence and 

disregard that can lead to unintended tragedy such as the introduction of cholera into Haiti by U.N. peacekeepers; engaging in partnerships with governments that are non-democratic, corrupt, or 

hostile to human rights; and depending on peacekeepers to defend 

civilians despite a documented widespread reluctance to respond 

when civilians under their protection are threatened. 

All these problems and others should lead to a stronger oversight 

by an independent inspector general equivalent in the U.N., which 

is currently lacking, and fundamental reevaluation of longstanding 

operations and those with robust mandates in situations of conflict 

to ensure that the missions are effective within the capabilities and 

willingness of the troops provided, and achieving their mandates. 

Second, because the U.N. and its employees enjoy broad protections and immunities, the organization has an extremely heavy responsibility to self-scrutinize, self-police, self-correct, and punish 

wrongdoing. Unfortunately, accountability in the organization has 

been lacking. 

Focusing specifically on peacekeeping, the most troubling problem is the frequency with which civilian and military personnel 

prey on the very people that they are supposed to protect. Last 

year it was revealed that senior U.N. officials tried to bury detailed 

knowledge of abuses by non-U.N. peacekeepers in the Central African Republic. Worst, they then tried to fire whistleblower Anders 

5

Kompass for sending those details outside the U.N., so they might 

be addressed. 

A U.N.-appointed independent review panel released a report in 

December condemning the U.N. for ‘‘a gross institutional failure to 

respond to the allegations in a meaningful way.’’

Unfortunately, the trends for sexual exploitation and abuse by 

U.N. personnel are going the wrong way. In 2014, there were 80 

allegations. In 2015, the U.N. reported 99 allegations. Sixteen of 

those allegations occurred in 10 peacekeeping operations and involved individuals from 25 different nations. Thirty allegations involved U.N. personnel in organizations, funds, and programs not 

related to U.N. peacekeeping. 

Last month, however, the Code Blue Campaign announced that 

they had learned of 108 new cases of sexual exploitation abuse in 

the Central African Republic. The problem appears to be getting 

worse, not better. 

The U.N. has responded to this problem through some much 

overdue transparency in identifying the nationalities of those accused and announcing a series of changes in how such incidents 

should be reported, investigated, and addressed. The Security 

Council has endorsed the plan, and we have seen repatriation of 

troops and units with patterns of misconduct for, I believe, the first 

time. 

However, the problem has never been the stated intent of the organization to address these problems. The problem has always 

been a failure to follow through on those stated plans. Specifically, 

the U.N. effort hinges on a number of suggested changes that have 

been ‘‘requested’’ of the troop-contributing countries. However, it is 

far from clear that there is a commitment by the troop-contributing 

countries to implement and adhere to those changes. 

Making problems worse, the U.N. also seems to have an embedded hostility toward whistleblowers who can serve as a critical 

safety valve for reporting mismanagement and misconduct. The 

fear of reporting wrongdoing undermines the effectiveness and integrity of the U.N., and it must be shored up. 

Finally, the methodology for assigning the cost of peacekeeping 

disproportionately shifts the costs away from the bulk of the membership and onto a relative handful of high-income countries like 

the U.S. Specifically, the U.S. is assessed over 28.5 percent of U.N. 

peacekeeping. The least-assessed countries pay 0.0001 percent of 

that cost. For the peacekeeping budget, the U.S. is assessed more 

than 185 member states combined. The U.S. will be assessed over 

$2.3 billion under this peacekeeping budget. The least-assessed 

countries will be assessed about $8,300. Nearly 80 countries will be 

assessed a total of less than $100,000, and over half the membership will be assessed less than $1 million. 

This helps explain why member states are not necessarily all 

that enthusiastic or encouraged to actually conclude peacekeeping 

missions or constrain their costs. They don’t pay very much for 

them, and that leads to a lack of incentive for them to fulfill their 

oversight role or to pursue budgetary restraint. A long-term solution requires a more equitable distribution of the cost of U.N. activities, so that all member states have this kind of incentive. 

6

In conclusion, I want to emphasize the critical role played by 

Congress in U.N. reform issues in the past through the use of financial carrots and sticks. In my opinion, Congress can be a very 

effective ally of the executive branch in pursuing U.N. reform and 

pressure the organization to adopt the reforms and changes that 

are necessary and have been illustrated to be far overdue with the 

incidents that we have seen over the past year. 

Thank you very much, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Schaefer follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Mr. Schaefer, thank you very much. I know you had 

a much longer version. Without objection, that longer version and 

those of our other distinguished witnesses, and any other materials 

you would like to introduce into the record, will be made a part of 

the record. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Doctor? 

STATEMENT OF AICHA ELBASRI, PH.D., AUTHOR (FORMER 

SPOKESPERSON, UNITED NATIONS–AFRICAN UNION MISSION IN DARFUR, UNITED NATIONS) 

Ms. ELBASRI. Good afternoon, Chairman Smith, Ranking Member 

Bass, and members of this subcommittee. Thank you for inviting 

me to address you today. 

My testimony will focus on the U.N. coverup of serious crimes 

committed mostly by the Sudanese Government in Darfur between 

August 2012 and April 2013. I would also testify on the failure of 

the U.N. to investigate these charges which led to the absence of 

accountability and the perpetuation of the Darfur tragedy. 

Soon after I joined the United Nations-African Union Mission in 

Darfur, known as UNAMID, in August 2012, I received a call from 

a journalist who inquired about reports of violence in an area 

called Tawila in North Darfur. When I checked with UNAMID, I 

was told that the situation was calm. I conveyed this line to the 

journalist, and it turned out to be a lie. 

In fact, 3 days later, I received reports on the displacements of 

hundreds of families in the same area due to violent attacks. I immediately alerted my supervisor, Ms. Aichatou Mindaoudou, who 

was the acting chief of UNAMID. Ms. Mindaoudou ordered a 

verification mission which confirmed that, between August 24-26, 

2012, government soldiers raided three villages. For 3 consecutive 

days they assaulted men and children, raped women and girls, destroyed their farms and looted their properties. This forced up to 

5,000 villagers to flee for their lives. 

The government forces attacked these people because they suspected them of supporting the rebels, and they systematically 

called them, asked them to identify their tribes, and reserved the 

harshest treatment to the Zaghawa tribesmen. 

But UNAMID didn’t authorize me to convey any of this information to the journalist who asked for it. It did provide the Chief of 

DPKO, Mr. Herve Ladsous, with the confirmation of the Tawila attack, but there was no mention of it in the Secretary-General’s report to the Security Council covering this period. 

Although UNAMID leadership expected me to do as I was told 

and ask no questions, I continued to raise concerns about the mission reports. Consequently, I faced censorship and hostility, especially from Mr. Karen Tchalian, the Russian chief of staff of 

UNAMID who controlled the flow of information within the mission 

as well as the communication with the U.N. Headquarters in New 

York. But Mr. Tchalian wasn’t acting alone. He enjoyed the support 

of other senior staff, especially the Somali Deputy Joint Special 

Representative for Operations, Mr. Mohamed Yonis, who is now 

the Foreign Minister of Somaliland. 

26

One example of how information control played out occurred 

after the Sudanese Government committed a massacre in an area 

called Hashaba from September 25-27, 2012. The Sudanese Air 

Force first dropped bombs on the area, and when the bombing 

stopped, a large group of soldiers and militiamen stormed the area. 

They killed and injured people who were trying to escape. 

Soon after the journalists began inquiring about the attack, I recommended that the mission issue a public statement, but Tchalian 

imposed an information blackout, even after the mission saw the 

evidence of the massacre for themselves. UNAMID established that 

at least 39 men, 20 women, and 11 children were killed in this attack which was carried out by the government forces. 

In addition, Tchalian drafted and compiled a code cable that 

Yonis signed off on October 7 which distorted the facts documented 

by internal reports. They described the attack as part of intertribal 

conflicts over land and resources. They attributed the attack to 

some Arab groups acting in total independence from the government and insisted that the Sudanese forces were not involved in 

the attack. By doing so, they cleared the government from responsibility for mass murder. 

When I had a conversation with Mr. Tchalian about the Hashaba 

attack on civilians, his response shocked me, and I quote, ‘‘So 

what?’’ he told me. ‘‘The Americans flattened Fallujah. Why can’t 

the Sudanese Government bomb its own people?,’’ he told me. 

It was then that I first considered resigning, but my supervisor, 

Ms. Mindaoudou, convinced me to stay and help her change things 

and tell the truth. But, within a few months, I realized that there 

was no place for the truth in UNAMID. The instructions given by 

Tchalian and Yonis to peacekeepers in the field didn’t change. They 

told them not to report the government bombing unless they had 

seen the craters themselves. 

As a result, when peacekeepers saw the Sudanese military 

planes hovering over villages, dropping bombs, and when they 

heard loud explosions and saw smoke, they still couldn’t confirm 

that the bombing took place. Consequently, the deliberate bombardment of civilians would be characterized as alleged bombing. 

What made the coverup by Tchalian and Yonis so effective was 

the fact that they were assisted by others in U.N. Headquarters in 

New York. Even when UNAMID troops witnessed and took photos 

of civilians being shot about 2 meters away from their own base, 

by the time the attack was mentioned in the Secretary-General’s 

report the civilian deaths were attributed to being caught in the 

crossfire. 

And if you allow me, I can show you just four photos. In this 

photo, on the morning of September 5, 2012 at 7:45, some 100 

armed government militiamen known as the Janjaweed gathered 

around 2 meters away from UNAMID base near Kutum in North 

Darfur. 

Next. Yes, in this one, this photo shows how UNAMID closely 

monitored the militias from its base near Kutum throughout the 

morning of September 5. And you can see how quite close the militia and the UNAMID forces were. 

Next. At 11:25 a.m., the militia stopped a group of civilians in 

a truck. They shot dead one man, injured eight others, while 

27

UNAMID forces were monitoring and taking these photos. A few 

days later, two more victims succumbed to their injuries. 

Next, please. Here is the response of the UNAMID. They took 

care of the dead and the injured. 

Next, please. And here is the real problem. This is how both the 

Secretary-General reported on the incidents and the press release. 

The reports of Mr. Ban Ki Moon said about these incidents that 

‘‘the following day one civilian was killed and eight others were injured in the crossfire of a firefight between armed militia and government regular forces on the outskirts of the town’’; whereas, the 

UNAMID press release described this incident on the red line: ‘‘On 

5 September armed men alleged fired at the local civilians, resulting in additional casualties.’’

While it is true that UNAMID concealed many attacks, it kept 

the Chief of DPKO, Mr. Herve Ladsous, informed of the most 

alarming shifts in the war in Darfur. This is some of what Mr. 

Ladsous and others in his department knew and concealed from 

Ban Ki Moon’s report to the Security Council: First, the government violated the Security Council Resolution 1556 by integrating 

the Janjaweed militias in its own auxiliary forces instead of disarming and neutralizing them. 

Second, the Sudanese Air Force deployed attack helicopters and 

Antonov aircraft in Darfur, in violation of the U.N. arms embargo. 

Third, the government embarked on the second phase of its ethnic-cleansing campaign which targeted the non-Arab ethnic 

Zaghawa population. 

Fourth, crimes committed by the rebels included physical assault, abduction, looting, and the possible use of the local population as human shields. 

And fifth, the government forces deliberately attacked and killed 

U.N. peacekeepers. 

By hiding these facts, DPKO kept the Security Council in the 

dark, resulting in that body making misinformed decisions. 

After 8 months in UNAMID, the vast and systematic nature of 

the coverup was clear to me. By then, I had reasons to fear for my 

own safety because of threats made by Mr. Tchalian. I resigned, 

left Sudan, and wrote my end-of-mission report in May. In this report, I asked DPKO to look into the serious violations and concerns 

I had raised. I received no response. So, in August 2013, I formally 

requested that the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services, 

OIOS, investigate the coverup, but OIOS also failed to investigate. 

By then, I was working for the U.N. Population Fund known as 

UNFPA, but I knew that I couldn’t keep my post if I were to expose 

publicly what I had witnessed. The U.N.’s awful record of retaliation against whistleblowers compelled me to resign again. 

By April 2014, Foreign Policy Magazine exposed the affair based 

on the documents I had shared with them. This prompted the 

International Criminal Court to call on Mr. Ban Ki Moon to carry 

out a thorough public, independent inquiry. But Mr. Ban Ki Moon 

chose to order a dubious review panel that concealed its terms of 

reference, didn’t include a single investigator, never set foot in 

Darfur, and ended up denying the coverup. 

The Secretary-General commissioned a review that became a 

whitewash, and no one was held accountable for misleading the 

28

international community and the Security Council. And when the 

United States, Britain, and France requested the firing of Mr. 

Tchalian, Russia opposed it. Assured of Russia’s and China’s protection, the Sudanese Government extended its genocide campaign 

to the Nuba Mountains and beyond. 

This is today’s U.N., an organization that is increasingly failing 

to bring or keep peace, a rotten system that covers up atrocities, 

attacks whistleblowers, lacks accountability, and promotes impunity. Since the organization seems under no obligation to be accountable, it is the member states’ duty to act. Therefore, I respectfully request that this committee consider the following reforms: 

First, establish a truly independent investigative entity that is not 

part of the U.N. Secretariat, but reports directly and separately to 

the member states. 

Second, reconsider the leadership of DPKO which has been headed by France since 1997. The best way for the U.S. to address endless scandals in a failing and broken DPKO and ensure the efficient use of U.S. taxpayers’ money is to take the lead of this critical 

department. 

Third, look into the State Department’s certification process. It 

continues to certify that the U.N. is implementing best practice 

whistleblower protections, despite evidence to the contrary, preventing a 15-percent reduction in U.S. funding, according to the 

law. 

And fourth, extend whistleblowers’ protection to the U.N. peacekeepers police officers, contractors, and victims. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today, and I look 

forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Elbasri follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Dr. Elbasri, thank you very much for your testimony 

and for risking so much, as you have as a whistleblower yourself, 

and for your recommendations. So, thank you. 

Mr. Gallo? 

STATEMENT OF MR. PETER GALLO (FORMER INVESTIGATOR, 

OFFICE OF INTERNAL OVERSIGHT SERVICES, UNITED NATIONS) 

Mr. GALLO. Thank you, Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bass, 

for this invitation to testify. I am very well aware it is an honor 

and a privilege to be here. 

I worked as an investigator in the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services, OIOS, for 4 years from 2011 to 2015. I have provided you the written statement which summarizes my personal 

experience and which I hope illustrates how accountability within 

the U.N. is inconsistent to the point of being nonexistent. 

OIOS was established to be independent and to investigate internal misconduct, including sexual exploitation and abuse. And the 

member states expect OIOS to do that. But, unfortunately, by a 

combination of assessments of misconduct complaints by other departments and referrals of cases by OIOS to other departments, the 

reporting of misconduct in the organization is manipulated. 

Most of what is reported to OIOS is filtered through an entirely 

separate office within the Department of Field Support and Conduct and Discipline, who have no mandate to investigate anything, 

but will assess complaints of misconduct they receive from field 

missions. 

That process often results in those complaints being dismissed as 

lacking in credibility. In practice, these assessments also identify 

witnesses who can then be discredited, bribed, or intimidated. If 

the matter must be investigated by OIOS, by the time the investigators arrive, which will be 3 weeks later, material witnesses 

have often been paid off, retracted their complaints, or disappeared. 

Also, rather than investigating many complaints themselves, 

OIOS often refers them to other departments, and often to the very 

department that has the most to lose if the information turns out 

to be proven true. And I have given you several examples of that 

in my statement. 

It is also no accident that the head of Conduct and Discipline, 

Mrs. Mercedes Gervilla, is married to Michael Dudley, the Deputy 

Director of the OIOS Investigation Division. Now the U.N. and the 

Ethics Office see no conflict in this, but the concern is that OIOS 

will never challenge any assessment by Conduct and Discipline 

that is a complaint is not credible. And if a complaint about something potentially embarrassing is received, instead of investigating 

it themselves, OIOS will refer it back to the Department of Field 

Support or somewhere where it can be made to disappear. 

What we are seeing with reports of more and more cases of sexual abuse by peacekeepers, particularly in the Central African Republic, I attribute to one thing, and that is attention by the press, 

particularly as a consequence of the Code Blue Campaign. Because 

of that, reports are being brought to the attention of OIOS directly. 

40

This press attention began last year with the U.N.’s attempt to 

retaliate against Mr. Anders Kompass for having had the initiative 

and the integrity to do something about the sexual abuse of children. But the Kompass case also demonstrates something else, and 

that was that Susanna Malcorra, who was Ban Ki Moon’s chief of 

staff at the time, was taking the decisions and was driving the investigation and that shows that OIOS is not independent. It is actually a resource used by senior management for political ends. The 

term I have used in the past is that it was a private gestapo, and 

I will stand by that comment. 

OIOS’s credibility has been damaged by that and, also, by the 

Nguyen-Kropp and Postica case where Deputy Director Dudley was 

found to have tampered with evidence and then retaliated against 

investigators who reported that. The U.N. only took action against 

one person following that case, and I am pleased to say that was 

me. That was not for evidence tampering. That was for making a 

satirical reference to the evidence tampering from a whiteboard 

that nobody saw. 

A couple of weeks earlier, I had reported another OIOS investigator for what I believe was perjury. That was overlooked. The Investigations Director, Mike Stefanovic, was subject to an investigation for a comment he had made 18 months earlier about rats in 

the New York subway. When he tried to bring a countercomplaint 

against the OIOS unit chief for reporting that in bad faith and for 

misleading the tribunal, the U.N. was not interested. 

The concern is that a U.N. staff member who reports serious misconduct is committing career suicide, and the Ethics Office simply 

fails to protect them. Now my own experience is detailed in the 

written statement, and I would also draw your attention to the 

Nartey case, when the Ethics Director failed to obey a court order 

to protect a staff member. Now that case was doubly ironic because 

the official responsible for the retaliation, a Mr. Barabanov, had 

earlier been found by OIOS to have illegally obtained a U.N. firearm, and the U.N. Director General in Nairobi had tried to have 

him disciplined for that at the time, but, instead, it was she who 

ended up being dismissed. 

That is the reality of accountability in the U.N. It is dependent 

on who you are and who you know, and maybe a third one, what 

you know about who you know. The dysfunction in the U.N. cannot 

be dismissed as a few isolated problems or attributed to be a few 

bad apples. These problems are deeply ingrained in the culture of 

the organization. 

Now I can, and I frequently do, laugh about it, but I am not here 

today because this is funny. It is not a joke for the women working 

in the U.N. who are afraid to report sexual harassment. It is not 

a joke for the member states whose tax dollars are embezzled and 

squandered paying for this charade. And it is most certainly not a 

joke for the women and children raped and sexually exploited with 

near impunity by the organization that they must rely on for their 

very survival. 

It is for their sake, and certainly not mine, that I urge you to 

act and to take control of the investigation of wrongdoing by the 

U.N., because the organization itself has proved incapable of policing itself. 

41

In closing, I would like to thank the committee again for inviting 

me. And I also have to thank you on behalf of the many current 

U.N. staff members. They appreciate your addressing this issue, 

but they cannot say so. 

And I will be happy to take your questions afterwards. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gallo follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Mr. Gallo, thank you very much for your testimony 

and for your courage because you have suffered retaliation. And 

thank you for being here. 

Mr. Hannum? 

STATEMENT OF MR. JORDIE HANNUM, SENIOR DIRECTOR, 

BETTER WORLD CAMPAIGN 

Mr. HANNUM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member 

Bass, for inviting me to appear before the committee today. I used 

to work on the staff of Congresswoman Connie Morella, and it is 

a pleasure to be back on the House side. 

I now work at the Better World Campaign, which aims to highlight the value of a strong U.S.-U.N. relationship. But, as your subcommittee knows and as some of the witnesses have outlined, there 

is a cancer within the United Nations; namely, sexual abuse by 

peacekeepers. 

The victims of this abuse are real, as are the consequences. Just 

2 weeks ago, a 16-year-old girl was alleged raped by a Congolese 

peacekeeper in a hotel room. Hearing horrendous reports like these 

from the Central African Republic, it would be natural to demand 

the withdrawal of all U.N. peacekeepers, but this basic instinct to 

protect needs to be balanced against the good that peacekeepers 

continue to do there. The U.N. mission in CAR has played a critical 

role in reducing ethnic violence, facilitating democratic elections, 

and fostering the highest economic growth in 15 years. So, the 

question is, how do we support the vital work being done by U.N. 

peacekeepers in CAR and elsewhere and at the same time implement meaningful steps to stop sexual exploitation and abuse by 

peacekeepers? We believe if the U.N. is to root out the bad actors, 

whether they hail from the developed or developing world, they 

must show that their newly-announced policies endorsed by the Security Council will be implementable with unshakeable resolve. 

This month the Secretary-General took dramatic steps to improve transparency, naming and shaming the nations whose troops 

are accused of abuses. He has also kicked out an entire military 

contingent over evidence of widespread and systematic abuse, 

again, a first. Though overdue, these actions are the right course. 

Even so, these measures will mean nothing unless they are actively and consistently enforced. Further, we argue that for those 

countries where there is evidence of widespread abuse they also 

should be blocked from joining new missions. 

At the same time, this does not mean that the international community should accept a weak response to conflict and mass atrocities. Rather, we must demand that more countries shoulder the 

load. As it stands, there is a shortage of well-trained troops for a 

growing number of increasingly-complex, dangerous missions. 

The significant increase in the size and scope of peacekeeping 

missions, together with the near withdrawal from peacekeeping by 

European and American forces, has taxed the ability of the U.N. 

to recruit the best-trained and equipped troops. If peacekeeping is 

to ultimately address sexual abuse, the responsibility must not sit 

with the U.N. alone. Other member states need to answer the bell. 

The United States, in particular, can play an important role in 

the areas of training, accountability, investigations, and vetting, as 

56

outlined in my written testimony. But I must also say that, as we 

rightly call out the U.N. for its anemic response on abuse, we must 

not lose sight of the overall importance of its missions. The U.N. 

currently oversees 16 operations with over 100,000 personnel, the 

largest deployed military force in the world. Over the past several 

decades, both Republican and Democratic administrations have 

strongly supported peacekeeping. This is because it can mean the 

difference between life and death in the places it deploys. 

A 2013 study found that deploying large numbers of U.N. peacekeepers ‘‘dramatically reduces civilian killings.’’ In South Sudan, 

where I know you just were, Congresswoman Bass, U.N. forces are 

currently working to protect nearly 200,000 civilians. In CAR, Amnesty International just released a report saying U.N. peacekeepers 

have ‘‘saved many lives and prevented much bloodshed.’’

In addition, these missions are much less expensive than U.S. 

forces and have the strong support of our military. Admiral Mullen, 

former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs under Presidents Bush and 

Obama, said, ‘‘U.N. peacekeepers help promote stability and are 

very much in our national interest.’’

Now it is true that the U.S. pays the largest portion of the U.N.’s 

peacekeeping budget, but we also wield veto power over the size of 

that budget due to our presence on the U.N. Security Council. That 

special status also puts the U.S. in a unique position to push for 

peacekeeping reform. 

I would further argue that we are best able to pressure the U.N. 

for changes when we are fully engaged and paying our dues. As a 

result, we have been able to move forward many important reforms 

at the U.N. Of most relevance, in March the U.S. championed and 

the U.N. endorsed several of the stringent new abuse measures I 

have just discussed. 

In addition, U.S. engagement at the U.N. has led to vital costcutting reforms, including reducing the cost per peacekeeper by 18 

percent and the number of support staff by 3,000. Thus, if we are 

to eradicate the cancer within the U.N. right now, it is more important than ever that we remain fully and dutifully engaged. Only 

then can we ensure that the scourge of sexual abuse and exploitation can be eliminated. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hannum follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much for your testimony and insights. 

Let me begin with some questions, beginning, first, if I would, 

with Dr. Elbasri. The whistleblower protections that you have outlined, Congress, in 2014 and 2015 did pass into law. And WIPO is 

pretty much the one, and they don’t derive their money from us in 

terms of percentage of our giving. It is from other sources. And that 

was brought out very, very clearly in our hearing just a few months 

ago. 

Why do you think the administration has not tried, or has it applied the 15-percent withholding to some of the other agencies? 

And others might want to jump in on this. Because it seems to me, 

when you have a penalty and you fail to use it, it is the victims 

that are the ones who are hurt. That includes victims within the 

U.N. system itself who would like, as Mr. Gallo said, to speak out, 

but, obviously can’t because there is a fear of retaliation. Is there 

an enforcement problem on the part of the U.S. in terms of applying that law? 

Secondly, when we heard of the allegations, and they turned out 

to be true, of rape and horrific sexual abuse of young children in 

DR Congo, not only did I go there, I went to Goma, met with the 

peacekeepers, met with the government officials there, but I also 

held a series of hearings. We got ironclad promises from the United 

Nations. Kofi Annan issued his zero-tolerance policy, which looked 

fabulous on paper. By the time we got to the third hearing in the 

hearing series, we dubbed that hearing ‘‘zero-tolerance, zero-compliance’’ because it was just not being implemented at the tactical 

and the operational level. 

So, I am hopeful that Ban Ki Moon is serious, but you are only 

as good as your chain in command. It would seem—and your recommendations, all of you, on this would be very helpful—if OIOS 

is not independent, as you have said, Mr. Gallo, that is a huge 

chink in the armor of protection. 

It seems to me that there ought to be prosecutions of those who 

commit these terrible crimes, and naming and shaming, that lasts 

for a day and, then, the country moves on. There is a whole lot of 

naming and shaming going on at the U.N. all the time, but it 

doesn’t have any impact. 

I think disqualification might be a more apt way of countries or 

brigades, or whatever, certainly individuals, and the maintenance 

of a list of people, so others don’t get on the list again and end up 

5 years later being deployed to recommit their abuse. 

So, if you could speak to that? How do we get the OIOS to be 

independent again? The enforcement of the U.S. law, how do we 

make that better? Again, a sanction that is not implemented is a 

paper promise that becomes very weak and, then, nonexistent in 

reality. 

The cholera issue, Mr. Schaefer, thank you for bringing attention 

to that. Some of you might want to speak to how well peacekeepers 

are vetted in terms of health to ensure that communicable diseases 

are not brought with them to extraordinarily vulnerable populations whose immune systems are next to nil who could pick up 

those diseases, like what happened in Haiti. 

I have other questions, but that is an opening. Yes? 

61

Ms. ELBASRI. Thank you. Thank you for these questions. 

Regarding the first one, which is the reduction of 15 percent of 

the U.S. contribution and the law that passed regarding this issue, 

it hasn’t been implemented widely because there is a problem with 

the U.S. Department of State certification process. What happens 

is that, so far, since the law has been adopted 2 years ago, the only 

case that we have is the WIPO case. But many organizations, including the Government Accountability Project, documented ample 

evidence that shows that the U.N. is not abiding, is not complying 

with the implementation of best practice whistleblower protections. 

There are many cases that can be communicated to you, drawn 

on this issue. So, we are wondering why the lack of implementation 

of best practice whistleblower protections is not documented in this 

certification process. So, I think it is the mechanism, that there is 

something wrong with the mechanism here that needs to be looked 

at. So, this is the first question. 

Regarding the issue of rape and the zero-tolerance policy, I think 

what we hear about right now is the tip of the iceberg. Most of the 

attention is directed toward the troops, the countries that are contributing the troops, but the problem is much wider than that. We 

are talking about civilians. Local populations, being raped and sexually abused by the international peacekeeper police forces, by also 

the civilians within the missions. And we are not hearing the U.N. 

talking about this. 

There is a very important report that came out in 2013 which 

clearly said that the information we have, really it is a drop in the 

ocean. Why? Because of this huge reporting mechanism, there are 

problems with the reporting at the U.N. and this is across the 

board, absolutely. And this is across the board. 

This is not limited to the DPKO. This is a problem within every 

agency I have worked with. I noticed the same problem. The U.N. 

is not telling the truth about the reality. It is not telling the truth 

about the misconduct of its own troops. It is seeing things, but not 

saying it. And the whole problem starts there. If you are not telling 

the truth, there is nothing you can address later on. You will be 

basically just addressing the surface. 

Mr. SMITH. Since you were so much involved with it, why the 

coverup of, as you pointed out, the hundreds of Sudanese soldiers, 

up to 150 military vehicles raided three villages, and then, you 

went on to describe the terrible consequences of that? Why cover 

that up? 

Ms. ELBASRI. Well, that is exactly what I wanted, a truly independent inquiry. I wanted to see why. I mean, there are speculations. I can only guess that there are some people at the level of 

the leadership of the mission who have some agendas other than 

the U.N. agendas and the mission. I hope that there will be an inquiry about this. 

But there is also a culture at the U.N. to cover up. People cover 

up for different reasons, for saving the image of the U.N., for not 

embarrassing themselves, for keeping their jobs; also, for the partnership with dictatorship regimes. There are so many reasons for 

the coverup that need to be addressed. 

So, talking about certain problems and referring to the very few 

bad apples, I think we are not helping the U.N. by advancing such 

62

a diagnosis. The problem is systematic. It is a system problem, not 

a person problem. It is the U.N. is broken today, and addressing 

an issue has to start with the truth instead of assaulting truth and 

going hand in hand with the coverup. The U.N. should be the first 

to promote truth and truth-telling and promoting the truth-tellers 

instead of assaulting whistleblowers. 

Mr. SMITH. Can I just ask—and all of you might want to respond 

to this, in addition to the original questions—are there instances 

of individuals, once repatriated, that were prosecuted and got significant jail time for their crimes against children and women and 

other vulnerable people? 

Ms. ELBASRI. I think there were a few cases in troop contributing 

countries. I believe it was India. But it is insignificant if you compare that, of course, with the number of the allegations. 

And I just want to touch on the independence of the U.N. Honestly, we don’t have time, actually, to hold ourselves with some illusions. OIOS will never be independent because it reports to the 

Secretary-General; it reports to the U.N. Any organization that 

doesn’t report directly and separately to the member states will 

never be independent. 

Thank you. 

Mr. GALLO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

On the subject of the 15-percent budget withholding, I think it 

is important to realize that in the 12 months after that was passed 

the United Nations Appeal Tribunal decided the case of 

Wasserstrom. Mr. Wasserstrom was seriously retaliated against 

over a number of years. The significance of that appeal court decision was that, because of the way that the regulations were written, which is ST/SGB/2005/21, what should happen is that, when 

the staff member applies for whistleblower protection, the Ethics 

Office makes a recommendation to the Secretary-General that he 

be protected accordingly. 

The Appeals Tribunal decided that, because it was only a recommendation that the staff member did not have a legal right to 

challenge the decision of the Ethics Office. That basically means 

that whistleblower protection is a privilege and not a right, and it 

is a privilege which is dependent on, if you like, the grace and 

favor of the Secretary-General, which essentially means the 38th 

floor, which is essentially the people you are requiring the protection from. From memory, I think that came out halfway through 

2014, and I have certainly not heard of, I have not seen any documentation, I have not heard any rumors of revisions to the legislation. 

The example I have given you in the written statement, in order 

to get whistleblower protection in the U.N., you require something 

called a protected act, which is essentially making a report of misconduct or cooperating with an audit or investigation. Now, in my 

case, I applied for whistleblower protection, and it was rejected on 

the grounds that the complaint which I had made did not contain 

evidence. 

With respect, the wording of the regulation says ‘‘information or 

evidence.’’ My complaint was 2,000 words long, referred to a specific email on a specific date by a specific person, which I claimed 

was coercion. 

63

But the point is that all the Ethics Office has to do is dismiss 

that on grounds of credibility and that it does not appear to support a reasonable belief that misconduct has occurred, in which 

case that disables it. It can, then, deem to be not a protected act 

and, consequently, no whistleblower protection applies. 

The authority on the statistics for whistleblower protection lies 

with the Government Accountability Project who I believe worked 

out the statistics at the time that it was something of the order of 

like 1 percent of applications for whistleblower protection were 

granted. Okay? 

Mr. SMITH. Anybody else? Yes? 

Mr. HANNUM. Thank you. 

So, just a couple—on the whistleblower point, we will just way 

that we, the witnesses here have made some excellent points that 

certainly our organization has supported, and I know some U.N. officials have said there are key whistleblower reforms that need to 

be made. One, lessening the onus on the whistleblower themselves, 

one providing more confidentiality, and, three, also increasing the 

personal liability toward someone who retaliates. We absolutely 

support those. 

I just want to make a general point, though, on withholding just 

in general, the concept, because it was mentioned in testimony, and 

it has certainly been mentioned before that this is the way that we 

are going to get things done—that we should withhold funds to the 

U.N. 

In general, Democratic and Republican administrations have 

been opposed to withholding as a way to advance reform. In 2005, 

the Hyde bill, a centerpiece of that was withholding dues. The 

Bush administration was opposed to it ‘‘because it would detract 

and undermine our efforts to change the U.N.’’

In 2011, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs held a hearing 

where George W. Bush’s Ambassador Mark Wallace, who was the 

Representative for U.N. Management and Reform, said that it 

would not be ‘‘wise or beneficial to use withholding funds to implement change.’’

Certainly, we believe that the best way to advance change is to 

pay our dues, but, then, to be at the table and pressure the U.N. 

and use our diplomatic leverage. And we have seen the benefits of 

that over the past few years. If you look at the Security Council 

Resolution on sexual exploitation and abuse, 2272, that was written by the United States, it called for things and endorsed the Secretary-General. And many member states were opposed to it. But 

because of our good standing and our leverage, we were able to advance it. 

As I mentioned in my testimony, there have been a number of 

important cost-cutting reforms. There were major changes pushed 

by the U.S. Mission this December to changes in how staff salaries 

are calculated. This could lead to hundreds of millions in savings. 

And again, that doesn’t happen if we are not there at the table in 

good standing and, then, to say, look, we are here, but now we are 

asking for these changes. I think that is why it is important. 

I think in terms of sexual exploitation and abuse, what the Secretary-General has called for, the naming and shaming, kicking out 

64

countries, that is absolutely critical and it is something the U.S. 

has supported. I think it is extremely important. 

I also want to address the question on jail time. So, that has 

been a major problem with the U.N., but I would also say other armies in terms of just the overall investigations, I think, of the investigations which have been found to be substantiated. Only in 55 

percent has there been any type of disciplinary action. That is 

something in our testimony that would call that the U.S. really 

needs to use its bilateral pressure on countries. 

But I would say, sadly, this is a problem for major armies and 

countries. In terms of the French troops and in CAR there has been 

no accountability for what the French troops have done, no punishments yet. 

And I saw just a few days ago a report in terms of the U.S. military. It was actually looking at Japan, but these were DOD documents showing that hundreds of cases of U.S. personnel, almost no 

personnel went to prison, and in 30 cases all they got was a letter 

of reprimand. And this was for rape and sexual abuse. So, this is 

a major problem, but not just for the U.N. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. Thank you. 

I think you were asking why the administration doesn’t hold organizations to account for failure to fully implement whistleblower 

protections or to enforce the standards that they do have. Mr. 

Hannum laid out quite well the mindset, which is we don’t want 

to upset the apple cart; we don’t want to ruffle feathers in the organization. 

Oftentimes, what happens is the U.S. administration, Republican 

or Democrat, will have very specific, often controversial policy objectives that they want to achieve through the organization. In that 

calculus reform of the organization frequently comes second. That 

is the way it works. They have a policy agenda. They want to 

achieve that. Pursuing reform of the organization, whistleblower 

protections, and other changes will perhaps upset other member 

states and lessen the ability for us to get the policy objectives done. 

And that is actually why Congress has a role here. Congress can 

provide perspective and instructions on reform through legislation 

that would require and assist the administration to focus—and it 

doesn’t matter whether it is Democrat or Republican—on achieving 

some of these fundamental institutional reforms. 

I will point out that OIOS actually was established because Congress was threatening to withhold money in 1994. There was no inspector general equivalent at all in the U.N. organization until the 

U.S. withheld money, and we withheld it because of instances of 

waste, fraud, and abuse that the Congress at that time thought 

were unacceptable. That threat of withholding resulted in fundamental change. And the OIOS, although remains inadequate, 

wouldn’t have existed at all without Congress. 

Second, on the sexual exploitation and abuse and the Security 

Council Resolution, if you take a look at that resolution, it urges 

member states to do things. It calls on member states to do things. 

It requests member states to do things. It does not instruct the 

member states to do anything, the troop-contributing countries. It 

65

is not a binding document that forces troop-contributing countries 

to do anything. It asks them to. 

As we have seen in the past, what happens in these instances 

is that the U.N. does just enough to deflect attention away from 

the scandal and the press attention long enough for the eyes to go 

somewhere else, and then, we don’t see the follow-through. 

The U.N. has had a zero-tolerance policy on sexual explotation 

and abuse for over a decade now. And yet, here we are having this 

hearing, talking about the exact same problems that led to that 

zero-tolerance policy back then. It is a lack of follow-through. 

When you have requests from member states—the SecretaryGeneral’s report is like this, too—it has lots of ambitious plans, lots 

of agendas in there that are in development that have yet to be 

concluded, that are projected to be implemented, that request the 

member states to do X, Y, and Z, but it doesn’t actually require 

them to do that. 

I am sorry, there was another question. Oh, OIOS independence, 

that is a fundamental problem. The Office of Independent Oversight Services, the lack of independence, everything has to go 

through the bureaucracy. When you are reporting on the actions of 

the bureaucracy, yet you have to report through the bureaucracy, 

that is not an independent system. You can’t expect it to operate 

in an independent fashion under that scenario. It doesn’t have an 

independent budget. Therefore, it has to go through the regular 

system for resources, which is very problematic. That needs to be 

fixed. 

I would also suggest—and I make this suggestion in my testimony, I believe—that the U.S. State Department should set up a 

separate IG unit in the State Department’s IG Office to look specifically at international organizations like the United Nations. We 

are the largest contributor to those organizations. We have a very 

strong interest in making sure that taxpayer funds are used well 

there. I think that we should set up a dedicated unit to look into 

not just peacekeeping, but the U.N. system as a whole and have 

a series of experts set up there to do that. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Ms. Bass? 

Ms. BASS. Thank you very much for your testimony and, also, for 

your courage, all of the panelists. 

I wanted to ask some questions and really kind of focusing on 

what are the solutions. I always have difficulty with the idea of the 

U.S. withholding money, though, because to me it seems like that 

just increases the resentment of the U.S. So, I am not really sure 

how that produces reforms. 

But my colleague here, Mr. Chair, was just mentioning how in 

hearings that have been held before, then all of these promises 

were made and never really enforced. I was wondering if the U.S. 

has continued to raise that within the U.N., and are there promises 

that the U.S. could participate in a hearing, too? So, kind of where 

do we fall in those lists of promises? 

And when you mentioned more countries sharing the load, and 

I looked at the numbers for the European countries, how they have 

66

gone down dramatically, have we, the U.S., raised this with the 

EU? 

So, those are a couple of questions that I would like to start with. 

Then, I have some other questions. I guess I am directing it to 

Schaefer and Hannum. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. Thank you. 

Yes, the U.S. raises these issues a lot of times. It raises them in 

the Security Council. It raises them in statements when the missions come up. It raised them when these press incidents happen 

that bring issues and problems to light. The U.S. makes statements 

and says we need to address this; we recommend that we do X, Y, 

and Z. 

Again, the lack of institutional follow-through and embrace of 

those recommendations or the failure of the organization itself to 

implement what we are calling for is habitual. 

Ms. BASS. Within the——

Mr. SCHAEFER. And I will give you a specific example of that. 

Ms. BASS. Hold on a second. Within the U.N.’s governance structure, because I am not familiar with it, is it possible for there to 

be a resolution——

Mr. SCHAEFER. Sure, sure. 

Ms. BASS [continuing]. Demands, that requires that? 

Mr. SCHAEFER. Yes. There are two different ways to do that. 

One, in terms of U.N. peacekeeping, the Security Council can issue 

a binding resolution instructing all the peacekeeping operations 

how they should conduct themselves and how they should conduct 

their treatment of troop-contributing countries. 

The General Assembly is the legislative body that, in essence, instructs the Secretariat on its rules, and the General Assembly can 

pass a resolution telling the Secretary-General and the Secretariat 

how to address various matters in a very direct way. 

Ms. BASS. So, has the U.S. attempted to do that and it has been 

vetoed by the Security Council or have we not attempted to? 

Mr. SCHAEFER. Generally, to get something through it will be watered down, as Mr. Hannum mentioned the resolution that the U.S. 

offered on sexual exploitation and abuse earlier this month. Egypt 

voted against it. They didn’t want even the weak standards that 

were included in that resolution to go forward. 

And it is generally a negotiating process. You do have to get a 

certain number of countries to support it, and you also have to 

avoid a veto by the five permanent members to get that resolution 

through in the Security Council. 

In the General Assembly it is even worse. I mean, you have to 

get a majority of the General Assembly to support it, and a lot of 

those countries either aren’t interested in whistleblower protection 

policies, for example, or in terms of the sense of troop-contributing 

countries, many of them are major troop contributors. And so, they 

don’t want to have the standards put into place by the General Assembly that they, themselves, may oppose domestically. 

Ms. BASS. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. Hannum? 

Mr. HANNUM. Thank you. 

Yes, a couple of things just in terms of demands. Our Director 

Peter Yeo just put out an op-ed the other day in The LA Times 

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talking about—it is called ‘‘No More Rapists in Peacekeeping.’’ It 

was quite blunt. 

But the importance of certainly what the Secretary-General did 

in naming and shaming, kicking out countries. But what will be 

critical going forward is to hold firm there, that countries with 

widespread and systematic abuse are not allowed back in, that this 

is absolutely essential and the Security Council needs to back it. 

Now, in order for this to be successful, part of the problem is 

peacekeeping operations have been a lot larger, a lot more complex, 

and a lot more dangerous. In places like CAR and Mali, when there 

are demands, the international community is saying there is a crisis happening right now, there are not that many countries that 

raise their hands. And so, the U.N. can sometimes be in a difficult 

situation. 

So, a year from now, when there is a crisis, where there will be—

Burundi or you name it—the U.N. needs to hold firm and say countries with a bad record cannot come in, but there also needs to be 

other member states who can fit the bill, who are well-trained and 

well-equipped. 

You are exactly right, the EU 20 years ago we were at 40 percent 

of peacekeeping troops. Now that is 6 percent. The U.S. 20 years 

ago was about 700 troops. They are now at 70. 

And so, I think the U.S. can help here. It made very important 

strides with the leadership summit last September at the U.N. 

General Assembly. That was important. There were 40,000 pledges 

for that. So, I think it will be critical for the U.S. to push countries 

to make that those pledges materialize; also, to make sure that 

countries are actually raising their hands for CAR and Mali. So, 

these things are necessary. 

But I would make one other point, just in terms of, well, we 

should just demand this and we should demand that. And we can 

talk about how much the U.S. pays. That is true, but the U.S. does 

not provide that many troops. They are for the most part provided 

by the developing world. And as I said, these peacekeeping operations, this is not what it was 20 years ago. This is not observing 

a ceasefire. This is going into a place like Mali, which is the frontline on the war on terror, South Sudan, where the government is 

actively targeting you, and asking people to go to someone else’s 

civil war and potentially die. In Mali, 60 peacekeepers have died 

in the past 18 months; three more died today. These are very dangerous places. 

To just go in and say, ‘‘I need you to do this, this, and this,’’ that 

is not going to play particularly well. That doesn’t mean we take 

a soft touch and do nothing. We should absolutely use our leverage. 

But, at the same time, to get buy-in, we need troop-contributing 

countries to actually want to do this. And if we are simply demanding things and, then, saying, ‘‘Oh, well, the U.S. is doing this,’’ you 

create a north/south divide. 

So, we need to also be able to work with countries because these 

peacekeeping missions are increasingly dangerous and difficult, 

and we need well-trained, well-equipped troops to go there. If we 

are making all sorts of demands without particular support and 

working with countries, then we are going to find even fewer troops 

68

and it is going to be even more difficult to address atrocities when 

they arise. 

Ms. BASS. Well, I was in South Sudan just a couple of months 

ago in November. I went there to see the peacekeeping because I 

had not seen that before. I was extremely impressed with the people that were there, the people that I met. And it was very clear 

it was dangerous. As a matter of fact, I think the month before I 

was there several of the peacekeepers had been taken hostage. 

They were released eventually, but it wasn’t like they were just sitting back and watching. 

One of the things I worry about is some of the countries like Burundi, for example, that contribute troops to peacekeeping, it seems 

like it is a way to deal with the employment issue in these countries. And so, I worry about that. 

I wanted to know what the role is with the AU. So, we talked 

about the EU. What is the role with the AU in terms of the accountability and, also, increasing the number of troops that are 

contributed by AU countries? 

Mr. HANNUM. Yes. Thank you. 

In terms of the AU, there are a couple of hybrid missions. 

UNAMID is one. The mission in Somalia is another; the UNAMID 

mission supported by the U.N. 

And there is potential, there is promise in some cases to say you 

have got troops who are closer to the action who should be there. 

I think Dr. Elbasri could say that there are certainly issues with 

the AU troops, and there was a paper just the other day by Paul 

Williams talking about some of the problems with AU troops, the 

accountability, training. So, it is certainly worthy of consideration, 

but it is not a magic bullet by any stretch. 

Ms. ELBASRI. Thank you. Thank you for this question, a very important one. 

Regarding the AU, I can just share with you what I saw. What 

I saw there is a huge discrepancy between African countries. Between 2012 and 2013, the nations that were contributing the largest troops were Rwanda followed by Nigeria. If you compare the 

troops between these two countries, you end up really asking questions whether they were both Africans. The Rwandan troops were 

known for being well-trained, well-equipped, disciplined; whereas, 

the Nigerian troops had all kinds of problems. 

I saw with my own eyes peacekeepers with holes in their shoes, 

peacekeepers who actually didn’t know how to hold the weapons, 

peacekeepers who were not trained at all. And there were jokes in 

the senior management meetings about cooks being recruited as 

peacekeepers. 

So, there are all kinds of problems with the African Union countries. As you said, there is an employment issue because, as you 

know, each country that contributes a soldier makes $1,000 a 

month, and you just have to multiply those by the 1,000 troops 

they send. 

So, there isn’t a commitment from every single country. Every 

single nation is sending troops for a reason, political or an economic reason. But one thing is certain. In general, there is a huge 

problem of performance, lack of equipment, lack of training, and 

lack of command. 

69

The main problem that was faced by UNAMID is the fact that 

the battalions in the field were not responding to the command of 

UNAMID. They were requesting the command of their own countries, and there were a couple of countries that were not abiding 

by the command of the force commander in UNAMID. And that is 

something that is not unique to UNAMID. It is a problem that has 

been witnessed in almost every single mission. 

So, it is extremely difficult to work within a unified command. 

But, as far as the African Union troops, there are huge problems, 

capacity problems, political problems, and also performance problems. And probably UNAMID is one of the best examples one can 

give. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. If I could just follow up on that one last point, 

which is the compensation for the peacekeepers, it is about $1,400 

per month right now. And there are strong economic and, also, just 

practical reasons for troop-contributing countries to contribute 

there. 

First, they often make more money through the compensation 

per troop from the U.N., which is $1,400 a month, roughly, than 

they do for the cost of the peacekeeper themselves. And so, that 

can actually be a plus-up for their own defense budget. 

Sending them on peacekeeping operations is a training exercise. 

It can help professionalize them. It can help assist their efforts to 

bolster the capabilities of their troops. It can also serve as a way 

to get practical experience and deployment abroad for their troops. 

So, there are a lot of incentives for troop-contributing countries to 

engage in U.N. peacekeeping. 

And I think it is naive to think that if you just expect them and 

demand that they increase standards for training, if you increase 

standards for enforcement and investigation on sexual exploitation 

and abuse and other problems, that they would be completely 

disincentivized from engaging in this process. There are a lot of 

benefits to this for the troop-contributing countries, and asking 

them to increase their own standards I think is a very reasonable 

ask, and you would not see a lot of troop-contributing countries decide not to participate in the future if you did that. 

Mr. HANNUM. If I could just follow up one thing. I mean, to be 

clear, though, it is true they do it for a number of different reasons. 

The total amount works to about $16,000 a year. But, yes, there 

are benefits, but in terms of the reality of peacekeeping right now, 

not a lot of countries are raising their hands to go to CAR and 

Mali. So, they may do it, but they also may die there. So, the notion that this is just something that they can do because there’s 

trainings—I mean, these missions are increasingly dangerous. The 

highest number of missions in history right now, two-thirds are in 

active places of conflict. 

So, absolutely, they do it for all sorts of different reasons, but you 

get what you pay for, too. If we cut this down significantly, you are 

going to have more poorly-trained troops. And studies have shown 

that the worse-trained troops there are, the more problems you 

have. 

So, absolutely, by no means are we saying that we shouldn’t 

push for reforms. In the testimony I lay out a number of different 

things that we need to do on training. We have an existing frameVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:43 Sep 08, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00073 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\041316\99758 SHIRL
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work right now with the GPOI program through the State Department. That should be much stronger. That should be augmented 

with more focus on sexual exploitation and abuse. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Cicilline? 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you, Chairman Smith. I, first, want to 

thank you and Ranking Member Bass for calling this hearing today 

and to thank all the witnesses for the work that you are doing, for 

being here today. 

I am very proud to be the co-chair of the Congressional Peacekeeping Caucus, which I formed with my colleague Adam 

Kinzinger. And we formed this because we recognize the important 

role that peacekeepers play in maintaining international peace and 

stability and the impact peacekeeping missions have on the United 

States and our own national security. 

But we also formed the Caucus with the intention of taking a 

closer look at the areas that are in need of reform. I think, like everyone else who has learned about these repeated allegations of 

sexual abuse and exploitation against U.N. peacekeeping forces 

around the world, we are all, I think, very concerned about that 

and really alarmed at the inability of the U.N. to effectively prevent this kind of abuse and to hold perpetrators accountable when 

it happens. 

I do think I want to really thank you, Mr. Hannum, for your 

comments because I do think the notion of sort of disengaging from 

the U.N. as an effective way to bring about real reform and accountability would be a tragic mistake. In fact, I think this is a moment when we have to deepen our involvement and really engage 

in an even more serious way. If we are going to hope to see any 

real progress, it is going to require U.S. leadership. And so, I think 

the notion of not paying our dues or not playing an active role will 

make success in terms of reforming less likely. And I appreciate 

your comments on that. 

My first question really is, it strikes me that, as you analyze 

where U.N. peacekeepers are and who contributes to them, without 

oversimplifying it, my sense is that it is the poor countries that 

provide the troops and the affluent countries that supply the 

money. And it may be that that is part of the challenge because 

it is not surprising that some of the poorer countries don’t have the 

same resources for the kind of training and professional development of soldiers that more affluent countries might have. 

And so, I wonder whether any of you see that question about 

really training, because we can get to the question about whistleblowers and accountability in a moment, but preventing it from 

happening I think has to be our first focus. 

My first question really is, is there some role that Congress can 

play that we should be advocating for at the U.N. that will really 

enhance the professionalization and the training that is made 

available to the soldiers who actually participate in peacekeeping 

to supplement what poor countries may either not be doing because 

they can’t or not be doing because they won’t? But we will start 

with that. 

Mr. HANNUM. Yes. Thank you. 

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So, there are a couple of things. One, I will say that an important first step, you are exactly right, the dynamic over the past 20 

years is mostly countries from the developing world who are providing troops and wealthier nations who are financing it. 

A key step that happened this September was the leadership 

summit at the U.N. General Assembly. With U.S. leadership, it led 

to pledges of 40,000 more troops, and China said it would provide 

a standby force of 8,000. Also, importantly, a number of enabling 

assets like helicopters. So, that was key, and there just needed to 

be a greater supply. This was a greater supply from a much larger 

universe of troops. So, that was important. Making sure those 

pledges materialize will be key. 

On the training front, you are exactly right, Congressman. This 

is an opportunity I think for the U.S. We have an existing structure, as I said, through the GPOI program, the State Department 

that has trained over 200,000 peacekeepers over the last decade. 

But that training is basic. It is a basic level of training, how to hold 

a gun. And so, certainly, in terms of sexual exploitation and abuse, 

that should be augmented. 

But I think one of the other issues is, again, these peacekeeping 

missions are so much different than they were 20 years ago, where 

they were for the most part kind of observing ceasefires. Now the 

challenges in Mali are different than what they are in CAR, different than what they are in South Sudan. That training really 

needs to be tailored. 

Again, the U.S. is not going to be providing troops anytime soon, 

but we have such expertise here. I was in South Sudan in August 

and just talking with some U.S. troops there. They said just what 

a difference in influx of just a few troops would make just in terms 

of professionalization. 

But, on the training side, we should really use these existing 

structures—this is not a significant amount of resources—but use 

our existing structures to make sure the training is tailored to 

where they are going and, then, also, it addresses certainly the sexual exploitation and abuse. 

Ms. ELBASRI. Well, you are right about the general trend. It is 

the poor countries that are contributing troops and richer countries 

that are paying for the peacekeeping budgets, although there is a 

shift I must mention, which is China. China is now part of the top 

10 contributing countries. It is a major change. They are sending 

more troops to other countries, and we have seen it now with South 

Sudan. Basically, they are sending the troops where they have 

some vested interest to look after. 

But the question that the European and U.S. contribution of 

troops has changed has to do with the change in the makeup of the 

peacekeeping. As you mentioned, quite clearly, the peacekeepers 

are operating in a danger zone, I mean combat zones. This is not 

what peacekeeping is about. 

We have departed from the three core principles of peacekeeping, 

which is impartiality or neutrality, the non-use of force unless necessary, and also the consent of all parties of conflicts. We have put 

that aside since 1999 at least, and we have been sending peacekeepers without doing anything about peace. This is a major problem with peacekeeping today. 

72

Today, if you look at Mali, we are not talking about peacekeepers. These are troops, U.N. troops, that are fighting terrorism. 

Most of the countries that know the region, they think that the 

U.N. has nothing to do with this fight because, in doing so, first 

of all, it doesn’t have the capacity; it doesn’t have the ability. And 

we are talking about peacekeepers who are sent to keep peace, not 

to fight war and let alone terrorism. 

You have a country like DRC, Congo, where the mission has been 

mandated to fight rebels. This has never been part of the U.N. 

mandates. You have other areas where you have the peacekeepers 

running after gangs. This is a huge change for peacekeeping. It is 

alarming. 

And I can tell you that, as far as I am concerned, when I left 

UNAMID, I didn’t think of myself as a former peacekeeper. I 

thought of myself as a former warkeeper. In Darfur we didn’t keep 

peace. We kept genocide. It is really sad to say that, but most of 

the peacekeeping missions today, they are keeping wars; they are 

keeping conflicts running since 1948. 

If you look at Kashmir, what the U.N. is doing, what is called 

generally frozen conflicts. Whether it is Kashmir, Cyprus, or Western Sahara, these are timebombs. We have seen recently a major 

crisis in Western Sahara when Mr. Ban Ki Moon walked into the 

region and, without consulting, without visiting Morocco, and completely it has formed into a major crisis with the polisario, threatening to go back to holding arms. 

These are considered frozen conflicts that the U.N. has been 

keeping for so many decades, but these are timebombs. I think 

what I want to say here is that we should go back to the U.N. 

keeping peace, but bringing in peace first in order to keep it, instead of waging wars and keeping wars ongoing. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. I just want to echo what she said about the type 

of missions that the U.N. traditionally engaged in versus what we 

are engaged in today, very different operations, very different circumstances. And there should be an underlying question about 

whether the U.N. is actually the most suitable vehicle for engaging 

in those types of operations. 

If you take a look at Mali, when did the U.N. get involved? It 

got involved after the French intervention. So, the French got in 

there, they intervened, and, then, they handed it as quickly as they 

possibly could off to the U.N. Well, there should be an expectation 

that, if the French considered it enough in their interest to intervene in the first place, that maybe they should have a responsibility and an interest in seeing it through to the point where a 

U.N. operation actually could responsibly assume those tasks. 

On longstanding operations, I agree. A lot of these operations involve situations that are potentially fractious and could reignite, 

but you also have to question yourself, what have we been doing? 

You have a U.N. operation in Kashmir since 1949. You have had 

Cyprus since the 1960s. You have got Lebanon since the 1970s; the 

Syria operation, UNDOF, since the 1970s; MINURSO since 1991. 

After two, three, four, five, six decades, you have to ask yourself, 

when are we going to see progress being made toward resolution 

rather than just keeping the parties from open warfare? We need 

73

to be focused on that part of the equation. If you could do that, you 

would have more resources for current operations because the 

troops that are tied up there could be moved someplace else, and 

the resources that are tied up there could be moved and applied 

to more current crises. 

And the final question or the final point I want to make is on 

U.S. training of peacekeepers. I think the U.S. has a very important role in training. I think it is very important that we do that. 

I think it is very important that the U.S., in particular, do that because our standards and our expectations are well laid out and it 

is what we expect. We want to make sure that others hear that 

message and they implement it in terms of their own operations. 

But a key problem, Mr. Hannum mentioned that there are 

200,000 that have been trained under this program. Where are 

they? There is insufficient retention of the people that we train. 

They go in; they go out, or the training lapses and they don’t adhere to those standards. Retention is a critical point of this. 

If we are actually trying to make sure that we have peacekeepers 

available that are trained to the standards that we expect, we need 

to make sure that those peacekeepers are actually there, retained 

and available for deployment. So, that is a key element of this that 

I think needs to be emphasized. 

Mr. CICILLINE. If I may, Mr. Chairman, one more question? 

Okay. 

So, there have been a number of suggestions made about things 

we could advocate for at the U.N., maybe a different resolution that 

makes some of this compulsory rather than advisory. And I think 

recognizing it is an international organization, that may be difficult, but it is certainly something we should consider, and a number of other reforms that have been suggested and a number of 

things that I think that we could suggest or press the SecretaryGeneral to do. 

But my final question is, are there any actions that you think 

Congress could take to accelerate the reforms that you have all testified today or any other action you would take that would help respond to this very serious problem that we see with respect to the 

conduct of the peacekeepers? 

If you had one thing you would recommend Congress to do? 

Mr. SCHAEFER. Well, we have addressed a number of issues here 

today. OIOS independence is something that we know a great deal 

about, how to do an inspector general unit and make it independent. OIOS was established because of congressional withholding. I think that we should say exactly what we mean by an 

independent inspector general equivalent there and how that needs 

to be implemented. I would endorse using financial withholding if 

the U.N. proves reluctant on that. It is obviously necessary. 

In terms of sexual exploitation and abuse, I think that the U.S. 

should go to the Security Council and demand a compulsory resolution saying that troop-contributing countries have to do A, B, and 

C, which they have endorsed and which the Secretary-General has 

endorsed. And if they don’t follow through with that, then, again, 

I think congressional action is merited because the U.N. is 193 

member states, but one thing they do listen to is financial incentives. And we have seen that repeatedly in the past, not just with 

74

the OIOS, but with the budgetary process in the 1980s, the HelmsBiden changes and reforms, and over and over and again. 

I have spoken with Ambassador Wallace. I know he testified differently when he was the Bush administration, but privately he 

thinks that financial withholding has a very significant impact on 

the receptiveness of various reforms in terms of U.N. bureaucratic 

procedures and changes. 

Ms. ELBASRI. I think for the U.N. to address all these issues, the 

truth has to come out, which we have seen in my case and almost 

every case, the OIOS is incapable of carrying out independent investigations. So, we would definitely press for a truly independent 

investigative entity that doesn’t report actually to the SecretaryGeneral/Secretariat, but, rather, to the member states. I think that 

is a core recommendation. 

But, also, I agree with Mr. Schaefer on the financial incentive. 

It is very important to help implement that law because at some 

point we have to show that we are serious about the laws that are 

passed and we are serious about, you know, holding the U.N. accountable for mistreating whistleblowers, which have become the 

main channel of knowledge/information about what really goes on 

in the U.N. So, we can’t afford these retaliations, these continued 

retaliations against them. It is very important to take action there. 

And it is also very important to look at the State Department 

certification process to see what is going wrong. 

Mr. GALLO. Thank you. 

And I would also add my voice to the withholding side of the argument, reluctantly as though it may be, and, also, that OIOS has 

to be replaced with a truly independent body. We have been focusing on the peacekeeping troops, which present a peculiar problem 

because they are subject to their own national disciplines. 

I would draw your attention to a report which I actually worked 

on, I believe it was the later half of 2013, which was an analysis 

of what was reported to OIOS in terms of sexual exploitation and 

abuse cases. What I found was that the numbers of reports were 

coming in equally, such that they were split, more or less, 50/50 between the civilian staff and the peacekeepers. 

Now, in a typical large peacekeeping mission, you may have 

20,000 relatively-disciplined peacekeeping troops and less than 

2,000 civilian staff and police personnel. So, if you are getting 

equal numbers of reports from there, the problem is, in fact, much, 

much more acute amongst the civilian staff. 

And there is something which can be changed and I believe 

should be changed as a policy decision. That is the waiver of privileges and immunities. The system in place at the moment relies on 

the privilege and immunities being waived at the end of the process. 

When OIOS carries out an investigation into a rape, for example, 

what are they actually investigating? They are not investigating 

the rape as a criminal offense. They are investigating whether that 

constituted a breach of the staff rules for which that staff member 

may be fired. That can take, at the speed at which the U.N. likes 

to move investigations, that could take 5 years. At that point, and 

only at that point, will the organization consider waiving privileges 

75

and immunities, so that that staff member can be referred to the 

national authorities for criminal prosecution. 

By that time, the witnesses have relocated, can’t be found. There 

is no DNA evidence. And where, in fact, is the subject himself? He 

has separated from the U.N. and has returned to his home country. 

So, you are giving a problem to a country like South Sudan; ‘‘Go 

and apply to the Government of Poland for extradition to this guy 

who no longer lives there and has probably retired to Spain or 

somewhere else.’’

One of the things I believe that should be done under a reformed 

investigation agency is that the privileges and immunities should 

be waived at the point in the investigation when reasonable 

grounds to establish that a criminal offense has taken place. At 

that point, the matter becomes a criminal matter and it can be referred for criminal prosecution. 

There is still an ongoing role for monitoring for human rights 

abuses and legal defense and everything else that the U.N. can do, 

but, under normal circumstances everywhere else in the world, if 

you have a conflict between a civil action and a criminal action, it 

is the criminal which takes priority, and the U.N. is doing it the 

other way around. If there is a rape case, it should be investigated 

as a criminal case first. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. HANNUM. Thank you very much. 

Sorry. Just one other point on withholding, since there are several recommendations. Withholding is not new; it has been around. 

And again, this is something that Democratic and Republican administrations have been opposed to. The Bush administration was 

very clear when there was a bill. Its central premise was withholding, and they were against it. 

In terms of Mr. Wallace and what he said privately, publicly I 

mean he could have said anything he wanted, and publicly he said 

it would not be wise or beneficial to use withholding funds to implement change. So, it is not something that has worked well before. We are best placed if we are paying our dues and, then, at 

the table and pressuring. 

In terms of your question, Congressman, on what Congress can 

do, I think the big thing, again, is the U.S. has no appetite for the 

U.S. to provide troops. The U.S. can provide technical expertise. It 

can also provide enabling assets. And I think that is key. 

A good example, I was in South Sudan in August and talking 

with U.S.-U.N. folks, and they were talking about medevac and 

casualty evacuation. And due to a lack of assets, one of the problems is the U.N. does not have a capability to medevac many of its 

soldiers, meaning someone could go out, be shot in the leg, and not 

be picked up for 4 days. You can imagine in the U.S. that would 

be laughed at, if you couldn’t provide medevac for soldiers. 

So, what this means in practice is, then, there are fewer missions 

that go out and deploy. And so, you do have this hunkering down, 

which is a major problem with the U.N. 

And I asked them, ‘‘Well, what are we talking about?’’ And the 

U.S. person said four helicopters. Four helicopters would make a 

huge difference in our ability to go out there and forward-deploy. 

That means protect civilians and not just kind of hunker down. 

76

So, that is something absolutely this is not a huge ticket item, 

but this is something, I think when the U.S. talks about its assistance, it should really look at whether it is helicopters. And there 

are partnerships with the National Guard that exist where it can 

be done and vehicles. These are ways that the U.S. could make a 

big difference. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Just a few followup questions and final questions. And thank you 

again for your time, your expertise. It really is helpful. 

We are thinking of drafting a bill, and would invite your maximum input as to what it might look like, to try to encourage significant whistleblower reform at the United Nations. Simultaneous 

with today, the Foreign Relations Committee on the Senate side, 

of course, is holding a hearing. We are very, very concerned about 

this. So, again, any particular thoughts you might have over and 

above what you have included in your testimonies and your responses would be greatly appreciated. 

Let me just ask a few final questions. Without objection, testimony, written testimony, by Beatrice Edwards from the Government Accountability Project will be included in the record. 

She points out, very rightly, that whistleblowers are both important and vulnerable agents of accountability. And on the sexual exploitation and abuse in the missions, she points out that allegations are underreported for many reasons, cites some of those reasons. She says the official data grossly underestimates the problem 

and, at worst, they actively misrepresent the entire issue, which is 

a very, very significant indictment of the validity of what is happening on the ground. 

And then, she points out that cronyism and nepotism is especially pronounced in its oversight offices. These personnel constitute networks through which managers protect each other and 

themselves from accountability. Relatives and friends occupy highlevel positions where they also avail themselves of the exemptions 

joined by U.N. officials from external scrutiny. Your thoughts on 

that? 

Secondly, I do believe sanctions should be prudently and judiciously applied in our civil rights law certainly and any other time 

we mean business. I am the prime author of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which was opposed, most of it, by the Clinton 

administration, although Bill Clinton signed it at the end. But I 

held the hearings and we heard from Secretary Koh, Harold Koh, 

who didn’t even want the TIP Report. He just wanted the human 

rights reports to have enhanced reporting on trafficking, no TIP office, and no sanctions. 

My belief is—and, thankfully, it was a bipartisan belief—was 

that you have got to have a penalty phase, particularly in human 

rights law, or else everybody will be onboard, but implementation 

will be less than stellar, if not outright disappointing. Thankfully, 

we do have a broad consensus now as to why the Trafficking Victims Protection Act should be fully embraced, including its sanctions regime. 

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But, again, I think—and I take your point—withholding should 

be used. You would disagree with this, but I think it did get us to 

the OIOS, I believe. 

I remember when Dick Thornburgh testified in the 1980s, the 

former Attorney General. I was at those hearings. And he could not 

have been clearer of the need for inspector generals that are robust 

and independent, which still we are striving in some way to 

achieve, which has not happened. 

So, you might want to speak to this statement, again, by Beatrice 

Edwards. 

Dr. Elbasri, your third point, what would an independent judicial 

body look like? Maybe any or all of you might want to touch on 

that as well, because I think that should be a policy goal for these 

whistleblowers, and just to bring accountability to the U.N. 

Your fourth point about the U.N. DPKO being run by French 

leaders and the need for reform there, if you could elaborate on 

that as well? Obviously, Kofi Annan had that job once, and we have 

Rwanda. As a matter of fact, I even chaired hearings when we had 

the famous fax and Lieutenant-General Dallaire as well, who 

talked about what could have been, had they only been responsive 

to what was set before them in terms of an impending genocide in 

Rwanda. 

But why that would make a difference? I think you are suggesting in your testimony it ought to be us; it should be the United 

States perhaps to take that. If you could elaborate on that? 

And then, on military training, in 2003 and 2005, I did the reauthorizations of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. We put in 

provisions to provide minimum standards for peacekeeper, how is 

a country doing or not doing relevant to its military? Are they adhering to a code of conduct that does not become predatory or facilitating trafficking? 

We also had language in there dealing with peacekeeping and 

what is happening in all of the potential peacekeeping deploying 

bodies, from NATO to the U.N., to African Union, to others. 

I was in Brazil after our law went into effect. I met with a number of Brazilian leaders on TIP in Brasilia. I kept saying to them, 

‘‘What are you teaching your troops before they are deployed?’’ So, 

I finally got the packet, and it was an hour-long ‘‘this is what trafficking is.’’ And it was informative; it was interesting. But it didn’t 

have the sense of these are what the victims look like; this is what 

happens. 

And I would say, parenthetically, George Bush did an Executive 

order. And it actually came about because of a Fox News reporter 

who literally walked into my office and said, ‘‘Take a look at this 

tape.’’ And he had pictures of American service personnel in Seoul, 

South Korea, outside of the so-called ‘‘juicy bars’’ with protection 

forces outside and inside were indigenous South Koreans, women 

from the Philippines, and even Russia, who told him on camera, 

‘‘We can’t leave here. They have taken our passports,’’ if they were 

foreigners, ‘‘and we are slaves.’’

Thankfully, Joseph Schmitz, the IG for the Department of Defense, at our request, did a global assessment focused first on 

Kosovo and South Korea and came back with a scathing indictment 

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of our own military. And then, Bush did a zero-tolerance and 

changed the Uniform Code of Military Justice. 

Now I say all that because our military gets it. Whether or not 

they always implement it, I think it is a good record. But anything 

can stand improvement. 

But we need to share those best practices much more robustly 

than we do. I think the TIP office is made up of an extraordinarily 

dedicated group of Foreign Service Officers and leaders who can 

share that expertise with countries. 

And I am not sure, because I have asked—maybe you have better 

insights—does the U.N., does our U.S. Mission in New York really 

utilize TIP for training, especially of these peacekeepers, before, 

maybe even during, and then, after action with deployment? 

Mr. HANNUM. Just a quick point there. Mr. Chairman, under 

your leadership on the trafficking bill, I think you are exactly right 

that this is an opportunity. We should be, in terms of the pressure 

and from what we outlined a little bit in the op-ed, it is that it is 

troops with widespread and systematic abuse, but we should also 

be looking at other areas and, then, putting pressure on those 

countries. There are watchlists. There are watchlists that use rape 

as a weapon of war, children soldiers. We should be using these 

and making sure that countries with terrible track records are not 

being pulled into peacekeeping. 

In terms of the whistleblowing, I will turn it over to these folks 

who obviously know it better than I. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Ms. ELBASRI. On the independence of judiciary, the reason it was 

called for by the governments that come to these projects, by other 

organizations, by many whistleblowers, is that the fact that the judiciary at the U.N. is not working, just like other institutions. I 

think that GAP had documented that over 400 cases, only 4 percent of the cases were recognized by the U.N. as retaliation cases. 

Even then, nothing had happened. There was no recourse for these 

whistleblowers. 

So, it is exactly like the investigation. Whistleblowers need an 

independent body to look at their case and, also, to have access to 

independent justice in order to address the wrongdoing suffered by 

the U.N. It is a very important cause. 

The second issue—and I am glad that you raised this question, 

this followup question—about the reason why I strongly believe 

that the United States should take care of the DPKO and take over 

the French leadership which has started in 1997. The reason why 

I am saying this is that I have observed and studied the military 

doctrine under which the peacekeeping is operating since then, 

since 1997. It is not a U.N. peacekeeping doctrine. It is a French 

military doctrine. 

And what is the doctrine about? It is about, first, renouncing to 

the impartiality, which is a very important principle for the U.N. 

It is also about reversing the use of force, which used to be limited 

to self-defense. But, under the French military doctrine, it is the 

use of force beyond self-defense. In many cases it is actually an aggressive action. 

The other principle is sending peacekeepers in areas where there 

is no peace to keep. This is called, in terms of peacekeeping, the 

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gray areas between peace and war. Frankly, these are combat 

zones. 

So, what we have witnessed since 1997, when the French took 

over DPKO, is a militarization of peacekeeping. You look at every 

single peacekeeping mission that was deployed since then, since 

1997, and you have two things. 

First of all, it is super-militarized. We are no longer talking 

about blue helmets bringing peace to these areas and comforting 

the population, observing the ceasefire, et cetera. We are talking 

about peacekeepers who are going after gangs, rebels, siding with 

governments, and giving up on every single principle of the peacekeeping. 

We are also seeing something else. Most of the peacekeeping operations that were deployed recently, they were deployed in what 

is usually called as ‘‘sphere of influence.’’ Well, if you are a Moroccan-American national like myself, we look at it as post-colonial deployment. 

Most of the people are extremely upset about the fact that 

France continues to act like the gendarme of Africa. What we have 

witnessed since 1997 is a country that is not looking after the interest of the member states of the U.N., but, rather, after the interest of France, at the expense of peacekeeping in general. 

So, we ended up, of course, with DRC, the Congo, with the regime change, and the U.N. mandates in the Ivory Coast. We ended 

up in fighting war that the U.N. has nothing to do with, which is 

terrorism in Mali. I think we are actually moving into a much more 

dangerous situation if we don’t put an end to this trend. People in 

Africa, countries that are plagued with these wars, they don’t want 

to see a former colonial power imposing a will on the population, 

siding with dictatorships. And what is of most interest is that this 

affects the image of the U.N. and peacekeeping. 

So, it is time for me to see the U.S. really reflect about 18 years 

of a French leadership of peacekeeping. It is time to draw a line 

and say, ‘‘Is this what we want?’’ Right now, as you already said, 

we are sending peacekeepers to combat zones, and this is not what 

the U.N. peacekeeping is about. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Go ahead. 

Mr. GALLO. Mr. Chairman, you asked about cronyism. The word 

is absolutely. You cannot have senior people in the department who 

are supposed to be investigating fraud and misconduct who have 

been found to have retaliated, and been found to tamper with evidence and investigations. You cannot seriously expect members to 

report anything to them. It is simply not going to happen. 

The question of cronyism and everything I believe can be addressed by the imposition of an independent body which reports. 

So, you have the investigation agency reporting to the General Assembly. That has to be done essentially on a weekly basis. 

You asked what would such a body look like. The monitoring 

that it requires to be done is essentially in three areas. One of 

them is in the intake of investigations and the intake of complaints. Now at the moment we have a very highly-fragmented system. The previous director, Mr. Stefanovic, made enormous efforts 

himself to try to impose a single portal for receiving complaints. 

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That is not done. There is no reason why it shouldn’t be possible 

in this day and age for all complaints to come into one single point. 

The system was actually purchased and is in place. It is just there 

is a reluctance to use it. The reason there is a reluctance to use 

it is because it makes it very difficult to make cases disappear. So, 

the intake of the investigations is something. Of course, the approval as to what is going to be investigated and what can be bid 

has to be subject to oversight. 

Mr. SMITH. Is confidentiality assured or is it compromised in 

cases, if somebody does make a complaint? How sure are they that 

it is not being shared by email or any other way with other people 

in the building? 

Mr. GALLO. I am not sure that is a major problem. I mean, it can 

be, but it is very difficult to answer on a general basis. The reality 

is in most cases it is fairly simple to identify who the complainant 

was who is really the aggrieved party. So, there isn’t a major investigative activity to find out who to retaliate against. 

As I say, the second issue is the approval of reports as to what 

is going forward and disciplined decisions, the decision to actually 

charge someone with misconduct. Now at the moment that is vested in the Assistant Secretary-General of Human Resources. And, I 

have seen cases where staff members have been investigated and 

found to have received bribes and actually just been admonished 

for it and given a letter and told not to do it again. Well, that is 

not actually a disincentive for anything. 

But these things can be done, and there is, I believe, a compromise which would, I think, satisfy everyone that the investigation function can be replaced in such a way that it does not require 

grievous withholding of the budget. If you can give me a week or 

10 days, I would like to get back to you on that one. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. And the issue of confidentiality, I believe with the 

Anders Kompass case, the Ethics Office was complicit in an effort 

to try to identify him and retaliate against him. So, the independence and the confidentiality was certainly a problem in that case. 

On the broader issue of resourcing and protection of civilians, the 

U.N. did a study in 2014 which looked into U.N. peacekeeping operations with a mandate to protect civilians. And they found that, 

of 570 reported incidences, the peacekeepers did not respond in 

406, or 80 percent of those incidents where civilians were attacked. 

I don’t believe helicopters are going to respond or fix that problem. That is a lack of will and a lack of dedication or a lack of willingness to put themselves in harm’s way to protect civilians on the 

part of the peacekeepers and the troop-contributing countries. 

Mr. SMITH. Is that because the mandate is not robust enough? 

Mr. SCHAEFER. No, the mandate specifically instructs them to 

protect civilians. So, the instruction is there. The troops themselves 

do not meet that mandate. Because this was only on those missions 

where there is a specific instruction from the Security Council 

within the mandate to protect civilians. So, this is not a situation 

where, if only we had better equipment, we would have been able 

to protect civilians. That is not the case here. This is a case where 

there is a distinct lack of willingness on the part of the troops to 

fulfill that part of the mandate, and that is the core of the problem. 

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The troop-contributing countries got together and they said in 

the Kigali Principles, ‘‘We are going to fix this problem.’’ I haven’t 

seen any real evidence that they have fixed it, and I would be really interested to get a detailed report on exactly what has been done 

and what the real-world impact of those principles has been on the 

missions where this problem was reported on the part of the U.N. 

Ms. ELBASRI. Very briefly, the other reason why these peacekeepers who were deployed under what are called the ‘‘robust 

peacekeeping missions,’’ whether it is in Mali, in DRC, or in Liberia, is that they were just not able to be everywhere. Most of the 

attacks took place in places where the peacekeepers didn’t have a 

presence. 

And this takes us to the other problem. We are giving people the 

illusion that the peacekeepers can protect civilians, but, in reality, 

they just cannot. They cannot protect all civilians everywhere and 

every how. It is impossible. Only a state can. 

Peacekeepers, even if they have the best helicopters in there, 

they have the best-trained peacekeepers, if they have the best willingness to do so, they cannot be everywhere. If you deploy them in 

a place like Darfur, they just can’t operate. Why? Because in order 

to shoot at the government forces, they need to have the authorization from the government. So, this is just a surreal situation. 

Look at every peacekeeping operation. In Darfur, it is probably 

the best example. We are sending peacekeepers to protect civilians 

from the government which is protecting the peacekeepers. It just 

doesn’t make any sense. It is impossible for the peacekeepers to 

protect all civilians from a government that protects them. 

So, I think the whole framework of peacekeeping is completely 

flawed. It is time to be honest about it. It is time to define what 

is peacekeeping, what the peacekeeping can do, what it cannot do. 

They cannot protect all civilians. All the history that we have witnessed in Rwanda, in Srebrenica, and also in Somalia showed that. 

Whether the peacekeepers are best equipped, the most robust, or 

if they are weak, you know, not prepared, they just cannot protect 

all civilians. That is why I go back to what I said. What we need 

is peace before peacekeepers. 

Thank you. 

Mr. HANNUM. If I could just make one other point, Dr. Elbasri 

and Brett made some very excellent points and fundamental points 

about peacekeeping. And there is a host of challenges, and there 

was a major report just done by the U.N., the high-level report calling out some of these. 

And there are challenges with protection of civilians. But I do 

want to point out that there have been studies looking at peacekeepers and protection of civilians. There was a 2013 study by 

American researchers and Swedish researchers that looked at this, 

and looked at what is the difference between a force not there, a 

small force, and a sufficiently-large force. And it found that if there 

is either a small force or no force, that it works out to about 100 

civilians a month who are killed. If there is a U.N. force of 8,000, 

that number goes to two a month. 

U.N. peacekeepers are not perfect by any stretch, but they do 

often serve an incredibly important role on protection of civilians. 

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dents of civil war. So, while it is not perfect, I do want to say that 

many peacekeepers do serve honorably and make a huge difference 

in the places where they are deployed. 

Mr. SMITH. When you talked about reporting to member states 

as opposed to the 38th floor, in our WIPO hearing it was made 

abundantly clear that the WIPO General Assembly Chairman, Ambassador Duque of Colombia, has a report. The United States, our 

Mission, as well as that of Switzerland have asked that it be released, and we are still waiting. 

It gets into the area of the theater of the absurd because it only 

brings, I think, dishonor on those who cover these things up, as 

well as it hurts real victims, whistleblowers who are trying to do 

the right thing for the right reasons. 

So, how do we get the U.N. to change that kind of modus operandi? Why hasn’t Ambassador Duque released that report? I 

mean, does it implicate people, do you think? That would be speculation. 

But it is a systemic problem, and how do you compel? Getting 

back again to the idea of withholding, there were a number of bipartisan initiatives that led to a huge so-called arrearage back in 

the 1990s that we allegedly owed. And one of those was for 

UNPROFOR, which had a miserable, miserable—let me say it 

again—a miserable record, a very bad mandate. It led to 

Srebrenica and other safe haven debacles. And yet, contributing 

countries were demanding that we get that money, including the 

UK, to them for the UNPROFOR deployment. And yet, we withheld it, I think out of very valid reasons. 

Yes, Mr. Schaefer? 

Mr. SCHAEFER. Let me just say that reporting to the General Assembly is not going to be a panacea on this at all. If you take a 

look back at a very concrete example, after Oil for Food, the U.S. 

was able to use that scandal to establish something called the Procurement Task Force, which was an independent unit to go after 

procurement fraud in the United Nations. 

They were very successful. Their efforts resulted in the conviction of several prominent U.N. senior officials. But because those 

officials were of certain nationalities, in the case of the Procurement Task, Russian and Singaporean, those two countries led an 

effort in the General Assembly to prevent the reauthorization of 

the Procurement Task Force. They eliminated it because there was 

resentment by the governments whose nationals were found to be 

criminally complicit in corrupt schemes at the United Nations. 

So, just reporting to the General Assembly doesn’t remove the 

politics from this, which is one of the reasons why I think the State 

Department needs to have its own dedicated unit for international 

organizations in its Inspector General office. At least then we can 

know that you will have some sort of external effort to inspect, and 

the cooperation with that unit needs to be made——

Mr. SMITH. How do they overcome, if you don’t mind me interrupting, the U.N.’s assertion that we have no right to any of those 

documents, which they will assert? 

Mr. SCHAEFER. They do that with the GAO now. 

Mr. SMITH. I know they do it with the GAO, right. 

83

Mr. SCHAEFER. Again, this goes back to financial levers. How do 

you force the U.N. to comply with a lot of this? And that is, if you 

don’t do it, then we will actually withhold money. 

This is one of the reasons why the U.S. Government won’t follow 

through on the whistleblower protections, is because they know 

that the organizations want the money. They don’t want to create 

discomfort or distrust or ruffle feathers in the organization. So, 

they give the waivers. 

But, if you make financial contributions complicit on cooperation 

in this area, then I think that you will see cooperation. They very 

much want the resources. The U.S. is the largest contributor. It is 

the biggest lever that we have. And if we want to see external oversight of the U.N.’s operations, then that is the way to go. Otherwise, you will very much see resistance. 

Thank you. 

Ms. ELBASRI. I just want to echo what Mr. Schaefer just said. It 

is very important to stick to the law and also show that, if the U.N. 

doesn’t conduct itself as it should, there should be a penalty. This 

has worked everywhere. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work for the 

U.N. We haven’t tried it. So, let’s first try it and see. And I am 

pretty convinced that they will take the law, but also whatever recommendation and obligations they are under, they will take it 

much more seriously. 

In general, I think the problem with the U.N. right now, it is acting like the emperor. They feel, I mean senior managers at the 

U.N. Have you seen any senior U.N. official, whether the Secretary-General or other ever resign or pushed to resign? No. Why? 

Because we treat them like the Catholic Church before everyone 

knew what was going on. I think this is a problem. 

I mean, this is one of my colleagues and a U.N. whistleblower 

who made this amazing comparison. You know, if you compare the 

U.N. to the Catholic Church, I think we are exactly in the same 

situation. We are just starting to see, we are just starting to talk 

about what is wrong. For quite a long time, we held it as something sacred, as something taboo that no one wanted to talk about, 

because we all love the U.N. As a whistleblower, I did what I did 

because I believe in a better U.N., because I believe in a better 

world. A better world will not start until we fix the U.N. 

I know that to fix it we have to be truthful. We have to say the 

painful truth that very few people are ready today to hear. I believe that penalty, discipline, taking a firm stand is the way to go. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Again, getting back to the WIPO, one of the speculative conclusions that we drew as to why this report has not been, 

it is to protect the Director General of the WIPO. Well, if that is 

not the case, just release it. 

But let me just get my final question, and you have been very 

gracious with your time, and I am very grateful for that. What happens to the victims? You, Mr. Gallo, mentioned that a number of 

the sexual exploitation and abuse cases are kept low, but they filter 

through the local conduct and discipline teams, which obviously if 

that is happening, that hurts the victims. 

When I was in the DR Congo, I kept saying, ‘‘What happened to 

those little girls? Where are they? Are they getting any kind of asVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:43 Sep 08, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00087 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\041316\99758 SHIRL
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sistance, help, compassion, empathy? Or are they just left to fend 

for themselves somewhere?’’ Do you know? Does anybody know 

what is happening? 

Mr. GALLO. I believe the ultimate condemnation on that, Mr. 

Chairman, is if you look at the number of officials of the U.N., particularly the Office of Legal Affairs, that knew that there were children being sexually abused in the Central African Republic and did 

nothing—not only did they do nothing, but they obstructed the 

French in the attempt to investigate it. That, to me, is just shocking and intolerable. 

From the point of view of this question, if a complainant can actually get the complaint as far as the OIOS, I think that is probably half the battle. What you are seeing now with the increase in 

attention focused on the Central African Republic, I do not believe 

that that is a function of decrease of discipline. I believe this situation is just coming to public attention because the press are interested in it, and the press are getting it, raising the attention, such 

that OIOS cannot ignore it. 

But the numbers are still tiny when you look at the total number. I think there were 27 complaints from the entire world last 

year. And the only reason that there were 108 found in one province of the Central African Republic alone is because somebody 

went out and looked. 

There has been no willingness, there has been no proactive enforcement. Nobody actually goes out. Neither the conduct and discipline teams or anyone else, OIOS does not have the staff to actually go out trying to police these issues. 

And that is why I said, if the staff don’t trust the investigation 

service, the whole thing is falling apart at that point. One of the 

questions that I don’t like to be asked is when staff members ask 

me, ‘‘Should I report this?’’ What am I supposed to say? Then they 

ask me, ‘‘Will I be retaliated against for this?’’

The likelihood of you being retaliated against is in direct proportion to the importance of what you are reporting. Someone who is 

going to report the fuel pump attendant who takes a gallon of kerosene home to sell for beer money or to fuel his stove at home, he 

is going to get prosecuted. They are going to throw him to the 

wolves, but nobody is interested in looking at senior officials who 

are probably bleeding the system dry for millions and millions of 

dollars. 

And what concerns me, and has always concerned me, is not so 

much what OIOS is investigating, but what they are not investigating. This comes back to this question of the intake function. 

All right? The number of financial cases that are rejected on the 

grounds that that is not misconduct, it is a management issue. ST/

SGB/273, which is the mandate which covers the mandate for the 

Investigation Division, includes an investigation of mismanagement 

and abuse of resources. Nobody can remember the last time there 

was an investigation into mismanagement of the abuse of resources. 

If you can at least get that far, if people will copy reports to their 

permanent missions, or whatever, I believe you are going to see a 

difference. I believe that is why the centralized reporting system is 

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ferences in the statistics of what is reported if everything is monitored and everything is controlled because there is an online tracking system for it. 

Mr. HANNUM. Yes, I can just echo Mr. Gallo’s comments on the 

just outrageous delays and inaction by the U.N. I can’t speak to everything he said. 

To your specific question, though, can you find out the victims, 

is there support, yes. In the Secretary-General’s report, in terms of 

the last report which doesn’t include the most recent allegations, 

but it had the number of victims, the number who are receiving assistance. I think it was at 13. I would be happy to provide it to you. 

So, there are currently victim services provided. That is money 

from the mission that goes to local providers who, then, provide the 

care. 

One of the things the Secretary-General called for was a Victim 

Trust Fund, which could basically bolster that, provide more resources. That is currently set up. And actually, for those peacekeepers that are kicked out and their payments are withheld, that 

money is, then, used for the Trust Fund. 

There are a number of just important questions on kind of the 

breadth of services that will be required. The General Assembly 

will be having that debate in the next couple of weeks. I know this 

is something that Jane Holl Lute is looking very closely at. 

And it is something where, in order for that Trust Fund to be 

robust, it is something where member states would need to look at 

kind of strengthening it. But there are certainly some services provided. There needs to be more. But I would be happy to provide it 

to you. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. Just a few concluding points. One is that there 

is a provision in most U.N. peacekeeping operations. They sign the 

SOFA, which provides for a Standing Claims Commission to be set 

up. These aren’t set up. And so, there is really no recourse for a 

lot of people to go and actually lodge complaints for damages that 

are done to them by the peacekeeping presence or by the peacekeeping forces themselves. 

This should be mandatory. It should be an automatic step. As 

soon as a mission is set up, those Standing Claims Commissions 

should be set up as well. The U.N. has provisions inside of it that 

sort of allow monetary damages and they cap them at a certain 

level. But in terms of instances of criminality where someone is 

raped and they are seeking compensation for the criminal act, I 

think it is important to tie the compensation to the perpetrator. 

If you go to a U.N. Trust Fund, what message are you sending 

to the units themselves? You are saying that the member states, 

or whoever decides to contribute to the Trust Fund, are going to 

be paying the damages that you potentially commit. The troop-contributing country or the troops themselves, the person that committed the crime needs to be held responsible for the compensation 

for their actions. And that I think is an important thing. It would 

increase incentives for discipline, self-discipline, but also discipline 

by the troop-contributing country to make sure that their own 

troops don’t misbehave in the way that we have been seeing. 

Thank you. 

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Mr. HANNUM. Just to follow up, I wasn’t saying that the Victim 

Trust Fund should be the end-all. Absolutely, they should be punished. I am saying, at the very least, they should provide some 

services because in some places the justice is quite slow. 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. Thank you. 

Ms. ELBASRI. Just about the question what happened to the victims, I think this question should be asked of the French. Unfortunately, it has been now almost 2 years since they learned about the 

allegations. We were told that they started an investigation immediately, which was in July 2014. And so far, no French peacekeeper 

has been held to account. So, what kind of an example is France 

giving the organization when it comes to such serious crimes? So, 

it goes back to the leadership of France today that needs to be 

questioned. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Again, thank you so much for yours very, very wise 

counsel and insights, and insightful commentary. Your thoughts on 

what a bill, if we can craft such a thing, would look like would be 

very much welcomed. And thank you again for your extraordinary 

service. The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:31 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X 

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MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, 

A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY, AND CHAIRMAN, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS


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MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, 

A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY, AND CHAIRMAN, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS


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MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, 

A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY, AND CHAIRMAN, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS


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MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, 

A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY, AND CHAIRMAN, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS


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