The Village Voice, June 18, 1997:

Two United Nations soldiers from Belgium will stand trial in their own country beginning next Monday on charges of roasting a live Somali child over an open fire during "peacekeeping" operations in 1993....

Photos taken by one Belgian UN soldier—published for what is probably the first time in the United States by the Village Voice—show two soldiers smiling as they roast one child. Another soldier is photographed forcing a child to drink worms and vomit, after being compelled to drink salt water to make him vomit. In one photograph, a UN peacekeeper is urinating on the body of a presumably dead Somali. In another, a soldier's foot, encased in a black combat boot, is pressed into the head of a Somali sprawled on the ground, presumed dead.

Shocking as it is, the UN scandal in Somalia is no anomaly. A Village Voice analysis of documents and reports relating to recent UN peacekeeping operations has uncovered incidents ranging from murder and torture to sexual exploitation, harassment of and discrimination against local women and children. UN representatives have also sexually harassed their female colleagues, and have been accused of smuggling drugs and arms. In addition, brothels have sprouted nearby—and in one case allegedly inside—UN compounds. In the latter case, prostitutes were allegedly employed by the UN and were reportedly even shipped on UN planes to fornicate with a UN staff member in hotels paid for by the UN. Shoddy leadership has also led to what the UN's own investigators call "mismanagement" of $26.7 million relating to a war-crimes tribunal in Rwanda; another $3.9 million in cold cash was stolen outright from an unlocked filing cabinet in Somalia.

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