REPORT CLAIMS ABUSES BY SA SOLDIERS IN BURUNDI
South African peacekeeping soldiers in Burundi are becoming increasingly unpopular with the local population, the News24 website reported on Wednesday.
It quoted the latest intelligence report by The Economist newspaper as saying: ”They got themselves the unfortunate reputation for excessive drinking and the abuse of prostitutes.”
On Tuesday it emerged that a South African National Defence Force (SANDF) battalion commander was under investigation for sexual misconduct.
This reportedly brought to four the number of senior South African officers in the DRC being investigated on similar charges by either the United Nations or the SANDF.
The UN said at the weekend it would step up efforts to root out sexual abuses. An investigation into various incidents of abuse was launched in Burundi recently.
Two soldiers were caught in December after allegations of abuses in Muyinga. It was not clear from which country these soldiers come.
In September last year, a 14-year-old prostitute was killed, allegedly by a South African after an evening of apparent debauchery.
According to a UN statement, an investigation was ordered because soldiers were disregarding the world body’s restrictions.
”The UN forbids peacekeeping forces from paying for sex or having sex with girls under 18,” read the statement.
”In the DRC, payment varies from two eggs to $5 (about R30) a time. In many cases, the victims are orphans and illiterate.”
A South African working in Burundi, who asked not be named, said the soldiers had been reprimanded at diplomatic level for their behaviour for quite some time.
The source told News24: ”The Burundians are very discreet — especially when it comes to sex. They can’t stand the South Africans’ crude and open approach to women.”
Henri Boshoff of the Institute of Security Studies (ISS), who recently returned from a visit to Burundi, said the UN was clamping down on misconduct.
Carolyn McAskie, the UN’s special representative in Burundi, reinstated a curfew to ban UN vehicles from the streets after 11pm.
”It limits potential misbehaviour, but still does not curb soldiers who move around on foot,” McAskie said. – Sapa