Ensure maximum punishment to errant troops: Ban to India

As first reported by The Indian Express, the OIOS report was shared with India on Tuesday and indicted several peacekeepers posted in Congo for child abuse and paying minor Congolese girls in North Kivu for sex in 2007 and earlier this year.

Indicating that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has taken the charges against Indian troops in the UN probe seriously, Defence Minster A K Antony directed the Army to “promptly” investigate the allegations in a time-bound manner.

“This has reference to the outcome of a UN probe that has revealed prima facie evidence that a number of Indian peacekeepers, previously assigned to one of the units with the UN Mission in Congo, may have engaged in sexual exploitation and abuse and the subsequent remarks of the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. I would like that the allegations are promptly and thoroughly investigated in a time-bound manner,” Antony said.

Sources confirmed that the OIOS report, sent to the Ministry of External Affairs by the UN on Tuesday, had been shared with the Defence Ministry and contained witness accounts and evidence that Indian peacekeepers indulged in a child prostitution ring near a base camp in Masisi.

What has shocked the military establishment even more is that the incidents — plus the three pervious charges where Indian peacekeepers have been implicated in charges ranging from gold smuggling to illegal assault and detention of locals — have taken place when an Indian officer was commanding the Eastern Division of the UN Mission in Congo.

The allegations against Indian troops pertain to a period when Major General Bikram Singh was the Eastern Division commander and responsible for the entire region where Indian peacekeepers have been implicating. His tenure ended last month.

While the UN has asked India to ensure “that disciplinary action to the maximum degree permitted by Indian law should be taken as soon as possible against those found to be involved in such misconduct”, the Army, in the earlier cases, didn’t really crack down.

In the case where three Indian peacekeepers who had been charged with illegally detaining, physically assaulting and sexually propositioning a local Congolese resident last year, the Army recommended only a “censure” against its troops. What surprised law experts is that the Army did not even bother to record the statement of the Congolese citizen who had levelled the charges.

The Army blamed the media instead for trying to malign its image in Congo. In a statement issued last month, it said that “periodic reports in sections of media” have been motivated by “vested interests” of some parties and seek to “undermine professional and ethical behaviour of Indian peacekeepers in Congo”.