By David Axe
Bangladesh, India and Pakistan are all big contributors to UN missions. But there’s more to it than just international goodwill.
DUNGU, Democratic Republic of Congo—A truck carrying Indian UN peacekeepers trundles along the red dirt roads of Luvungi, a small town in a remote part of eastern Congo, on a routine patrol in late summer. The town seems quiet, and seeing and hearing nothing unusual, the soldiers quickly pass through back to their company operating base in nearby Kibua.
But unknown to them, just out of sight and earshot, rebel gangs were systematically raping Luvungi’s residents. Over a horrific three-day period beginning July 30, more than 300 men, women and children were raped.
Mass sexual assault is tragically common in Congo, but the Luvungi rapes stood out for having taken place in such close proximity to UN troops. Amid intensive international criticism, the United Nations issued a report defending the peacekeepers.
‘The Kibua COB has one interpreter and one mobile satellite phone, thus operationally restricting it to one patrol at any given time given the distances and conditions of the roads to be traversed,’ the report stated. The Indian patrol in Luvungi reportedly couldn’t linger long enough to detect the attacks were occurring, with most reportedly taking place indoors, in homes that might have been hundreds of yards apart.
The language barrier is ‘the most difficult portion’ of working in Congo, according to Sgt. Stuart Hammer, a US Army soldier deployed to Kinshasa to train Congolese troops. In the absence of a much larger contingent of interpreters (an unrealistic prospect given the UN’s budgetary constraints) the inability of most of the Indian troops in Congo to speak any of the local languages—including French and the local dialect Lingala—seriously undermines their ability to achieve their mission: protecting Congolese civilians.
But despite this serious limitation, non-Francophone Indians and other South Asians comprise a large proportion of the UN troops in Congo, for reasons rooted more in South Asian than African history.
Of Congo's 17,000 peacekeepers, about 4,300 are from India, 3,500 from Pakistan and 1,300 from Bangladesh. The force's current chief, Lt. Gen. Chander Prakash, is Indian and is said to speak little French.
Congo isn’t the only place where South Asians dominate peacekeeping. Indeed, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are three of the most ‘generous’ nations when it comes to UN peace missions. The three ‘have been the top three troop contributors to UN peacekeeping for many years, (with) roughly 10,000 (troops) each,’ says Teresita Schaffer, an analyst with the Washington D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Photo Credit: Julien Harneis
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Richard
‘has not only engaged in peacekeeping but also carried out significant humanitarian work for the Congolese’
Had sad it is that Indians can carry out significant humanitarian work for foreign countries meanwhile India itself have 1/2 the world’s poor living on its own soil! India is the biggest lemon being oversold to this world! A sham democracy and a failed state!
P H Shivaram
mr axe in all fairness does state facts; in fact he straddles the fence rather admirably. however he does not state any alternatives to the alleged south asian love of lucre behind the volunteerism. if he does not mock the reasons, nor admire them, then why does he write? this is hardly earth shattering news. would he rather that the UN save its money by training people to speak in a million dialects? since the us of a, or the western, developed economies have their hands filled with guarding iraq and afghanistan from evil forces and perish the thought that irag had anything to do with oil or haliburton or cheney or….where was i? ah..yes….the altruism of the west. it is called projecting one’s interests you moron. or realpolitik and last i knew the patent that developed economies had on it had expired. i do know for a fact that, if congo had oil instead of minerals, those rapists would have been called terrorists and the alliance of good would have stormed in to cleanse. the sheer audacity that india could even think that the west would not see behind it’s peacekeeping efforts! what effrontery! i agree mr. axe….the money could have been spent using you as a consultant instead. after all, those poor enlisted men would probably waste their money on food and education for their children, while the consultants from the west could fund a neat retirement paradise for themselves. words come to mind….something about casting the first stone… your article does not have a balanced viewpoint sir….and so does not deserve the courtesy of a balanced reply and it certainly does not deserve your editor running interference….C’mon Ed.-you running a kindergarten here?
Nasr
General Satish Nambiar has very eloquently explained the mitigating monetary aspects related to the subject. However, the major question remains as to why India and Pakistan are amongst the largest contributors to UN Peacekeeping Missions. The author has also primarily highlighted the monetary aspects which presumably are more attractive for individual military personnel, may they be from South Asia or any other country, but has failed to appropriately answer the larger question which relates to such military partaking – garnering of political-military influence at geopolitical fora through the United Nations. And this relates particularly to the influence India and Pakistan gain leaving Bangladesh as it does not belong to this tier. The tier one developed world tend to garner influence through inducting people at policy/decision making levels of UN Missions, whereas the tier two countries are needed to furnish the actionable commodities and they gain influence through fielding these commodities (though Indians would like to believe themselves to be in tier one world). Interestingly, neither can function without support from each other but both tiers gain the desired level of influence. General Satish Nambiar’s eloquence and Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal’s annoyance notwithstanding, the author needs to grow out of the dollar dominated aspersions.
Frank
They have traditions.
Indians were used by English, Americans, Japanese, and Germans during WWII.
Eidelweiss
You cant expect a westerner not to write a deprecating article when it comes to good work being done by poor soldiers. It would be too much to accord them the same honor that would be reserved for those serving imperial designs. Why doesn’t France send soldiers for peacekeeping to Congo? They sent their soldiers for colonization, why not now? Its hogwash to believe that the imperialists dont want to exploit Africa, who has been doing that till now? Are the Pakistani’s, Indians or Bangladeshi’s stealing something that is not theirs? Are they imposing corrupt dictators on an unwilling populace? This article covers up the many failings of the UNO and security council in particular by lumping their mistakes on the South Asian peacekeepers. It would have helped if this article had examined those issues and had a less racist tone.
Rich
First of all, the author isn’t doing justice to the sacrifices made by these peace keepers, its not even remotely acknowledged… furthermore, to suggest that a contingent of a few thousand men overseas (on UN’s payroll) plays an important role in a govt’s decision to depute forces overseas is rather naive, considering India’s defense budget is USD30 billion and together, India and Pakistan maintain around 1.7 million soldiers!! Looking at the ridiculous figures India and Pakistan spend on maintaining forward posts on glaciers atop Himalaya’s may also serve to indicate the lack of cost considerations on part of these callous nuclear neighbors.