U.S. kept quiet after Americans were attacked by soldiers in South Sudan

scmom said:

Wow. Unanswered cries for help seems familiar.
All during these horrors, phone calls and text messages were going out to the UN, to the U.S. embassy, to anyone who might be able to help. But for hours nobody came.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...were-attacked-by-soldiers-in-south-sudan.html

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katydid23 said:

"According to the Human Rights Watch report, witnesses recalled soldiers cheering as they took turns raping women. When one woman resisted, a soldier shot a bullet next to her head.
A South Sudanese journalist named John Gatluak was dragged outside in front of the other captives. His tribal scars showed he was from Machar’s ethnic group. One of the soldiers shouted, “Nuer!” And another pumped two bullets into his head, then several more into his body.
All during these horrors, phone calls and text messages were going out to the UN, to the U.S. embassy, to anyone who might be able to help. But for hours nobody came.
Chinese, Nepalese, and Ethiopian troops were serving with UN forces in the immediate vicinity, and an Ethiopian “Quick Reaction Force” mobilized—then stood down, for reasons still not fully explained."



...Sounds sadly familiar....

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Matt Gurney: Don’t send Canadian troops to dysfunctional UN missions


You may have read in recent days a report about a horrific incident in South Sudan. A purportedly secure compound in the capital of South Sudan, home to foreign aid workers, including Americans and other Westerners, was besieged by armed men in South Sudanese Army uniforms. The people inside the compound called for help, notifying a nearby — one mile away, according to the report — UN base that they were under attack. The message was received and logged.

And nothing was done.
The troops besieging the compound forced their way inside eventually. They took the aid workers prisoner. At least one man, a local, was executed. The men were beaten and threatened, some apparently tortured. At least five women were gang raped, by as many as 15 soldiers. Americans were singled out for particular abuse.
It was, in other words, an entirely typical atrocity of the type too often seen and heard of in failing states and war zones all the world over. It’s exactly the sort of reason the international community came up with the concept of peacekeeping and stabilization missions in the first place.
But this incident does more than illustrate the need for such missions. It also illustrates how, under the current UN structure, they’ve become impotent. There are 17,000 UN troops in South Sudan. The aid workers’ compound was minutes away from local UN military headquarters. The staff there knew there was an attack against civilians, including foreign aid workers, unfolding. They logged the incoming distress calls in their logs. But the local UN quick reaction force declined to deploy. Local troops, who were waiting around for the UN to lead the mission, also stood down. Individual battalions of troops assigned to the UN mission, including Ethiopian, Chinese and Nepalese soldiers, were then contacted. None bothered to come to the aid of a group of civilians under attack by an armed force practically in their backyard. Local troops eventually rescued the civilians, except for three Western women who were taken by the attackers. The UN was asked to send a rescue party to find them, and declined.
It is an absolutely astonishing story of failure … and yet not at all that astonishing

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NAIROBI, Kenya -- The soldier pointed his AK-47 at the female aid worker and gave her a choice.
"Either you have sex with me, or we make every man here rape you and then we shoot you in the head," she remembers him saying.
She didn't really have a choice: By the end of the evening, she had been raped by 15 South Sudanese soldiers.
On July 11, South Sudanese troops, fresh from winning a battle in the capital, Juba, over opposition forces, went on a nearly four-hour rampage through a residential compound popular with foreigners, in one of the worst targeted attacks on aid workers in South Sudan's three-year civil war. They shot dead a local journalist while forcing the foreigners to watch, raped several foreign women, singled out Americans, beat and robbed people and carried out mock executions, several witnesses told The Associated Press.

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"We kill you! We kill you!" the soldiers shouted, according to a Western woman in the bathroom. "They would shoot up at the ceiling and say, 'Do you want to die?' and we had to answer 'No!'"

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One soldier ranted against foreigners. "He definitely had pronounced hatred against America," Libot said, recalling the soldier's words: "You messed up this country. You're helping the rebels."

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