RI CONTINGENT IN MONUC COMMENDED FOR CLEAN MORAL RECORD

Jakarta, Aug 28 (ANTARA) - The Indonesian contingent in the UN peace-keeping force in Congo (Monuc) has been commended for never having committed sex-related offenses during their service in the troubled West African country.

Monuc Commander Lt Gen Babacar Gaye had recently cited the troops from Indonesia, China and Bangladesh as contingents that had remained free from "sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA)" offenses, according to Capt Leo Sugandi, information officer of the Garuda Contingent Task Force XX-F/Monuc in an e-mail to Antara on Friday.

Consequently, he said, the Monuc commander had asked all other contingents in the force to follow the example of the troops from the three cited countries in their behavior.
Gaye said Monuc as the UN peace-keeping force with the largest number of troops in the world also had a relatively high rate of personnel misbehavior, including SEA cases.

In an effort to reduce the frequency of SEA cases involving its personnel, Monuc was regularly holding seminars on the problem, he said,
On Thursday (Aug 27), for instance, the commanding officers of all contingents in Monuc attended a workshop on prevention of SEA offenses, led by an official from the UN Headquarters' Department of Field Support in New York, Ms Malcorra.

Malcorra told her audience that Monuc being a UN peace-keeping force, each of its members was expected to behave well in the community, among other things, by not committing SEA offenses.

She said the Monuc high command was aware that its men were performing peace-keeping duties in a very difficult environment and rigorous field conditions but it was asking all Monuc personnel to heed the UN secretary general's policy of non-tolerance toward SEA offenses.

The UN would not tolerate SEA offenses in the jurisdiction of its peace-keeping mission as such acts were rated "category 1" violations that would entail severe sanctions, Malcorra said.