There has not yet been a resolution to the scandal of the child sexual abuse by French soldiers in the Central African Republic, which was exposed by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNOHCHR) report. The French authorities are investigating with seeming vigour, the UN has made noise -but some would say not the right noise. The latter have focused on the fact that a senior official at the UNOHCHR, Anders Kompass, shared the report with the French Mission to the UN in Geneva, according to them, breaching protocol and putting victims at risk of retaliation. The UNOHCHR suspended Mr. Kompass who was subsequently reinstated by a UN Tribunal.
To be clear on this, primary jurisdiction for investigating the alleged crimes by French nationals serving in their military falls to the French government. The UN would have had to refer it to them.
The one simple yet unanswered question in the United Nations versus Anders Kompass affair is - why? Why have the UN decided to attack the person who did no more and no less than his function as a human rights official demanded ? There are anomalies too which need explanation, including why there was a gap of eight months after Kompass shared the report before the UN took action against him.
