Down Under Speaks!
great email from our buds down under:
G' Day Grrrlll Blogger,
By Mark Dodd
March 21, 2005
The Australian (No longer stored)
AUSTRALIAN soldiers drew arms to protect themselves from Jordanian peacekeepers after a Digger blew the whistle on other Jordanian soldiers' sexual abuse of East Timorese boys.
Corporal Andrew Wratten had to be evacuated
and Australian commandos sent to
protect Diggers in Oecussi, an East Timorese province in Indonesian West Timor,
after he told the UN of the pedophilia that occurred in
May 2001.
The Australians drew their Steyr assault rifles after
being confronted by Jordanians armed with M-16s, in an escalation of verbal threats triggered by the betrayal of Corporal Wratten by
a Jordanian officer in the Dili headquarters of the UN Transitional
Administration in East Timor.
Corporal Wratten, who was working at
a fuel dump in the enclave, was told by a group of children that Jordanian
soldiers had offered food and money in exchange for oral
sex and intercourse.
The allegations involved East Timorese
minors, all boys, the youngest of them just 12
years old.
"Wratten informed PKF (peacekeeping force)
that he had been receiving complaints from local children about Jorbatt (Jordan
Battalion) abuse," said a senior UN official who was based in Oecussi at the
time.
"A Jordanian officer in HQ informed
Jorbatt that he had ratted on them. Wratten and his guys manning the helo
(helicopter) refuelling pad in Oecussi town started getting
threatened.
"There was one occasion where Aussie
Steyrs were pointed at Jorbatt and Jorbatt M-16s pointed at
Aussies."
A secret report into the abuse, obtained by The
Australian, led to the expulsion of two Jordanian peacekeepers after an
investigation ordered by then UNTAET chief, the late Sergio Vieira de Mello, in
July 2001.
East Timorese human rights workers have
confirmed the story. However, retired Australian major-general Roger
Powell, the deputy UN force commander at the time, did not return The
Australian's calls.
"As far as I understand, De Mello
was very sensitive at the time to the harm such reports would have on the
reputation of UNTAET, PKF - and by default himself," said one Western
security analyst, based in East Timor in 2001.
Jordan's key role in Middle
East peace negotiations added extra sensitivity.
In July 2001, a UN police
specialist child interview team flew to Oecussi and spoke to 10 witnesses,
including seven minors and three adults.
"The
unacceptable sexual conduct alleged was that a minor had sperm around his
mouth," the resulting report says.
The board of inquiry found in
its report that Jordanian troops regularly offered food and money in exchange
for sexual favours from women and boys,
including the procuring of prostitutes from across the border in West Timor.
It found it was highly probable that widespread sexual misconduct had occurred after the Jordanians took over from the highly regarded Australian paratroop battalion in early 2000.
Davou Bulle, his wife, and their 10 children each climbed into the
van, exhausted from another full day of work on their family’s farm. He started
to pull away but was soon jarred to attention by the sound of gunshots hitting
the tires. They were being ambushed because of his faith!
was detained by Sudanese authorities. Although the Sudanese judiciary declined to justify the earlier arrest of Paul Foreman, MSF believes the warrant was issued after he refused to hand over evidence he used in a damning report about rape in Darfur.
How about this? Imagine this, the head of an aid agency reporting on the 
