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SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina Kathryn Bolkovac left her job as a veteran police officer in Lincoln, Neb., to take on a very different kind of law enforcement - a U.N. police post cracking down on forced prostitution in Bosnia.
Investigating the plight of the women from Eastern Europe was grim enough. But then, Bolkovac says, she began amassing evidence that some fellow officers were customers at Bosnia's illegal brothels, and others were even more deeply involved.
Last year, Bolkovac was demoted, and in April she was fired. The official reason: She allegedly falsified a time sheet. Bolkovac's explanation: She filed a report alleging that officers forged documents for trafficked women, aided their illegal transport through border checkpoints into Bosnia, and tipped off sex club owners ahead of raids.
"I was shocked, appalled and disgusted by what I saw going on," she told The Associated Press. "The mission supervisors don't want to hear about it. They prefer to turn their heads."
In interviews with the AP, Bolkovac and other current and former members of the U.N. mission in Bosnia described how some international police monitors - sent to set an example for the local police and root out corruption - allegedly have been involved in criminal activities.
The United Nations concedes that two dozen officers with the 2,000-member U.N. International Police Task Force, including eight Americans, have been fired for offenses ranging from bribery to sexual impropriety. But it insists most officers carry out their duties properly.
"During my tenure, there have been no cover-ups, and I have implemented a zero-tolerance policy regarding sexual or other serious misconduct," Jacques Paul Klein, the head of the U.N. mission in Bosnia, said in a statement.
"Since 1996, nearly 10,000 police officers from 46 countries have served with the IPTF, including nearly 900 from the U.S. The vast majority have performed in a highly professional manner and to the great credit of their home countries and the United States," Klein said.
Charles Hunter, a State Department spokesman, acknowledged "occasional disciplinary problems" with the U.S. contingent. "When they have arisen, we have sought to respond quickly, fairly and appropriately," he said.
But David Lamb, a former Philadelphia transit police officer and for the past two years a U.N. human-rights investigator in central Bosnia, said he and others routinely forwarded evidence of wrongdoing to the mission's internal-affairs unit, only to be told "not to look too deep."
Near the end of his tenure in April, Lamb said, he was conducting an investigation based on information from six women who said they were forced into prostitution.
"They gave us a whole list of IPTF people involved," he said. "It was just incredible to see the resistance we got from mission headquarters."
Prostitution is illegal in Bosnia, but it thrives amid the presence of 21,000 NATO peacekeepers and thousands of international bureaucrats and aid workers.
Lamb cited one case involving a Romanian IPTF officer whose wife managed a brothel; together, he said, the couple helped recruit young women from Romania. Other officials said officers from the United States, Britain, India, Pakistan and Ukraine have been implicated in alleged criminal and sexual misconduct. Their names have not been released.
"The American contingent is certainly far from the worst," Lamb said. "The Americans, I think, basically hold that mission together."
The phenomenon alarms many in the ethnically divided country.
"I can't imagine peace without them," said Nezira Samardzic, 21, a university student in Sarajevo. "They're only human. I'm afraid that talk about only the bad side might prompt somebody to think the U.N. mission in Bosnia should be terminated."
The problem goes beyond Sarajevo. Bosnian police, aided by IPTF officers, raided three nightclubs last November in the northern Bosnian town of Prijedor. Inside were 33 females, including girls reportedly as young as 14, working as prostitutes.
The next day, club owner Milorad Milakovic claimed that the IPTF ordered the raid after he refused to pay officers $10,000. Milakovic said six IPTF officers, including two Americans, were frequent patrons. The six left the agency before the United Nations completed its investigation, which concluded their behavior was "inappropriate."
"It was one of the biggest cover-ups I have ever seen," said Madeleine Rees, head of the U.N. human-rights office in Sarajevo, which interviewed the 33 females. "The girls said these guys have been using them - they have been regularly having sex with them."
Many of the hundreds of women working in Bosnia's underground sex industry are lured from countries like Moldova, Romania and Ukraine by promises of jobs as waitresses or baby sitters, but are delivered to brothel owners who confiscate their passports.
I have friends in Hercegovina. They hate the UN presence. Probably 3 months after the Peacekeeping started in their little swatch of BiH, my friends said that they had never had the kinds of criminal activity that the UN brought in to their small towns, the most destructive being prostitution, and drugs. Well, I guess SFOR showed them, didn't they? They trashed their banks, and took all the money, leaving pensioners, police, and teachers with no income, and others who saw their accounts wiped out, with no means to keep their businesses running.
It's pretty much normal behavior for an occupying army, which is what UNSCOM and KFOR really amount to, pious propaganda to the contrary. Occupying armies have behaved like that, if not worse, from time immemorial. Bad men can follow their impulses without restraint; good men are corrupted. The only solution is to pull them out.
I think the difference is between willing and forced prostitution. What I have been reading, not just here, is that this- I've ran out of letters, NATO KFOR or whatever this occupying administratin is called, has been covering up "forced" prostitution..What they used to call "camp followers" have always been here and always will be in whatever form it is called, but there is a difference. I agree that the US should withdraw it's troops and get out of this rotten mess that NATO created with its outright aggression. What is hard- is that "Daddy" Bush kept the US out of this Yugoslav break-up when he was President, but "Dubya" is having a hard time figuring what to do, at first he, I thought said we would pull out, now it seems he's doing a turn around.The longer the US stays there in Yugoslavia, the more danger this could get out of hand and lead to WW3. Israel would probably like to see WW3 so she, with over 100 illegal atomic bombs, could seize Arab lands and the rich oil fields, while the USA, Russia and China destroyed each other. Israel is already making pacts with Turkey and India to offer them a nuclear shield in order to base Israeli war planes at their air fields.
I don't believe that India needs a nuclear shield from any foreign power.........Dehli having joined the club on its own a while back
Hoppie's pals in action
guess breaking UN arms embargos to fuel race wars, bombing civilians for PR, and now white slavery for profit is all in a day's work for Hoplite's Humanitarian Warriors
Hoppie will soon be the sole person in North America defending Klinton's crimes
Hey, it's better now than when your concentration camp running, mass murdering, adolescent raping, mosque dynamiting, UN hostage taking, producers of childrens limbs through mortaring buddies were in charge.
Quit yer whining already.
Actually Vooch, Hoplite is right, You'r accusing him of things he never supported.
By constantly accusing him when something is posted about UN or NATO with negative reference is really very absurd.
You should be actually happy that there's people like Hoplite or me here.
Just when you think how absolutely right you are, we just might be able to prove your wrong, as I did with the recent Belgrade mass graves discovery, providing the Vreme link with the Serb soldier testimony.
Better to hear it all, then to hide away from certain facts and simply ignore them. That's why we're here. :)
hop-headed klintoonista...that is you hop-lite-headed!
blueshyster, How is your sweetie klintoon these days...still revelling in the blood of those kids he had murdered in Waco?
This is going to be the norm when the world is policed by a universal police force. UN police are like American politicians, they answer to a higher power and it sure isn't the little people.
Please.
And, hop-lite-headed you are a liberal loser!!
ANY PERSON who supports klintoon's FAILED POLICY IN THE BALKANS IS A KLINTOON SUPPORTER...THAT IS DEFINITELY YOU!
We love you too Crazykatz!
it is better now
Hoppie, I can't believe that you would posit a relativist notion of moral norms.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
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