Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-09-22-Speech-3-319"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20100922.23.3-319"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Mr President, earlier this year, Denis Mukwege, a gynaecologist from Panzi in the DRC, came to our European Parliament and told us that the at least 200 000 rapes which have taken place in his country over the last fifteen years are too brutal to be described as such, and should instead be called sexual massacre, and that sex is being used as a terrorist act.
Little did we know that but a few weeks later, within twenty miles of an international peace keeping force in the area of Luvungi, the town would be put under siege and some 500 women and children subjected to repeated and horrific sexual violence.
In this Parliament, where we have decried the failure to offer protection in Rwanda and Srebrenica, we cannot and must not stay silent. We should commend the UN Assistant Secretary-General for accepting that the UN had failed and is partially responsible. But we should also challenge the UN to investigate why local warnings in advance, delivered by motorcycle taxi drivers, went unheeded; why the UN base did not have access to local language interpretation; and how the rules of engagement continue to hinder the effectiveness of its peacekeeping force.
Frankly, I would ask all Member States of the United Nations and every Member State of our European Union what has happened to the fine words we all voted on concerning the UN’s responsibility to protect. I commend what Mr Chastel has said this afternoon about bringing the perpetrators to justice, but in the report imminently to be produced by the UN itself, we need a meaningful justice system for a decade of crimes in Eastern DRC.
President, I also express agreement with the others in this debate who have condemned the corrosive corruption which afflicts the plundering of the DRC’s rich mineral resources. But most of all in this debate, we should say that there are no explanations, no excuses, no extenuating circumstances which can in any way justify sexual violence as a weapon of war, and that our foremost concern should be for those 500 women victims who all of us failed to protect. Our commitment should be to ensure it never happens again."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata | |
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples