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STORY: UN / HAITI KOSOVO PEACEKEEPERS
TRT: 1:08
SOURCE: UNIFEED-UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 14 JULY 2016, NEW YORK CITY
FILE – NEW YORK CITY
1. Close up, UNHQ exterior
14 JULY 2016, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, press room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Stephane Dujarric, Spokesperson, United Nations:
“If allegations are confirmed, substantiated, we’d take all the actions within our control including repatriation and barring from future peacekeeping service. However, we have no authority to sanction of criminally prosecute personnel under the exclusive jurisdiction of member states. It is up to those Member States to ensure that the soldiers, if need be, are sanctioned and that payments and responsibility towards children they may have fathered is followed through.”
4. Med shot, reporters
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Stephane Dujarric, Spokesperson, United Nations:
“The report that was published today I think in the New York Times is an interim report. We are still waiting for the final report. UNMIK obviously values the work of the advisory panel, and as such we are carefully giving due consideration to the issues that have been raised by the panel.”
6. Pan right, spokesperson leaving press room
Reports of lawsuits against peacekeepers in Haiti have emerged over child support for children they allegedly fathered years ago.
Speaking to reporters today (14 Jul) in New York, United Nations (UN) spokesperson Stephan Dujarric said the Secretary-General has repeatedly called on Member States to appoint “paternity focal points” and encouraged them to call upon the assistance of missions to collect DNA to address paternity issues. He said a number of countries have already done so including Uruguay.
Dujarric said if the allegations are confirmed, the UN would take all the actions within its control including repatriation and barring from future peacekeeping service. However, he stressed that the UN had “no authority to sanction of criminally prosecute personnel” and it was up to Member States “to ensure that the soldiers, if need be, are sanctioned and that payments and responsibility towards children they may have fathered is followed through.”
Meanwhile, a report was published by the Human Rights Advisory Panel of the UN mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) which said the panel’s efforts were “a total failure” due to UNMIK’s “unwillingness to follow any” of its recommendations and “general intransigence.”
Dujarric said this was a “interim report” and that the UN was still waiting for the final report to comment. He said UNMIK “values the work of the advisory panel, and as such we are carefully giving due consideration to the issues that have been raised by the panel.”
