WILL JOHN KERRY DEMAND KOFI’S RESIGNATION?

The human rights organization slammed the United Nations and NATO for not doing more to punish its people for contributing to what has become a flourishing sex industry in the Balkan country.

Since 1999, when international peacekeepers entered the country after negotiating an end to the conflict between Kosovo and Serbia, the number of institutions where women and girls are being exploited has mushroomed from 18 to 200 in 2003, according to the report. Girls as young as 11 have been lured under false pretenses from places like Moldova, the Ukraine and Bulgaria to work in the sex trade.

Then there’s this:

Eritrea broadcast a statement on Thursday alleging a string of offences committed by Unmee, including housing criminals, paedophilia, making pornography and even using the national currency as toilet paper.

An Unmee report last June quoted Eritrean women as saying Irish peacekeepers on the mission had used prostitutes as young as 15.

The Eritrean government said: “The fact that Unmee has to date not taken any concrete actions and shown no co-operation to correct its modus operandi and clean up its activities, exposes to grave danger the peace and stability of the people and government of Eritrea, as well as the security and stability of our region.”

(And don’t forget this report and this one.) No doubt Charles Rangel will be outraged.

UPDATE: James Somers has good advice for Kerry:

It would, I think, be a very clever political move for Kerry to deliver an address skewering Kofi and the U.N. on the Oil for Food scandal. In fact, Karl Rove would probably wet his pants if Kerry did so. People talk about Kerry needing a “Sister Souljah” moment. This would do it. It would give him credibility with the broad swath of Americans who feel that the Bush Administration has been incompetent in handling Iraq, but find Kerry’s platitudes about “rejoining the international community” and “bringing the U.N. into Iraq” to be so naive and Euro-centric as to suggest that he will not put America’s interests above those of other nations. Put another way, it would play well in Peoria. And the best part, from the Kerry campaign’s view, is that the Administration can’t respond in kind, because it needs to suck up to the U.N. so as to get whatever help it can in stabilizing Iraq sufficiently to take it off the table as a political liability.

Interesting.