2007年VOA标准英语-UN Accuses Ivory Coast Rebels and Government of

Dakar
23 September 2007

The U.N. Operation in Ivory Coast has issued a report accusing the country's rebel and government forces of committing human-rights violations¹. But an advisor² to Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo says the U.N. accusations³ are false and could hamper⁴ the peace process. Phillip Wellman reports from our West Africa bureau in Dakar.

The report issued late last week examines the period from September and December 2006. During this time, the U.N. Ivory Coast mission known as ONUCI says human-rights violations repeatedly occurred throughout the country. It says these include such acts as arbitrary arrests and imprisonments by rebels in the north and the use of torture and summary executions by President Laurent Gbagbo's army in the south.

It says there was no semblance⁵ of judicial⁶ process in the north, while there was also trafficking of children for prostitution on both sides.

 

Andrea Ori, of ONUCI's human rights division, says that since the four-month period of investigation⁷, the number of summary executions in Ivory Coast has greatly reduced, but that other violations continue to occur.

"The violations are still going on. I do not have the statistics under my eyes, but I could say that actually there is an increase of human-rights violations. I mean every day we [get], not a very large number, but we can see from our daily incident reports, two, three, four cases every day," said Ori.

But a senior advisor to President Laurent Gbagbo, Sery Bahi, says the allegations are untrue.

Bahi also says the United Nations should be focusing its efforts on advancing the peace accord developed by Ivorians, rather than publicizing information on human rights collected nearly a year ago.

"There is no more war. The crisis has been handled. We are working towards the elections. What are they [U.N.] talking about? People are trying to give credibility to nonsense," said Bahi. "Ivory Coast is the leading country in West Africa. If we are suffering, the whole West Africa region is suffering, so the U.N. has to understand that. They released a statement coming back to human rights. We have time to deal with these kind of issues. Right now, let us implement⁸ the Ouagadougou agreement. That is what is most important."

New Forces rebel group spokesman Cisse Sindou says as long as human rights are being violated in Ivory Coast, peace will not exist.

"This [human rights] is a key issue to the return of peace in Ivory Coast. I do not think anyone should close their eyes on any human rights violations. I think usually the international community thinks we are a little too hard on our criminals, but I do not think we let human rights violations go unpunished," said Sindou. "I think everyone knows that by now."

Ivory Coast has been split between the government-held south and the rebel-held north since the start of civil war in late 2002.

1 violations   

违反( violation的名词复数 )； 冒犯； 违反（行为、事例）； 强奸

参考例句：

• This is one of the commonest traffic violations. 这是常见的违反交通规则之例。
• These violations of the code must cease forthwith. 这些违犯法规的行为必须立即停止。

2 advisor   

n.顾问，指导老师，劝告者

参考例句：

• They employed me as an advisor.他们聘请我当顾问。
• The professor is engaged as a technical advisor.这位教授被聘请为技术顾问。

3 accusations   

n.指责( accusation的名词复数 )；指控；控告；（被告发、控告的）罪名

参考例句：

• There were accusations of plagiarism. 曾有过关于剽窃的指控。
• He remained unruffled by their accusations. 对于他们的指控他处之泰然。

4 hamper   

vt.妨碍，束缚，限制；n.(有盖的)大篮子

参考例句：

• There are some apples in a picnic hamper.在野餐用的大篮子里有许多苹果。
• The emergence of such problems seriously hamper the development of enterprises.这些问题的出现严重阻碍了企业的发展。

5 semblance   

n.外貌，外表

参考例句：

• Her semblance of anger frightened the children.她生气的样子使孩子们感到害怕。
• Those clouds have the semblance of a large head.那些云的形状像一个巨大的人头。

6 judicial   

adj.司法的，法庭的，审判的，明断的，公正的

参考例句：

• He is a man with a judicial mind.他是个公正的人。
• Tom takes judicial proceedings against his father.汤姆对他的父亲正式提出诉讼。

7 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

8 implement   

n.(pl.)工具，器具；vt.实行，实施，执行

参考例句：

• Don't undertake a project unless you can implement it.不要承担一项计划，除非你能完成这项计划。
• The best implement for digging a garden is a spade.在花园里挖土的最好工具是铁锹。