Gaddafi forces using Viagra, condoms as part of sexual violence against rebels?

April 30th, 2011 - 1:22 pm ICT by ANI  

Tripoli, Apr 30 (ANI): U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan E. Rice has raised serious concerns over reports that Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s forces have been supplied with tablets of Viagra and condoms as part of a campaign of sexual violence against women, but failed to give any concrete evidence.

She made the allegation during a United Nation Security Council (UNSC) meeting after facing criticism from council members like India, China, and Russia, that the Western-backed coalition has gone far beyond the UN mandate to protect rebels in the country’s ongoing civil war, the Foreign Policy reports.

Rice, however, insisted that the conflict in Libya is not any ordinary civil war, adding that the opposition took up arms only after Gaddafi’s forces opened fire on peaceful demonstrators.

According to a U.N. diplomat present in the meeting, Rice cited reports claiming that the dictator’s loyalists are targeting children and issuing ‘Viagra to the regime’s forces “so they go out and rape,” but failed to provide evidence.

A doctor in Ajdabiya, Suleiman Refadi, had claimed last month that Gaddafi’s forces had received packets of Viagra to rape women, adding: “I have seen Viagra, I have seen condoms.”

After interviewing the doctor, Human Rights Watch, however, said that no direct evidence was found to support his claims because they failed to identify victims and witnesses in Adjabiya who to confirm such reports.

“We have a few credible cases of gender based violence and rape, but the evidence is not there at this point to suggest it is of a systematic nature, or an official policy. On Viagra and condom distribution we have nothing so far. It’s not to dismiss it, but we do not have the evidence,” Fred Abrahams, a special advisor for Human Rights Watch, said. (ANI)

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