Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

MILITARY

Swedish major facing sack over boozy African sex romp

A major in the Swedish armed forces serving in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is in danger of losing his job as a result of his excessive drinking and sexual relations with a local woman.

Published: 1 June 2009 10:46 CEST

The major, who is from Gävle in eastern Sweden, was informed last week that his overseas service as an observer in the DRC as part of the UN mission (MONUC) force is to be terminated and he has been ordered to return to Sweden.

Armed Forces’ Director of Operations Anders Lindström of the MONUC force has reported the major to the military personnel disciplinary offences board (FPAN) for behaviour unbecoming of his rank and recommended that he be removed from his position.

The major’s drinking habits had caught the attention of several of his colleagues working in the DRC. He had been previously reported to MONUC’s DRC headquarters for several indiscretions and warned over his alcohol use.

The MONUC HQ had at first decided to try to manage the issue in the DRC but when the major was found to be entertaining a local woman in his room, the decision was taken to report the matter to the board.

“The major was at the time very drunk and definitely did not fulfil the criteria for service,” a senior officer wrote in the report to the board.

The major began his tour in the DRC in November 2008 and was due to serve with the MONUC force until November 2009.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

Erdogan links Swedish Nato approval to Turkish EU membership

“First, open the way to Turkey’s membership of the European Union, and then we will open it for Sweden, just as we had opened it for Finland,” Erdogan told a televised media appearance, before departing for the NATO summit in Lithuania.

Erdogan said “this is what I told” US President Joe Biden when the two leaders spoke by phone on Sunday.

Turkey first applied to be a member of the European Economic Community — a predecessor to the EU — in 1987. It became an EU candidate country in 1999 and formally launched membership negotiations with the bloc in 2005.

The talks stalled in 2016 over European concerns about Turkish human rights violations.

“I would like to underline one reality. Turkey has been waiting at the EU’s front door for 50 years,” Erdogan said. “Almost all the NATO members are EU members. I now am addressing these countries, which are making Turkey wait for more than 50 years, and I will address them again in Vilnius.”

Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, is due to meet Erdogan at 5pm on Monday in a last ditch attempt to win approval for the country’s Nato bid ahead of Nato’s summit in Vilnius on July 11th and 12th.

Turkey has previously explained its refusal to back Swedish membership as motivated by the country’s harbouring of people connected to the PKK, a Kurdish terrorist group, and the Gülen movement, who Erdogan blames for an attempted coup in 2016.

More recently, he has criticised Sweden’s willingness to allow pro-Kurdish groups to protest in Swedish cities and allow anti-Islamic protesters to burn copies of the Quran, the holy book of Islam.

In a sign of the likely reaction of counties which are members both of Nato and the EU, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that the two issues should not be connected.

“Sweden meets all the requirements for Nato membership,” Scholz told reporters in Berlin. “The other question is one that is not connected with it and that is why I do not think it should be seen as a connected issue.”

Malena Britz, Associate Professor in Political Science at the Swedish Defence University, told public broadcaster SVT that Erdogan’s new gambit will have caught Sweden’s negotiators, the EU, and even Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg off guard.

“I think both the member states and Stoltenberg had expected this to be about Nato and not about what the EU is getting up to,” she said. “That’s not something Nato even has any control over. If Erdogan sticks to the idea that Turkey isn’t going to let Sweden into Nato until Turkey’s EU membership talks start again, then Sweden and Nato will need to think about another solution.”

Aras Lindh, a Turkey expert at the Swedish Institute of Foreign Affairs, agreed that the move had taken Nato by surprise.

“This came suddenly. I find it hard to believe that anything like this will become reality, although there could possibly be some sort of joint statement from the EU countries. I don’t think that any of the EU countries which are also Nato members were prepared for this issue.”

Url copied to clipboard!