United Nations peacekeepers from Pakistan arranged armed escorts and provided food for illegal gold smugglers in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), but did not themselves trade weapons for gold, according to a United Nations report seen by Reuters on Friday.
Human rights groups had in May accused Pakistani peacekeepers of trafficking arms for gold with a militia they were meant to be disarming while stationed in the eastern mining town of Mongbwalu in late 2005.
”[Investigators] established that [Pakistani] peacekeepers deployed to Mongbwalu provided transport, meals and security for the … group during their visits to Mongbwalu in November and December 2005,” the internal UN report said.
”During these visits, [the traffickers] purchased significant quantities of unwrought gold without the appropriate government authorisations,” it said.
The report did not say what the Pakistani peacekeepers received in return for their help.
When the allegations were made in May, Pakistan rejected them as malicious and distorted but said it was investigating.
Any punishment of the peacekeepers has in previous cases of misconduct been left to the troop-contributing nations.
The findings threaten to further tarnish the image of the world body’s 17 000-member peacekeeping mission, credited with guiding the Central African nation to landmark polls last year after a 1998 to 2003 war, but repeatedly plagued by scandal.
The mission said in July it was investigating separate allegations that Indian peacekeepers traded food and military intelligence with Rwandan Hutu rebels in return for gold.
Another investigation into the alleged torture and killing of Ituri militia members by Bangladeshi UN soldiers is currently under way.
Despite last year’s historic polls, the vast, mineral-rich former Belgian colony still suffers from violence at the hands of armed militias, foreign rebels groups and its own army, particularly in the eastern border region with Rwanda. — Reuters