UN troops traded guns for gold with militias, says report

UN troops traded guns for gold with militias, says report
By David Usborne in New York
Published: 24 May 2007
Independent UK

Scandal is engulfing the United Nations once again after allegations that peacekeepers stationed in Congo traded guns for gold with militia groups that they were meant to be disarming. Meanwhile, a trial got under way in New York of a former UN official accused of taking bribes.

The UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) said in a statement that an investigation into the guns-for-gold claims had begun and was continuing, adding that it had a "zero-tolerance policy for misconduct and will remain vigilant in preventing egregious and unacceptable behaviour".

At the heart of the investigation are allegations that, in 2005, Pakistani soldiers sent by the UN to restore peace in Ituri province around the north-eastern mining town of Mongbwalu began returning guns to militia groups, receiving gold in exchange.

Witnesses confirmed the existence of the trade to the BBC. One Congolese officer "repeatedly saw militia who had been disarmed one day but the next day would become rearmed again. The information he could obtain was always the same, that it would be the Pakistani battalion giving arms back to the militia."

Human Rights Watch said it had its own information on the case which it had passed to the UN. "Pakistani officers were involved in illegal smuggling of between $2m-$5m in gold out of Ituri. We have very solid information on this," said Anneke Van Woudenberg, a researcher with the group.

The Congo force of almost 18,000 soldiers is the largest UN deployment in the world. It has been credited with helping the country's transition to a fragile democracy after a vicious civil war from 1998 to 2003 that killed as many as four million people and drew in forces from several neighbouring countries.

The UN has been accused of burying the initial findings of the investigation to avoid embarrassing Pakistan, the largest peacekeeping troop contributor. The UN's special representative in the DRC, William Swing, emphatically denied the guns-for-gold claims.

A spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad, Tasnim Aslam, said yesterday that it had been informed by the UN peacekeeping department, the DPKO, on Tuesday of the media exposure of the case. "The DPKO also informed our mission that, at this stage, these were mere allegations, which have to be looked into," she said. "On our part, our relevant authorities will look into the matter to ascertain facts."

The flow of UN scandals never seems to end. Recent years have seen the inquiry into corruption in the oil-for-food programme in Iraq before the toppling of Saddam Hussein, the resignation of Ruud Lubbers as head of the UN High Commission for Refugees following allegations of sexual harassment and revelations in 2005 of peacekeepers trading food for sexual favours with women in Congo.

This week, meanwhile, saw the start of the fraud trial in New York of Sanjaya Bahel, a native of India who stands accused of taking serial bribes from a Florida businessman while he was head of the UN's Commodity Procurement Section from 1999 to 2003.

Jurors have heard testimony from Nishan Kohli, the son of the businessman, Nanak Kohli, that Mr Bahel helped secure $100m in contracts from him in return for serial favours including a heavily discounted luxury apartment in New York and cash.

On Tuesday, Mr Kohli went further saying that other UN workers associated with Mr Bahel had been treated to nights in a hotel room with prostitutes for their favours.

Mr Kohli said the relationship between Mr Bahel and his father became so close that he was was "effectively a partner in our companies in terms of how we operated and executed contracts".

Mr Bahel has pleaded not guilty to the charges.