UN whitewashes guns-for-gold scandal, human rights group says

[LeighAnn]

Source: Edmonton Journal

Human rights activists accused the United Nations Monday of whitewashing a guns-for-gold scandal that allegedly saw its peacekeepers arm rebels they were supposed to be disarming in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In a letter to UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Marie Guehenno, New York-based Human Rights Watch takes issue with the world body's findings that only one Pakistani soldier had helped smuggle gold from the resource-rich country, and that no UN peacekeeper had been involved in gun-running.

The findings run counter to evidence collected by numerous non-UN observers inside Congo, which suggests the illegal trade was widespread.

The Pakistanis were involved in a Mafia ring that included the Congolese army and Kenyan traders all smuggling millions of dollars in gold from eastern Congo into East Africa," Anneke Van Woudenberg, who runs a team of Human Rights Watch investigators in DRC, said from Kigali, Rwanda.

"It's clear that the kind of support that was provided, including access to UN cars and accommodation, and to providing them with UN security, was well beyond one individual."



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