UN Peacekeepers Trade Weapons for Gold
More evidence about how dramatically well run everyone’s favorite international organization promoting world peace truly is. I mean, why let a little peacekeeping mission to save the lives of thousands of innocents get in the way of making a little money on the side?
Pakistani UN peacekeeping troops have traded in gold and sold weapons to Congolese militia groups they were meant to disarm, the BBC has learnt.
These militia groups were guilty of some of the worst human rights abuses during the Democratic Republic of Congo’s long civil war.
The trading went on in 2005. A UN investigative team sent to gather evidence was obstructed and threatened.
The team’s report was buried by the UN itself to "avoid political fallout".
These events took place in and around the mining town of Mongbwalu, in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Pakistani battalion of the UN peacekeeping mission deployed there in 2005 and helped bring peace to an area that had previously seen bitter fighting between the Lendu and Hema ethnic groups.
Locals welcomed them, but the lure of the rich alluvial gold mines proved too much to resist for some, recalls the head of the miners’ association, Liki Likambo.
"I saw a UN Pakistani soldier who came to buy gold in one of the gold negotiators here in Mongbwalu. I was there in the shop. I saw it with my own eyes."
source Tags: united nations, un peacekeepers, drc, gold, weapons, pakistan
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