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NEW YORK - Clouds of scandal are threatening the United Nations once again after allegations that peacekeepers in Congo traded guns for gold with militia groups they were meant to be disarming and a trial got under way in New York of a former senior procurement official accused
of taking bribes.
The UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo said in a statement that an investigation into the guns-for-gold claims had begun last year and was still ongoing, 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 probe are allegation that in 2005 Pakistani soldiers sent by the UN to restore peace in the Ituri province around the north-eastern mining town of Mongbwalu began returning guns to militia groups they were mandated to disarm and received gold in exchange.
Witnesses confirmed the existence of the trade to the BBC.
"Repeatedly he 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 meanwhile said it had its own information on the case which it had given to the UN.
"Pakistani officers were involved in illegal smuggling of between $2-5 million in gold out of Ituri. We have very solid information on this," said Anneke Van Woudenberg, a researcher with the group.
At almost 18,000 soldiers, the Congo force 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 1998-2003 civil war that killed as many as 4 million people and drew in forces from several neighbouring countries.
The UN has been accused of burying the initial findings of the investigation in order to avoid embarrassing Pakistan, the largest peacekeeping troop contributor.
The UN's special representative in Congo, Ambassador William Swing, emphatically denied peacekeepers had rearmed the militias.
A spokeswoman for the foreign ministry in Islamabad, Tasnim Aslam, yesterday said 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 probe into corruption in its oil-for-food programme in Iraq before the toppling of Saddam Hussein, the resignation of its Ruud Lubbers as head of the High Commissioner for Refugees following allegations of sexual harassment as well as revelations in 2005 of peacekeepers trading food for sexual favours with young women in the 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 US$100 million 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.
Mr Kohli said that the relationship between Mr Bahel and his father became so tight 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.
- INDEPENDENT
