Re: Pak Peace Mission involved in Gold smuggling (merged)
^ 
Ive been trying to figure that out too!
I think the furniture market was established from the rubble after they supposedly bombed and leveled the *hawai adda *
Pakistan Army Trades Gold for Guns!
Interesting news.
Re: Pakistan Army Trades Gold for Guns!
This has even got on CNN, giving a bad name to Pakistan again
What a shame how corrupt our once professional Army has become
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/05/23/congo.un.troops.reut/index.html
KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) – U.N. peacekeepers from Pakistan trafficked arms for gold with a militia in the Democratic Republic of Congo, human rights groups said Wednesday, adding a U.N. inquiry into the affair was deliberately slowed.
The United Nations denied any arms were handed over and said an inquiry under way for more than a year would be completed in three weeks. Pakistan rejected the accusations as malicious and distorted but said it was investigating.
The allegations threaten to strike another blow to the image of the 17,000-member peacekeeping mission in Congo, credited with guiding the vast central African country to historic polls last year but repeatedly plagued by scandal.
The accusations are from late 2005, when Pakistani peacekeepers were stationed in the mining town of Mongbwalu in the eastern Ituri district, where fighting between ethnic militias continued after the official end of a 1998-2003 war.
“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 senior researcher with U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.
She said the peacekeepers colluded with Congolese military, local armed groups and Indian businessmen.
“They all became part of one group,” she said.
Joel Bisubu, a researcher with Congolese human rights group Justice Plus, said the peacekeepers – meant to help disarm thousands of militia members – returned weapons to the Front of Nationalists and Integrationalists, an armed group accused by the Congolese government of war crimes.
“There was cooperation between the Pakistanis and the FNI,” Bisubu said. “The weapons were meant to be surrendered. But there was a shady operation whereby the Pakistanis handed the weapons back.”
The Pakistani Foreign Ministry said it had only been informed of the allegations on Tuesday and relevant authorities were looking into them. Military spokesman Maj.-Gen. Waheed Arshad dismissed reports as distorted.
Kemal Saiki, spokesman for Congo’s U.N. peacekeeping mission, known by its French acronym MONUC, denied peacekeepers rearmed the fighters but said the matter was handed over to U.N. internal investigators in late 2005.
“The moment we heard about these allegations, we ordered an investigation. It is being conducted independently of MONUC,” he said. “Any matters that have a legal impact, they must go about them very deliberately with attention to due process.”
Van Woudenberg said U.N. officials stifled an inquiry by the world body’s Office for Internal Oversight Services as its findings became more politically sensitive.
“They never completely shut it down, but they took the resources away from it,” she said. “Here’s a situation where the U.N. got lots of information from Human Rights Watch and others, and, 18 months later, nothing has been done. It appears as if it has been swept under the carpet.”
In New York, U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said the investigation, which began in early 2006, would be finished in about three weeks.
She said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon “will act upon its findings expeditiously and transparently. If wrongdoing is found to have occurred, he will hold those responsible accountable.”
Montas admitted the investigation had taken a long time but blamed it on “the difficulty of working in that part of the world, where a large number of witnesses have to be interviewed and in difficult security circumstances.”
Despite its successes in bolstering security in Congo after a conflict that killed an estimated 4 million people, the U.N.'s largest peacekeeping operation has been dogged by allegations of misconduct.
Most charges relate to sexual abuse, including rape, prostitution and pedophilia. U.N. officials said they have investigated and taken disciplinary action where necessary.
Any punishment of the peacekeepers themselves is left to the troop contributing nations.
Re: Pakistan Army Trades Gold for Guns!
still an allegation right :)
I mean there are plenty of allegations against many people. should we consider them all facts?
Re: Pak Peace Mission involved in Gold smuggling (merged)
What is happening to Pakistan is nothing but Allah's curse for how it treated Bengalis and is treating Balochs, Mohajirs, Sindhis today.
Re: Pak Peace Mission involved in Gold smuggling (merged)
Bengalis got what was coming to them. Traiterous ******s! No sense of loyalty I tell ya!
Re: Pak Peace Mission involved in Gold smuggling (merged)
Bengalis got what was coming to them. Traiterous ******s! No sense of loyalty I tell ya!
I know you're not really serious but you never know when Pakistanis meet the same fate as Bengalis did in 71. History can repeat itself and fortunes can turn.
We have to start treating our own people with some dignity.
Re: Pakistan Army Trades Gold for Guns!
This has even got on CNN, giving a bad name to Pakistan again
What a shame how corrupt our once professional Army has become .
shame, what shame ?
dude, we know you are a indian hindu clown !! Send your dark malnourished indian soldiers to congo or something !!!
Our Pakistani soldiers are not mercenaries , they shouldn't even be in congo in the first place. What benefit does pakistan get by sending its soldiers in harms way ?
screw the UN and get the gold !!
Re: Pak Peace Mission involved in Gold smuggling (merged)
pakistan army and rangers posted on pakistan's frontiers...are also involved in smuggling into/from neighboring countries...
so this is nothing new for them...
Re: Pak Peace Mission involved in Gold smuggling (merged)
^^ Karachi may gao mata inhikiay meharbanio say katwo ko haath lagti hain!
Re: Pak Peace Mission involved in Gold smuggling (merged)
whats the surprise.....
if some soldiers broke the law...
when thier chief broke the mother of all laws ...The Constitution of Pakistan...
Re: Pak Peace Mission involved in Gold smuggling (merged)
as in Armed forces...blind following of your chief officer is required .. :D
Re: Pakistan Army Trades Gold for Guns!
when you involved army..in politics...similar thngs happened....when C in C break Constitution of Pakistan...if poor soldiers smuggled...whats surprising....
Re: Pak Peace Mission involved in Gold smuggling (merged)
Is mulk to tabah kurnay may sab hi nay apna hissa dala hia!
Re: Pakistan Army Trades Gold for Guns!
shame, what shame ?
if you don't see the shame in this, you really need to look at yourself
Re: Pak Peace Mission involved in Gold smuggling (merged)
pakistan army and rangers posted on pakistan's frontiers...are also involved in smuggling into/from neighboring countries...
so this is nothing new for them...
true, but what a shame
The involvement of our once professional Army in politics has corrupted them so much
Re: Pak Peace Mission involved in Gold smuggling
of course. zardari was the only corrupt person in pakistan ever. Now that he is not here, we r all so clean and pure. Especially the top military brass. :)
oops, an inconvenient point for some!
Re: Pak Peace Mission involved in Gold smuggling (merged)
true, but what a shame
The involvement of our once professional Army in politics has corrupted them so much
exactly..it is called...bahti ganga mai hath dhona...
Re: Pak Peace Mission involved in Gold smuggling...? (merged)
People of Pakistan should consider about giving contract of defense to any other country and should have given chance of governing over Pakistan to the lawyers. Pakistani Politicians and army has been made so hopeless Pakistan and its people.
Re: Pak Peace Mission involved in Gold smuggling...? (merged)
Pakistanis returned weapons to militants
May 23, 2007, 07:10 PM
Other news, World
KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo, May 23 (UPI) — Pakistani U.N. peacekeeping troops meant to disarm militia groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo allegedly sold weapons to the groups.
The BBC reported Wednesday the Pakistani U.N. troops also traded in gold while on their mission in 2005.
I saw a U.N. Pakistani soldier who came to buy gold from one of the gold negotiators here in Mongbwalu, said Liki Likambo, the head of the miners' association. I was there in the shop. I saw it with my own eyes.
A U.N. investigation into the gold and weapons trading was carried out but the report was suppressed by the international body, the BBC said.
The officer expressed his regrets over the malpractices of a Pakistani battalion under the auspices of Major Zanfar, the U.N. report said of a Congolese officer engaged in the disarming. He revealed the arms surrendered by ex-combatants were secretly returned to them by Major Zanfar thereby compromising the work they had collectively done earlier.