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Congo: U.N. defends Indian peacekeepers

Sandeep Dikshit

NEW DELHI: The United Nations has come to the defence of Indian and Pakistani soldiers accused of malfeasance while on peacekeeping duty in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Responding to a brief article in the New York Times by a former U.N. investigator that the troops were let off lightly, the U.N.’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) “categorically” said that the charges were “baseless.”

It all started with a British Broadcasting Service report stating that a U.N. report had said charges of misdemeanour by Indian and Pakistani troops had been watered down because they were major contributors to peacekeeping operations. At that time too, the U.N. had defended the soldiers and ordered a probe which later found one Pakistani officer and three Indian troops, including an officer, guilty of trivial offences.

In particular, the three Indian peacekeepers were found guilty of detaining a trader with links to the rebels after he duped them by palming off counterfeit gold, said army officers here.

Though disciplinary action is being taken against the men, the army does not consider it as grave a charge as was made out by the BBC. Pakistan too has said the charges were untenable and assured action against an officer said to be interested in purchasing gold.

The U.N. reacted by observing that, “much of the new information presented by the (press) report is either hearsay or comes from sources, such as the militia leaders, whose integrity and motivation are highly questionable, as they themselves were arrested and put in prison by peacekeepers.”

The issue has reared up again after former U.N. investigator Mitthias Basanisi wrote in the article titled “Who will watch the peacekeepers” that “the peacekeepers are said to have had illegal dealings with one of the most murderous militias in the country, where millions have died in one of the bloodiest yet least visible conflicts in the world.”

“Former colleagues of mine who recently investigated similar allegations against Indian peacekeepers in Congo are worried that some of their most serious findings will also be ignored and not investigated further,” he added.

The U.N. OIOS reacted immediately to the allegations and noted that investigations cannot rely on rumours and unsubstantiated allegations. “During the course of his investigation, Mr Basanisi was not able to provide credible corroboration of a single allegation. In fact, he never progressed further than cataloguing allegations,” it said according to the reaction made available here.

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