KINSHASA, Aug 10: UN peacekeepers from Pakistan arranged armed escorts and provided food for gold smugglers in eastern Congo but did not themselves trade weapons for gold, according to a UN report seen by Reuters on Friday.

Human rights groups had in May accused Pakistani peacekeepers of trafficking arms for gold with a militia they were meant to be disarming while stationed in the eastern mining town of Mongbwalu in late 2005.

“(Investigators) established that (Pakistani) peacekeepers deployed to Mongbwalu provided transport, meals and security for the ... group during their visits to Mongbwalu in November and December 2005,” the internal UN report said.

“During these visits, (the traffickers) purchased significant quantities of unwrought gold without the appropriate government authorisations,” it said.

The report did not say what the Pakistani peacekeepers received in return for their help. When the allegations were initially made in May, Pakistan rejected them as malicious and distorted but said it was investigating.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch, one of the groups which originally made the accusations, criticised the report – which also exposes the involvement of senior Congolese army officers – for failing to fully investigate the collaboration.

“This was a mafia-like organisation. It is clear they were working as a group and were profiting as a result,” said Anneke Van Woudenberg, a Congo researcher for the HRW.

Investigators failed to consider new information available more than a month before the final report was ready, she said.

“We take note that they are not satisfied with the report.

But if that is the case, let them submit the proof of their allegations,” UN mission spokesman Kemal Saiki said.

In May, two former members of the Front of Nationalists and Integrationists (FNI), a militia responsible for the murders of nine UN peacekeepers in 2005, circulated a letter claiming they had worked for the Pakistani peacekeepers.

“We served as suppliers of gold to (UN mission) MONUC,” wrote “Dragon” Drati-Massasi and “Kung Fu” Mateso-Nyinga.

“It is important to add honestly that MONUC equipped us with arms and ammunition in order to secure the town of Mongbwalu.”

The UN report made no mention of the letter.

The findings threaten to further tarnish the image of the world body’s 17,000-member peacekeeping mission, credited with guiding the central African nation to landmark polls last year after a 1998-2003 war but repeatedly plagued by scandal.