UN aided colonel "with blood on his hands"

Then in November, UN. officials said the mission would halt support to units implicated in human rights violations, when its own lawyers warned that support of abusive commanders could leave the UN peacekeeping mission vulnerable to charges of complicity in war crimes.

McCrurummen's piece lays bare some disturbing facts about the murky behavior of the UN which has been running a peacekeeping mission for the past 10 years, following two devastating Congolese wars which have caused more death than any war since WW II.

Its the largest and most expensive peacekeeping mission in the world and has attracted more than its fair share of controversy for all the good work it has done in saving lives.
No fewer than 50 Congolese NGOs have demanded the removal of Col Zimurinda.
Their four-page formal complaint describes a litany of serious abuses - including massacres of civilians, summary executions, rape, and the recruitment of children - committed by troops under Zimurinda's command from 2007 to the present. The groups requested the immediate suspension of Zimurinda and his removal from North Kivu pending the outcome of judicial investigations.

The complaint was addressed to General Amuli Bahigwa, the officer in command of Congolese army operations in eastern Congo. The Congolese groups said that abuses were continuing under Zimurinda's command, including with his direct involvement.

Read the rest of her investigation here

Zimurinda and one of his deputies said they were still receiving supplies in December and January. A U.N. spokesman, Kevin Kennedy, said he could confirm that supplies already "in the pipeline" had continued to flow as the mission waited for legal guidance from U.N. headquarters, and he said of Zimurinda that "there may have been units under his sector command that received support."

At a news conference last week, the United Nations' head of peacekeeping, Alain Le Roy, said the mission is not currently supporting units with which Zimurinda is associated.

Top U.N. officials have said human rights abuses by the Congolese military would have been worse without their participation, and they stressed the larger import of ridding the area of rebels, whose presence has helped fuel conflict for years. Among the most recent reports being reviewed by U.N. investigators are allegations that Zimurinda had given orders to execute 13 civilians, including a baby, who were shot in the back of the head and tossed into a river.

Zimurinda, 38, who controls several mineral mines in this lush, hilly farming area, has denied any involvement in human rights abuses. He calls his accusers "the enemies of peace."

"We cannot say we are happy with the level of support," Zimurinda said in the interview. "But anyway, we want to say 'thank you' to the U.N."

The U.N.-backed operations were the result of a major rapprochement between Congo and Rwanda and were considered by the United Nations, United States and others as a crucial step toward resolving one of the world's deadliest conflicts. The rebel group targeted in the operations includes leaders accused in the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda.

But the campaign, initially backed by Rwandan soldiers, has been a disaster for civilians, with soldiers and rebels accused of committing brutal rapes, massacres and other abuses designed to punish villagers deemed uncooperative with their side. When the Rwandan military departed in February 2009, Congolese officials asked the United Nations to step in, placing the peacekeepers in the position of partnering with one of the most abusive armies in the world.

Nearly a year later, the continued support of commanders such as Zimurinda has left the mission open to criticism that it has helped perpetuate a brutal status quo in the east. At worst, human rights activists say, the mission knowingly assisted commanders as they committed atrocities and set up personal fiefdoms across eastern Congo.

A recent U.N. report found that although the operations have pushed the rebels out of mines, for instance, they are quickly being replaced by rogue army officers such as Zimurinda. A small U.S. military team is assisting the Congolese army with intelligence- gathering in its operations.

The U.N. list that included Zimurinda's name, titled in part "Officers Involved in Crimes Under International Humanitarian Law or Responsible for Gross Human Rights Violations Serving in Operation Kimia II," was drawn up around June 2009, according to people familiar with it.

"The policy was evolving all through last year," Kennedy, the U.N. spokesman, said. "Essentially, we had to drive the bus, fix the bus and write the highway code all at the same time. It took a long time to work out this policy, there's no question about that."

The military operations were suspended in December. By that time, more than a million civilians had been displaced and 1,400 deliberately killed, about half by the army, according to a recent report by the group Human Rights Watch. A new U.N. policy will govern the mission's role during the next phase of the operations, set to begin within weeks. This time, Kennedy said, support will be limited to about 1,600 soldiers from units with a clean human rights record.

Still, a preliminary list of those units includes two under Zimurinda's command. And human rights activists say the new U.N. policy should make much stronger demands on the army, conditioning support on the removal of all known abusive commanders from the operations, which involves about 60,000 soldiers.

One of Zimurinda's officers, Maj. Gakwerere Dieudonne, said he had not heard any news that the United Nations was cutting supplies. "Anytime we ask them to supply us, they supply," he said.

read it in full here