A VER CUÁNTAS CACEROLAS sonarán por las calles de nuestras capitales de la paz tras esto:

Human rights activists charged Tuesday that U.N. peacekeepers knowingly gunned down civilians in a raid that targeted a marketplace, pinning down dozens of people down during the biggest gunbattle in the U.N.'s six-year mission in Congo.

The human rights group Justice Plus listed names of several alleged civilian victims from a March 1 raid in eastern Congo and said they ``paid with their life, while the mandate of the United Nations was to protect them.''

The United Nations said its troops fired only when they were attacked, and that women and children were among those who fired weapons.

The charges Tuesday came as U.N. peacekeepers announced they were staging an assault on a militia camp, targeting fighters in eastern Congo who have killed thousands in a years-old ethnic conflict. But the militia fled the camp before the troops arrived, spokesman Mohammad Abdul-Wahab said by telephone from Bunia, capital of the violent Ituri province and some 25 miles from the targeted camp.

He said the 300 peacekeepers sent to attack the camp instead spent the day dismantling it.

Accused of years of ineffectiveness, peacekeepers now are aggressively seeking to disarm fighters after thousands defied an April 1 ultimatum to surrender weapons. Some 9,000 of an estimated 15,000 fighters gave up their weapons.

U.N forces have raided three militia camps in the past month and killed up to 75 fighters.

(Via Tim Blair)