(Adds rights group, detail)

By Joe Bavier

KINSHASA, Aug 10 (Reuters) - U.N. peacekeepers from Pakistan arranged armed escorts and provided food for illegal gold smugglers in eastern Congo but did not themselves trade weapons for gold, according to a U.N. 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 U.N. 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.

New York-based Human Rights Watch, one of the groups which originally made the accusations, criticised the report -- which also exposes the involvement of senior Congolese army officers -- for failing to fully investigate the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 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," U.N. mission spokesman Kemal Saiki said.

TARNISHED IMAGE

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

"We served as suppliers of gold to (U.N. 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 U.N. 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.

The mission said in July it was investigating separate allegations that Indian peacekeepers traded food and military intelligence with Rwandan Hutu rebels in return for gold.

Any punishment of the peacekeepers has in previous cases of misconduct been left to the troop contributing nations, but severe punishment for abuses is rare.

A military court in Bangladesh recently convicted three of the nation's U.N. soldiers of using excessive force in an incident that resulted in the deaths of two Congolese detainees and the beating of several others in early 2005.

Two of the soldiers received sentences of 89 days in prison, while the third was condemned to serve 60 days.

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