Global Policy Forum

By Mark Dummett

Government troops killed at least 100 civilians in a town in the southern Democratic Republic of Congo, witnesses and a human rights group said on Thursday. The killings took place after an argument broke out between soldiers and militiamen known as the Mai Mai on November 10. Tens of thousands of residents have since fled Ankoro, in Katanga province near the frontline with rebel-held territory.

"The army accused the population of supporting the Mai Mai. They burned down their houses and started to massacre them," said a resident of Ankoro who has fled to the regional capital, Lubumbashi, and asked not to be named. The government said a joint-ministerial team would visit Ankoro town on Friday to investigate the killings.

"Our mission will not ignore anything," the Minister of Human Rights Ntumba Luaba told Reuters. "We have the responsibility to assure the protection of all our people."

The minister acknowledged there had been bloody clashes in the Ankoro region in past weeks, between some army soldiers and Mai Mai traditional warriors, but did not say whether there was any truth in the claims that civilians had been killed. The Ankoro resident added that people have also fled their homes in nearby Kabongo and Malemba N'Kulu.

"The people are caught between two fires, the army and the Mai Mai," he said. "The situation is still tense and we are waiting for the authorities to do something about it." A human rights organization in Lubumbashi asked the Kinshasa government to open an inquiry into the reports of the massacre.

The Congo-based Human Rights and Development Commission said more than 1,200 houses in Ankoro were burned down, 39 bodies were found in the ashes and others are still being pulled out of the Congo river, where the corpses were thrown.

The rights organization said more than 75,000 people have fled toward the town of Manono in rebel-held territory. "The military and civilian authorities knew about this drama, but instead of trying to calm it down, airplanes flew in reinforcements from Kamina and Lubumbashi," the group said in a statement.

The spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping operation in Congo, Hamadoun Toure, said the mission received reports of clashes between government soldiers and militiamen, but could not confirm reports of casualty figures. MAI MAI

The Mai Mai militias are traditional warriors, armed by Kinshasa to fight in its war against Rwandan and Ugandan-backed rebels controlling the eastern third of Congo. But throughout eastern Congo they have been accused of grave human rights violations and the resident of Ankoro said one group enjoyed cannibalism. "There is one group who kills people and then eats their flesh," the resident said.

The killings come as the main Congo rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) holds talks in Pretoria, South Africa, to come up with a power-sharing deal with the government of President Joseph Kabila to end years of war.

An estimated two million people have died during the war, mainly from war-induced hunger and disease. War broke out in Congo in August 1998 when Rwanda and Uganda backed Congolese rebels sought to oust then-President Laurent Kabila. Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia sent troops to support the government.