By Joe Bavier
KINSHASA (Reuters) - Tutsi rebels in Congo shot, hacked andbeat to death at least 30 Hutus last month while their leadersnegotiated a peace settlement, United Nations investigatorssaid.
The killings, carried out by soldiers loyal to renegadeGeneral Laurent Nkunda, took place on January 16 and 17 aroundthe village of Kalonge, around 100 km (64 miles) west of Goma,capital of the violence-torn North Kivu province.
At the time, a delegation representing Nkunda's NationalCongress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) was in Gomaattending talks that would broker a ceasefire on January 23between government troops, Nkunda loyalists, and local Mai Maimilitia.
"It seems almost certain that it was CNDP soldiers whocarried out the killings," a U.N. human rights team concludedin a confidential report seen by Reuters on Wednesday.
"The massacre of this number of civilians is classified asa crime against humanity ... Also, given the fact that all thevictims identified so far are Hutu, the incrimination ofgenocide should not be precluded."
Nkunda could not be reached for comment, but CNDP spokesmanRene Abandi told Reuters he was not aware of the incident.
According to the report, for two days CNDP soldiersoccupied positions in and around Kalonge, in one instancemanning a barricade along a trail leading to a grouping ofvillages there.
Nkunda loyalists arrested passing civilians, questionedthem, and if they were believed to have travelled from areasunder the control of a rival Mai Mai militia, killed them.
The area had been the scene of ongoing clashes between theCNDP and the Mai Mai in the weeks leading up to the killings.
Nearly all the victims were men, though a one-year-oldbaby, a 14-year-old boy, and a woman were also killed.
"The victims were killed by gunshot, machetes, and hammerblows to the head," the report said.
"That victims were arrested, tied up, beaten and shot atclose range, some literally hunted down in their fields,suggests that the killings were deliberate," it said.
Some 450,000 North Kivu residents fled fighting betweengovernment troops, Nkunda loyalists, Rwandan Hutu rebels, andMai Mai in the year leading up to last month's peace deal.
The conflict, which has its roots in neighbouring Rwanda's1994 genocide in which around 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutuswere slaughtered, has raged on despite the official end toCongo's broader 1998-2003 war.
(Editing by Nick Tattersall)
