GOMA, Congo -- A senior Congolese rebel leader said Wednesday he has ordered an investigation into reports his forces massacred 500 civilians, apparently in retaliation for an attack on his forces.
The Italian news service Misna said it had first-person reports that rebels hacked or shot to death residents in the village of Makobola, 10 miles south of the Lake Tanganyika port of Uvira."If this is true, those responsible will be punished," Ernest Wamba dia Wamba said. "I have ordered an investigation by the local authorities. We have to wait for the results."
The news agency, which reports on the activities of Italian missionaries overseas, said a commander in the Rwandan army led the ethnic Tutsi rebel unit that carried out the massacre between Dec. 30 and Jan. 1.
Officials in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, were not immediately available for comment. Rwanda, along with Uganda, is backing the rebel bid to overthrow Congolese President Laurent Kabila.
Rebel officials have barred reporters from traveling to Makobola. They said Wednesday a visit to the site might be arranged soon.
The Rev. Giulio Albanese, head of the Rome-based news agency, said the killers methodically tracked down their victims.
"It was a very long massacre," Albanese said. "They killed many, many children, many women, many elders. Many innocent people."
Albanese said the massacre was in apparent retaliation for an attack by local militia members that left an unknown number of rebel troops dead. The loose-knit militia, known as the Mai-Mai, view the Rwandan- and Ugandan-backed insurgents as foreign invaders but also oppose Kabila's government.
The rebel Congolese Democratic Coalition, which now controls the eastern half of the central African country, is made up of ethnic Tutsis, disaffected government soldiers and opposition politicians. The insurgents have accused Kabila of misrule, corruption and inciting ethnic hatred against the Congolese Tutsi minority.
Relations between the rebels and local groups have been strained since a massacre in August, when rebels admitted to killing several hundred civilians in Kasika, also south of Uvira, in a revenge attack.
Missionaries in Kasika said they uncovered 633 bodies from the massacre at the Catholic mission and the nearby village.