Congo investigates video of ‘massacre’ by soldiers

The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s government said yesterday that it was investigating a video that appears to show Congolese troops shooting dead a group of apparent militia members armed with slingshots and wooden batons.The seven-minute video, which was shared widely on social media and seen by Reuters, shows men in Congolese army uniforms saying that they are participating in an operation against the Kamwina Nsapu militia.It was not possible to confirm the video’s authenticity independently or when it was recorded.Congolese forces have been battling an uprising by the militia in central Congo’s Kasai provinces, which was triggered when they killed its leader Kamwina Nsapu in August.The United Nations said this week it had reports the army had killed at least 101 people in clashes in the region between February 9 and February 13, including 39 women.Congolese human rights minister Marie-Ange Mushobekwa said a probe had been launched into the video.“Since we received the video, the ministries of human rights, interior, justice and defence have been working on it ... to try to authenticate these images,” she told Reuters. “As soon as possible, we will be able to say what it’s all about.”The footage is filmed from slightly behind the roughly dozen men wearing Congolese military uniforms and shows them advancing on foot towards a group of men and women on a dirt road, who were singing “Our land, our land” in Tshiluba, a language of Kasai-Central.The men are heard speaking Lingala, the language used by Congo’s army, and Swahili, spoken in the east of the country.“These bastards, they’re coming to get killed,” one of the men in military uniform can be heard saying, and then an order is shouted: “Advance! Shoot!”The soldiers begin firing, without any attempt to find shelter. Nobody is seen shooting back.The shooting stops, and the video shows the soldiers amid the bodies littering the ground.They fire at some to finish them off, starting with a woman.“Here we are in the village of Mwanza-Lomba, we came across them today. We have shown them that power is the law,” the person filming says.“There are lots of them but we’ll chase them to infinity, he said.“Look at them, they’re armed with slingshots, wear red scarves around their heads; they have grisgris on their belts,” he says, referring to amulets associated with voodoo.“This one here isn’t dead,” one of men says in Lingala, referring to a bloodied young man lying in the grass.Another uniformed man then shoots him in the head.Mwanza-Lomba is in Kasai-Oriental, between Mbuji-Mayi, the capital of the state, and Kananga, the capital of Kasai-Central.The army’s spokesman could not be reached for comment.Militia violence in the Congo, a tinder box of conflicts over land, ethnicity and minerals, has been worsened by President Joseph Kabila’s failure to step down when his mandate expired in December, and analysts say it risks spinning out of control.A UN spokeswoman said this week that the apparently high death toll over the last two weeks suggested “excessive and disproportionate use of force by the soldiers”.Earlier, government spokesman condemned the video as a “ridiculous montage”.“What kind of army would let someone film while they kill?” said government spokesman Lambert Mende. “This is the work of desperate people. It’s clumsy and ridiculous. It’s worthy of scenes from a Rambo movie.”A spokesman for the UN mission for the stabilisation of the country, MONUSCO, could not be reached yesterday, but a source in the mission said it was investigating “the video and other claims” regarding operations in the Kasai regions.An AFP analysis was unable to confirm when or where the video was made.