By Joe Bavier KINSHASA, Dec 27 (Reuters) - A group of Congolese soldiers went on trial for war crimes on Wednesday, a month after U.N. investigators found mass graves inside their eastern army camp with some 30 bodies including women and children. The 14 defendants were based in Bavi, 40 km (25 miles) south of Bunia, the capital of Ituri district. A U.N. human rights team found the bodies in late November in three mass graves which appeared to have been recently dug. "The accused have been charged with murder as a war crime," Major Innocent Mayembe, president of the five-member military tribunal trying the case in Bunia, told Reuters. "In accordance with international conventions, this crime could carry a sentence of life imprisonment," he said. The United Nations said in November it believed the victims had disappeared during army operations against local militia in late August or early September, meaning the killings took place in the run-up to Congo's Oct. 29 presidential election run-off. The elections were the first free polls in more than 40 years in Democratic Republic of Congo and were meant to draw a line under a 1998-2003 civil war. The accused are members of the First Brigade, one of several units made up of a mix of former government loyalists and rebels who fought during a conflict which left an estimated 4 million people dead, mainly from the resulting humanitarian crisis. The new government forces have frequently been accused of human rights abuses, particularly during operations to pacify Congo's east, the scene of sporadic violence in the three years since the signing of a national peace deal. Ten of the defendants appeared in court. The others have fled and will be tried in absentia, Mayembe said. Anneke Van Woudenberg, a Congo expert with London-based Human Rights Watch, told Reuters the Congolese army "is probably the most abusive armed group on the ground in Congo". She said her group had documented scores of abuses in recent years but "these rarely make it to trial. The interesting thing about the Bavi massacre is that the Congolese army has actually arrested people". She said extra training that integrated brigades received appeared to do little to change their behaviour, noting the First Brigade had six months of training with Belgian forces, more than any other brigade. Proceedings were adjourned until Jan. 2. Mayembe expected a verdict by mid-February.
