But who will be punished?

Anneke Van Woudenberg, a senior London-based researcher with Human Rights Watch, has spent much of the past decade documenting atrocities in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Her job has brought her face-to-face with horrific violence, which she has doggedly chronicled since she first started working in the Congo in 1999, at the height of what was sometimes called Africa's "world war."

Formerly an investment banker in London, the New Brunswick-raised Van Woudenberg was drawn to the country and human rights work because of the resilience of the people as they endured terrible tragedy.

"Wars," she says, "bring out the best and worst of humanity."

More than five million people died in the fighting in the Congo between 1998 and 2003, when hostilities officially ended.

But the violence has continued, despite the fact that the UN maintains its biggest peacekeeping force 20,000 soldiers in the DRC, the country formerly known as Zaire.

What's more, there is talk now that Canada will be asked by the UN to take charge of the peacekeeping forces that are there.

Van Woudenberg spoke with CBC producer Jennifer Clibbon about Human Rights Watch's recent report, which deals with the spiralling violence on both sides and the treacherous situation faced by the UN force as it tries to keep the peace.

CBC News:Your report entitled "You will be Punished: Attacks on Civilians in Eastern Congo," which you presented to the UN in December 2009 was powerful and controversial. Why?

Van Woudenberg: The report was based on the military operations that happened in Eastern Congo last year. There were two back-to-back military operations; the first, a five-week operation with the Rwandan army, followed very closely by a second operation supported by the United Nations.

These were military operations against a Rwandan rebel group called the FDLR, which is a Hutu group, some of whose leaders participated in the earlier genocide in Rwanda.

It's a group that has existed for the past 15 years and is part of the reason why Eastern Congo remains so unstable.

How serious were these incidents?

I have been working in Congo for 10 years and I've documented a lot of these kinds of massacres and killings. But the events of last year were probably among the top five worst events that I have seen.

About 1,400 civilians were killed as part of these military operations, by both sides.

Thousands of women were raped, and there was immense displacement. More than a million people were forced to flee for their lives.

The UN was saying these operations were going in the right direction. And I'm not sure that was the case. You don't deal with a rebel threat by creating more human rights abuses.

So we were deeply critical of the UN's support for these operations, which actually targeted the very civilians they said they were supposed to be protecting.

The report was based on 23 fact-finding missions. What does that mean exactly?

We were able to respond quickly, going out to front line places, talking to people literally as they were running from the conflict in north and south Kivu [the region that borders on Uganda and Rwanda].

We were able to speak to the perpetrators, to Congolese army soldiers who were sometimes partaking in the killing or witnessing it. There were many soldiers unhappy at the targeting of civilians.

We spent days and weeks in these locations, interviewing victims, witnesses, talking to doctors and nurses, and local human rights groups.

We interviewed over a thousand people for this research, which is why we are so confident on the figures that we put together. And I still believe that we only have the tip of the iceberg.

When we talk about 1,400 civilians killed, these are not people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time or civilians caught in the crossfire.

These were people deliberately killed, hacked to death by machetes, shot in the head at point blank range, beaten to death by clubs.

And, in 2009, the United Nations human rights section didn't publish a single report about the events in Eastern Congo. It was seen as too controversial.

But you were careful not to say that the UN was complicit in these atrocities, right?

We didn't use the word "complicit" because it's not a very legally specific term.

But by providing food, fuel, transportation of weapons and ammunition, transportation of troops, and using the attack helicopters to back up the Congolese army in these operations, the UN has become a belligerent in the conflict.

When they knowingly support troops that are committing war crimes, they themselves can be held to account for violations of human rights.

The UN has to be stricter with the Congolese army.

Known human rights violators, who have a track record of abuses, should not be involved in military operations backed by the UN. So far, the UN has not been very strong on that.

Is it fair to say that the UN mission in the Congo can't be fully effective or even monitored properly as long as leading UN countries are not directly involved?

One of the difficulties of the mission is that [even though] it has a strong mandate given to it by the UN Security Council, none of the richer, more powerful countries have sent troops to Eastern Congo.

All of last year, those in charge were urgently demanding more helicopter capability, which is crucial in a place like Congo to better protect civilians.

Who has helicopter capability? The richer countries.

The big troop-contributing countries India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Uruguay. These are not armies with the same capability as the American or British or French forces.

So, I think this does go back to the UN Security Council.

If it is serious about better protecting civilians in Eastern Congo, it has to put its money where its mouth is and give the mission the means and the capability to do that.