Congolese army soldiers are kidnapping civilians to provide forced labor in the country's northeast, U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said on Monday, two weeks before the country winds up historic post-war elections. 

Civilians abducted in the volatile Ituri district have been forced to work in fields, dig in gold mines, transport goods for the army at gunpoint and, in some cases, have then been killed, the New York-based rights group said. 

Ituri was a particularly bloody corner of the Democratic Republic of Congo's 1998-2003 war, which sucked in six neighbouring states and sparked a humanitarian disaster that has killed over 4 million people. 

A presidential run-off and provincial elections on Oct. 29 should wind up a long and costly peace process but violence continues in much of the east, where rag-tag army units, backed up by thousands of U.N. peacekeepers, still battle militia fighters. 

"Congolese government soldiers were sent to Ituri to protect civilians against abuses by local militias, but they themselves are devastating the area," Alison Des Forges, senior Africa adviser at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. 

"Civilians being held without charge to provide free labor to the soldiers must be released at once," she said. 

Human Rights Watch called on the authorities in Congo to investigate and prosecute soldiers suspected of the crimes. 

Three years after the war officially ended, the army remains a chaotic and often unpaid collection of fighters from the plethora of armed groups that took part in Congo's war. 
They are backed by U.N. peacekeepers in operations against rebel groups and militia fighters still resisting central authority. But they often pose as much of a threat to the population as the gunmen they are sent to fight against. 

HRW said that, during the last two months, researchers had spoken to dozens of victims and witnesses who described forced labor under the government's soldiers. 

"One elderly man described how government soldiers in August took him from a displacement camp at Kagaba village for five days and forced him to carry firewood and manioc to their military camp," the organization said. 

A spokesman for the army was not immediately available for comment. HRW said the army had blamed militia groups for the attacks on civilians. 

But the army's recent confirmation of promotions to the rank of colonel for two militia leaders has dismayed many working to restore justice in a country where impunity has reigned during the last decade of war. 

"The Congolese army has become known as the country's biggest human rights abuser," said Des Forges. "The authorities need to take action against all war criminals, including those in their own ranks." 

"Candidates should make this a key pledge in their election platforms," she added.