Congo Government, Rebels Want Peace From Talks

Nkunda`s National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) declared a ceasefire having arrived at Goma, in late October.

Congo's government and eastern rebels go into their first face-to-face talks on Monday hoping to cement a fragile ceasefire and bring other armed groups on board.

Battle-hardened rebels led by renegade Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda repeatedly have routed government forces in North Kivu province since late August, pushing President Joseph Kabila's government into reluctantly accepting direct talks in Kenya.

Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) declared a ceasefire having arrived at the gates of the provincial capital, Goma, in late October.

However, sporadic clashes continue between Nkunda's fighters and the Mai Mai militia and Rwandan Hutu rebels, who roam a province rich in gold, diamonds, coltan and tin and often support Kabila's weak and chaotic army.

"What is important right now is that we have a generalised ceasefire. For the moment, there is only a ceasefire between the CNDP and the army," Congolese Foreign Minister Alexis Thambe Mwamba told Reuters on Saturday.

The need to consider other armed groups highlights the scale of the challenge in securing peace in a region where violence has simmered since Rwanda's 1994 genocide, when extremist Hutus killed 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus and then fled to Congo.

Mwamba announced that the government had agreed to talk with CNDP delegates in Nairobi on December 8 after meeting his Rwandan counterpart, Rosemary Museminali, on Friday.

Great Lakes neighbours Congo and Rwanda accuse each other of backing rebels hostile to their governments. Kigali has fought in two Congo wars since 1996, ostensibly to hunt Hutu forces.

But the ministers have agreed to a joint plan of operations to disband the Rwandan Hutu Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), some of whom took part in the genocide.

Nkunda has used the Hutu rebels as justification for his four-year rebellion of some 5,000 men.

"We want an engagement from the government and its allies. If the government can't convince its allies, the ceasefire will have little chance," said Jean-Michel Kambasu Ngeve, the No. 2 in Nkunda's rebel CNDP.

"This is perhaps the biggest step we can reach during these talks," he added.

Previous agreements to disband the FDLR and put an end to Nkunda's rebellion have failed. While Nkunda called for direct talks, Kabila had said he must return to a January 2008 peace process that also included other armed groups.

But the military defeats have left Kabila with few options.

"WON'T DISRUPT TALKS"

Nkunda will not attend the Nairobi talks himself, Kambasu Ngeve said. The government has yet to name its delegation.

Congo's renewed promise to take on the Hutu rebels appears aimed at defusing fears of another regional war. The 1998-2003 war caused a humanitarian crisis that killed five million people and sucked in six neighbouring armies.

A spokesman for the FDLR said on Saturday that the rebels were calling for their own negotiations with the Rwandan government but would not undermine Congo's peace efforts.

"If the ceasefire is signed, I don't see how the FDLR would disrupt it," Lieutenant-Colonel Edmond Garambe said. "But if we are attacked, we reserve the right to defend ourselves."

Kigali consistently rejects the idea of talks with the FDLR.

The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR has said it cannot account for more than 90,000 of the 250,000 newly displaced by the clashes.

Congo is home to over 17,000 U.N. soldiers, making it the world's largest U.N. peacekeeping mission. But the force has been unable to stem the fighting and it is likely to take several months for the 3,000 promised reinforcements to arrive.

European Union nations have been asked by the U.N. to provide a bridging force but diplomats say such a deployment appears increasingly unlikely.