Congo rebels advance despite peace pledge

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By Finbarr O'Reilly

RWINDI, Congo (Reuters) - Tutsi rebels in eastern Congo have overrun a government army base, advancing despite their leader's pledge to respect a cease-fire and engage in U.N.-backed peace talks, witnesses said on Monday.

Government troops abandoned their position late on Sunday at Rwindi, 130 km (80 miles) north of Goma in Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province, after a battle with the rebels involving small arms and heavier weapons. U.N. peacekeeping troops at Rwindi stayed in their base during the fighting.

Tutsi rebels loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda have continued to push north and extend territory under their control in North Kivu province, despite the commitment to a cease-fire and peace talks made by Nkunda on Sunday to a U.N. envoy.

The peace initiative by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, named special envoy by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, is aimed at ending weeks of renewed fighting in North Kivu which has displaced a quarter of a million civilians.

Obasanjo also met Congolese President Joseph Kabila and Rwandan President Paul Kagame at the weekend in an effort to stop the east Congo conflict from escalating into a repeat of a 1998-2003 Congo war that killed several million people.

A U.N. peacekeeper at Rwindi, who declined to be identified, told Reuters Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) forces had started advancing against government troops on Sunday, the day the rebel general met Obasanjo.

"At 7 p.m., there was firing from both sides ... small arms fire and long range heavy calibre weapons passing over our base in both directions ... By morning, the CNDP was here," he said.

The road into Rwindi was littered with military boots and blankets. At the town, a ranger post for the Virunga National Park, rebel fighters manned checkpoints abandoned by the army.

To the north, sporadic gunshots rang out that peacekeepers said were probably fired by hungry soldiers poaching animals.

Local residents said they wanted the conflict to stop. "Both sides were shooting for hours. The children were traumatised ... The U.N. soldiers were hiding in their trenches but we had to remain outside, said Clement Augustin Kasabuni, 33.

"There were more than 100 bombs that fell last night. What kind of cease-fire is that?" he asked.

RETREATING SOLDIERS

Nkunda is demanding direct talks with Kabila on Congo's future, something the president has so far refused to grant.

A Congolese official told Reuters on Monday Kabila's government would only negotiate with the rebel leader if he agreed to return to a January peace deal he abandoned on the grounds it was one-sided and manipulated by the government.

A U.N. official told Reuters that the retreating Congolese government soldiers at Rwindi destroyed ammunition and a rocket launcher by setting them on fire causing explosions and rockets to fire in the direction of U.N. peacekeepers, wounding one.

Rebels have collected large amounts of military hardware abandoned by the weak and chaotic Congolese army.

U.N. chief Ban has asked the Security Council to send 3,000 extra troops to reinforce the 17,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo, the biggest of its kind in the world.

Criticised for lack of action by Congolese civilians and by aid workers, the U.N. Congo force commanders say they cannot be everywhere to protect civilians in a country the size of the Western Europe, with few roads and where armed groups abound.

U.N. troubleshooter Obasanjo has held talks with Congo's neighbours Rwanda and Angola to seek their help in ending the North Kivu conflict. Its roots stem from Rwanda's 1994 genocide, when Hutu militias killed about 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus before fleeing into Congo.

Nkunda says his rebellion is protecting east Congo's Tutsi minority and accuses Kabila of using a Rwandan Hutu rebel group, the FDLR, which includes perpetrators of the 1994 genocide, to fight with the army against him.

For his part, the Congolese president accuses neighbouring Rwanda of supporting Nkunda's rebellion.

Rwandan President Kagame reiterated his denial of this on Monday and accused foreign governments of blaming his country for the Congo crisis while doing little themselves to stop it.

"It's either exaggerated or distorted to imply that Rwanda is holding a switch that will switch off Nkunda or that Rwanda initially switched him on," he told a news conference in Kigali.

"(Congo) needs ... to stop assuming that every problem comes from outside its borders," he added.

Obasanjo said on Sunday Nkunda had agreed to open a humanitarian corridor to send aid to displaced refugees and to take part in peace talks in Nairobi at an unspecified date.

(Additional reporting by Jack Kimball in Kigali; Writing by David Lewis; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Ralph Boulton)

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