Rebel pullback raises hopes for Congo peace

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By Finbarr O'Reilly

KANYABAYONGA, Congo (Reuters) - Hundreds of Congolese rebel fighters pulled back on Wednesday from frontline positions in a move U.N. peacekeepers hoped would open the way for talks on ending weeks of conflict in east Congo.

U.N. foot and air patrols were monitoring the withdrawal of renegade General Laurent Nkunda's Tutsi rebels from positions they had occupied after a rapid advance northwards in Democratic Republic of Congo's eastern North Kivu province.

The pullback raised hopes for a lull in almost daily confused clashes between the rebels, the government army and local militias which have raged for weeks, driving hundreds of thousands of civilians from their homes and creating a humanitarian emergency in the heart of Africa.

"Since yesterday evening they (the rebels) have been withdrawing. They are pulling back south on three axes - from Kanyabayonga towards Kibirizi, from Kanyabayonga towards Nyanzale and from Rwindi south," U.N. military spokesman Lt.-Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich told Reuters.

"Definitely, this is a good thing," Dietrich said. He estimated the withdrawing rebels "in the hundreds."

Nkunda, who demands direct talks on Congo's future with President Joseph Kabila, ordered the pullback after meeting at the weekend with a special U.N. peace envoy, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. He pledged to respect a shaky cease-fire and take part in U.N.-backed peace negotiations.

Dietrich said U.N. peacekeepers in Congo were to hold talks with senior rebel and government officers to clarify the U.N. role in "separation zones" aimed at keeping the armies apart.

Nkunda's rebels were pulling back south from territory they had taken, routing demoralised government troops, more than 100 km (60 miles) north of the North Kivu provincial capital Goma.

But they were still holding strategic positions just 15 km (nine miles) north of Goma, near Kibati.

Aid workers have been providing food and medical help to more than 200,000 displaced civilians at Kibati and around Goma and are trying to reach hundreds of thousands more cut off by the fighting in the hills and forests of North Kivu.

The U.N. Security Council is expected to vote this week to reinforce the U.N.'s peacekeeping contingent in Congo from around 17,000 troops and police now to over 20,000.

RESOURCES SEEN FUELLING CONFLICT

At Kirumba, near Kanyabayonga town which is the road gateway to the north of the province, government soldiers were recovering from fighting on Tuesday with their own militia allies, who had tried to make them stand and resist the rebels.

A government tank roared down the street of the hilltop village, where houses had been looted and belongings scattered on the road. Only a handful of civilians were visible.

Congolese government soldiers joked around the charred corpses of two Mai-Mai militia fighters, one with an umbrella skewered into his face. The Mai-Mai often fight with spears.

"We killed them because they attacked us with sharp weapons, and we burnt them because they're Mai-Mai, one soldier said.

The North Kivu fighting has again focussed world attention on Congo, one of the world's most violent countries, where more than 5 million people have been killed by conflict, hunger and disease since 1998. A five-year war that started on that date sucked in six African armies until peace was signed in 2003.

Western governments which backed a 2006 election that returned President Kabila to office are anxious that Congo with its vast resources of copper, cobalt, coltan, gold, diamonds and other riches should not be allowed to plunge back into chaos.

While backing reinforcement of the U.N. peacekeeping force, European Union officials and lawmakers called on Wednesday for safeguards to prevent illegal exploitation of Congo's natural resources and their use to finance armed conflict.

EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and French Secretary of State for European Affairs Jean-Pierre Jouyet, speaking for the French EU Presidency, both called for a greater U.N. role in ending illicit trade in Congo's minerals.

"We also have to address the root causes of the conflict ... find a solution to the pillaging of resources in the region and ... tackle the exporting of this mineral wealth to our countries," Jouyet told the European parliament in Strasbourg.

"Despite the massacres (in Congo) ... people are still getting rich on the back of all this," Alain Hutchinson of the European Socialists group said during the same debate.

(Additional reporting by David Lewis in Kinshasa and Ingrid Melander in Brussels; Writing by Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

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