Congo and Rwanda agree plan to disband FDLR militia

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By Joe Bavier

GOMA, Congo (Reuters) - Congo and Rwanda have agreed a military plan to try to disband a Rwandan Hutu militia whose presence in eastern Congo is seen as a root cause of enduring conflict there, the Congolese Foreign Minister said on Thursday.

Alexis Thambwe Mwamba said the plan to tackle the FDLR armed group was drawn up by officers from the Great Lakes neighbours and agreed with his Rwandan counterpart Rosemary Museminali.

The two ministers met in Goma, capital of Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province, where weeks of fighting have displaced a quarter of a million people.

The conflict pits Tutsi rebels led by renegade General Laurent Nkunda against the Congolese army and Rwandan Hutu fighters from the rebel Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

Nkunda cites the presence in east Congo of the FDLR, which includes perpetrators of Rwanda's 1994 genocide of Tutsis by Hutus, as the main justification for his Tutsi rebellion, which has conquered fresh territory in recent weeks.

Mwamba said the joint plan, whose details he refused to reveal, would be signed on Friday.

"The FDLR must either go back to Rwanda or become non-combatant in Congolese territory," he told reporters.

The Congolese minister said implementation of the plan could involve friendly outside forces, such as the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo (MONUC) or soldiers from the southern African SADC bloc, which has offered troops to help pacify east Congo.

Nkunda has declared a cease-fire with the Congolese government army, but his Tutsi fighters are still battling the FDLR, whose existence many regional experts believe is at the heart of the persisting fighting in North Kivu.

"They (the FDLR) are actually the root cause of the insecurity that we see around," Museminali said.

United Nations peacekeepers in Congo fear that without a political settlement the violence could escalate into a repeat of the wider 1998-2003 regional war that devastated Congo.

DEMANDS FOR TALKS

Congo and Rwanda have accused each other of supporting rebels in east Congo hostile to their governments. Rwandan President Paul Kagame's Tutsi-led administration denies backing Nkunda, while Congolese President Joseph Kabila denies his army sides with the FDLR.

The neighbours were enemies in the 1998-2003 Congo war that sucked in four other African states and created a humanitarian crisis that has killed about 5.4 million people in a decade.

Congo pledged last year to disarm the FDLR by force if necessary, but Rwanda says little progress had been made.

The Goma talks are the latest of several meetings between the Congolese and Rwandan governments.

Nkunda's rebel National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) has made territorial gains in North Kivu since late August. He wants direct talks on Congo's future with Kabila's government, which Kabila has so far refused.

A spokesman for the FDLR, Lt.-Col. Edmond Ngarambe, said talks aimed at pacifying eastern Congo must include his movement's fighters. "They have a role to play too," he said.

The FDLR is demanding a deal which would allow its fighters to return home to Rwanda and operate as a political movement.

The U.N. plans to send reinforcements to east Congo to try to pacify North Kivu, but these could take months to arrive.

(For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/)

(Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Giles Elgood)

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