U.N. envoy makes fresh bid to broker Congo peace

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By Joe Bavier

KINSHASA (Reuters) - A U.N. special envoy met Congo's president on Friday in a fresh attempt to negotiate peace with Tutsi rebels, but the warring sides seemed far apart on how to end their festering conflict in the country's east.

Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo met President Joseph Kabila on his second mission in two weeks to try to end fighting in Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province where thousands of people are still fleeing fighting.

A cease-fire declared by Tutsi rebel General Laurent Nkunda has halted battles with government troops, but Nkunda's fighters have been attacking Congolese and Rwandan militia allies of the government, sending refugees fleeing east into Uganda.

Obasanjo, who met both Nkunda and Kabila almost two weeks ago, had pressed for direct talks to end violence since August that has driven more than 250,000 people from their homes.

But former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, who accompanied Obasanjo on behalf of leaders in Africa's Great Lakes region, played down the prospect of direct talks soon.

"I think it would be very imprudent of him (Nkunda) to ask for direct talks at once. Dialogue doesn't start at the top," Mkapa told reporters after he and Obasanjo met Kabila.

"Everyone concedes now that really it's pointless to continue pursuing a military solution ... The next step is that we are meeting with Mr Nkunda tomorrow," Mkapa said.

Recent statements from both sides have dampened prospects of face-to-face talks between Nkunda and Kabila.

Kabila's government, which calls Nkunda's revolt an unlawful challenge against a democratically elected administration, insists that he should return to a peace pact he signed in January along with other eastern rebel and militia factions.

That deal is named "Amani" after the Swahili for "peace."

But Nkunda has rejected it as one-sided and wants direct talks on security and ethnic issues in the vast, mineral-rich former Belgian colony, which was devastated by a 1998-2003 war involving many of its neighbours.

Rebel spokesman Bertrand Bisimwa told Reuters on Friday that Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) movement was unhappy about the government's position.

"If ... confirmed, it means the government has closed all the doors," Bisimwa said. But he added the rebels would not immediately abandon the cease-fire if there were no direct talks.

"He (Nkunda) has said to President Olusegun Obasanjo that he is committed to the Amani programme in principle. He has difficulties with the manner of its implementation," Mkapa said.

Cease-fire VIOLATIONS

The 17,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping in Congo (MONUC), which has appeared powerless to stop the violence, is awaiting troop reinforcements which could take at least two months to arrive.

In the past three days, more than 10,000 Congolese civilians have fled over the eastern border into Uganda to escape rebel advances and attacks in North Kivu's Rutshuru district. Refugees have reported family members being killed and homes ransacked.

Rebel chief Nkunda has denied his forces, which took the border town on Ishasha on Thursday, have broken the cease-fire.

The renegade general, who says his rebellion defends Congo's Tutsis, says his fighters are flushing out traditional foes belonging to local Mai-Mai militia and Rwandan Hutu rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

The FDLR includes perpetrators of Rwanda's 1994 genocide that slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Tutsis.

MONUC military spokesman Lt.-Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich condemned the recent rebel operations as a cease-fire violation.

Humanitarian agencies, struggling to feed and assist hundreds of thousands of civilians housed in squalid camps or cut off in the bush, are worried that the U.N. peacekeeping reinforcements may arrive too late to prevent more bloodshed.

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

(Additional reporting by Hereward Holland in Goma; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Alistair Thomson)

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