Congo rebel chief says "war" if no talks

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By Hereward Holland

JOMBA, Congo (Reuters) - Congolese Tutsi rebel leader General Laurent Nkunda threatened war on Saturday unless Congo's government entered a new round of talks with him.

Nkunda, whose forces have routed government troops and gained swathes of territory in North Kivu province in the east of Democratic Republic of Congo since launching a new offensive in August, has repeatedly demanded negotiations.

Nkunda said he had been told by the U.N. special envoy, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, that Kinshasa had accepted the principle of talks.

"If there is no negotiation, let us say then there is war," Nkunda told reporters after meeting Obasanjo in the rebel commander's native village, Jomba.

"I know that (the government) has no capacity to fight, so they have only one choice: negotiations," he said.

"We asked for a response as to where, when, and with whom we are going to do these talks. For us, we propose Nairobi and for the mediator we proposed chief Obasanjo."

Video footage of the meeting provided by the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo, MONUC, showed Obasanjo criticising Nkunda for recent hostilities, including Thursday's capture of the town of Ishasha, on the border with Uganda.

"What has happened in the last 14 days has not made me happy," Obasanjo said, rising to his feet to address Nkunda, who remained seated at a low table.

"I tried to build a relationship of trust, but I don't receive the same from you."

Obasanjo said Nkunda should have informed him he was planning fresh offensives.

"You are making me a laughing stock," he said.

Nkunda, who wore a white robe with matching shoes and scarf, wrung his hands said the cease-fire he had declared applied only to fighting against the Congolese army, not against what he described as "foreign negative forces."

That cease-fire has brought nearly two weeks of relative calm. But his men have continued attacking Congolese and Rwandan militia allies of the government.

CLASHES

Obasanjo was in Congo on his second mission in two weeks to try to end fighting in North Kivu that has displaced some 250,000 civilians and at one point brought Nkunda's troops to within 10 km (6 miles) of the provincial capital, Goma.

The envoy, who met President Joseph Kabila in the mineral-rich African country on Friday, has pressed for talks.

Government ministers this week rebuffed the possibility of direct negotiations with Nkunda, calling for him to return to a earlier peace pact signed in January.

Emerging from his one-hour meeting with the rebel leader, Obasanjo avoided questions.

"We have advanced the course of peace," he said.

MONUC said clashes between Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) and armed groups erupted for a second day near Masisi town on Saturday.

The roots of the North Kivu conflict stem from Rwanda's 1994 genocide, when extremist Hutu militias killed some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus before fleeing into Congo.

That led to two wars and a humanitarian crisis that killed more than 5 million people, mostly from hunger and disease.

Nkunda accuses Kabila of arming Rwandan Hutu rebels, including some perpetrators of the 1994 genocide, to fight alongside the weak and chaotic Congolese army.

Around 1 million civilians have been displaced by clashes between the CNDP, the army, local Mai Mai militias, and Rwandan rebels since Nkunda relaunched his insurgency in late 2006.

The U.N. Security Council agreed this month to send 3,000 troops to boost Congo's beleaguered mission, the world's largest peacekeeping force with around 17,000 soldiers and police.

(Additional reporting by Yves Boussen in Jomba and Joe Bavier in Kinshasa; Editing by Daniel Magnowski and Angus MacSwan)

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