Deadlock over Congo withdrawal

GABORONE, Botswana -- Talks to move towards a new Democratic Republic of Congo government have stumbled over the withdrawal of foreign troops, reports have said.

The week-long talks are being held behind closed doors in Botswana in an effort to bring an end to the fighting that has dragged in six neighbouring nations.

The negotiations are the first to have brought political and armed factions together in a meeting supposed to eventually set a date, venue and rules for a transitional government agreed under an already signed peace accord.

But an adviser to peace mediator Ketumile Masire of Botswana told Reuters news agency that a row had erupted over the mechanics of the foreign troop withdrawals.

The adviser, Hacen Lebatt said: "They continued to agree that troops should withdraw before the dialogue starts proper, but they could not agree on the modalities."

He declined to give details.

But The Associated Press news agency quoted Vital Kamerhe, a spokesman for Congo's government, as blaming a Rwandan-backed rebel group for the delay.

The Congolese Rally for Democracy, which controls a huge section of territory in the east of the country, was the only group against the immediate pullback of troops, AP reported.

Kamerhe told the news agency: "We Congolese want foreign troops on all sides to withdraw from Congolese territory immediately…but the RCD has refused to sign."

Kin-Kiey Mulumba, a spokesman for the Rwandan-backed rebels, said the withdrawal of foreign troops could take place only within the framework of a 1999 peace deal signed by all warring sides in Lusaka, Zambia, AP said.

That deal called for a cease-fire, the withdrawal of foreign armies and a national dialogue to determine the country's future.

Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia have sent troops to DR Congo to fight alongside government forces.

Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda have sided with the rebels since 1998 in a bid to oust President Laurent Kabila, who in January was assassinated.

They accused Kabila's government of sheltering ethnic Hutu militias blamed for slaughtering 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda in 1994.

Mulumba's rebel group is highly influenced by the Tutsi-led government of Rwanda, which says it will not pull out of Congo until these Hutu militias are disarmed as called for by the Lusaka accords.

The talks have resumed after the assassination of Kabila, and the ushering in of a more co-operative stance by his son and successor Joseph Kabila.

Delegates have agreed to the immediate release of all political prisoners, the AP quoted opposition politician Eugene Diomi Ngongala as saying.

Also all people and goods should be able to move freely between rebel-and-government-held territories, the politician added.

No documents have yet been signed to put the agreements into practice.

Experts estimate the war has claimed 1.7 million lives.