Two former rebel groups in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo pledged today to bury their differences to help disarm and repatriate Rwandan fighters threatening the peace process.
Congo's main warring factions agreed a peace deal in Apriland a transitional government has absorbed former rebel groupswith a view to holding elections in two years.
However, the east has remained volatile, shaken by sporadicfighting and ethnic massacres.
Several hundred civilians in the remote eastern town ofKanyabayonga cheered as leaders from the two former rebel groupshugged and promised to work together for peace.
The former rivals, the Rwandan-backed Rally for CongoleseDemocracy (RCD-Goma) and the splinter RCD-ML faction, hadclashed violently in the town in June.
Both groups are part of the transitional centralgovernment, which is encouraging former rebels to work in theirregions to disarm factions outside the peace process.
"We have decided to meet with a view to overcoming ourproblems that used to divide us and to work together to improveconditions," Mr Eric Paluku, a former rebel leader of RCD-ML, toldonlookers.
Senior United Nations officials guarded by about 20 UNpeacekeepers attended the leaders' meeting, seen as a major steptowards extending peace to a volatile region still haunted byextremist Hutu militias responsible for Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
The former rivals agreed to cooperate to help the UnitedNations disarm and repatriate the militias.