Rebels: No clashes in eastern Congo after pullback

[November 20, 2008]  GOMA, Congo (AP) -- Hundreds of rebel forces have pulled back from three front lines in eastern Congo, the U.N. confirmed, as aid workers scrambled to reach more of the 300,000 hungry, exhausted refugees displaced by the fighting.

Rebel spokesman Bertrand Bisimwa said there were no reports of fighting in eastern Congo on Thursday but his forces were "monitoring the situation."

U.N. peacekeeping spokesman Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich, calling the move "a positive step," said rebels withdrew from around Kanyabayonga, about 80 miles north of Goma, the eastern provincial capital.

The U.N. was hoping the rebels' deliberate retreat would be one step toward brokering peace in the volatile Central Africa nation.

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the pullback by Nkunda's forces and urged the quick opening of humanitarian aid corridors.

"(Ban) calls on the parties to observe the cessation of hostilities and to guarantee safe passage of humanitarian assistance" as efforts continue to find a political solution to the crisis, his spokeswoman Marie Okabe said.

The U.N. Security Council was expected to approve a resolution Thursday to back Ban's request for 3,100 additional soldiers to beef up the U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo. That mission has 17,000 peacekeepers -- the world's largest -- but they have been unable to stop the fighting across the vast nation.

Years of sporadic violence in eastern Congo intensified in August, when fighting heated up between the army and fighters loyal to rebel leader Laurent Nkunda.

Nkunda says he is protecting Tutsis from Hutus who fled to Congo after Rwanda's 1994 genocide. But critics say he is more interested in power and his forces have committed multiple human rights abuses.

Nkunda told U.N. envoy Olusegun Obasanjo over the weekend he was committed to a cease-fire and U.N. peace efforts. But his troops continued to gobble up territory earlier this week in the remote hills north of Goma until he agreed to the pullback.

An Associated Press reporter verified the withdrawal on one of the fronts just south of Kanyabayonga at Rwindi, the northern headquarters of Virunga National Park, home to some of the world's last remaining mountain gorillas.

On Wednesday, Rwindi's main road was empty, with rebels visible only a few dozen miles to the south at a park station checkpoint that had been abandoned by rangers. Herds of elephants roamed fields of pristine green savannah grass in the area. Baboons scurried across empty roads.

[Associated Press; By TODD PITMAN]

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