Founders of a former rebel movement in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have decided to replace eight members of the country's transitional post-war parliament who split ranks, the movement said yesterday.

Leaders of the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), a Rwandan-backed movement which was the main rebel force in the DRC's devastating war of 1998-2003, on Sunday agreed to replace the eight parliamentarians.

"It was as the outcome of their absenteeism from the National Assembly that the group of eight deputies has been replaced in the parliamentary institution," the RCD announced in a statement.

Led by a prominent RCD hardliner, Bizima Kahara, the group on July 12 boycotted the opening of a new session of the parliament, which is part of a political process aimed at restoring peace and democracy to the vast central African country.

On July 13, holed up in Goma, the RCD's wartime headquarters town on the Rwandan border in eastern DRC, the eight issued a statement saying they were suspending participation in the assembly in protest at a military deployment in the east.

They demanded a special session in Goma of leaders of the party to re-evaluate the whole political transition process, in which two former rebel movements and other forces last year joined an interim government headed by President Joseph Kabila.

All eight men are members of the Banyamulenge community, Congolese Tutsis from the same ethnic group as most of a former rebel force which seized power in Rwanda in July 1994 and ended three months of genocide by soldiers and militias from the Hutu majority in which at least 800 000 people were killed.

The presence of rival forces across Rwanda's border in DRC has been a source of tension between the two governments for years and was among the reasons the Rwandan government gave to justify massive military intervention in the DRC war.

In June, two senior military officers, formerly in the RCD, took control of the major border town of Bukavu under the noses of hundreds of UN peacekeeping troops between June 2 and June 9, accusing regular government forces of massacring local Banyamulenge people.

The fighting then brought out splits in RCD ranks a year ahead of elections planned for the DRC, and President Josephine Kabila ordered more regular soldiers into Bukavu, to the wrath of the dissident former rebel politicians.

The RCD had issued an ultimatum to the deputies to get back to Kinshasa before the start of the new parliamentary session. A second ultimatum expired on Saturday.

Kahara's group of self-styled "renovators" included just eight out a total 94 RCD members in the 500-seat transitional parliament, but their dissidence was seen as having serious implications for the movement. – Sapa-AFP.