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Crisis talks took place in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Europe and at the United Nations yesterday to try to stop more bloodshed in the vast central African country after at least 100 people died in ten days of unrest.

Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel, who arrived Sunday on an emergency mission, held talks with President Laurent Kabila and high-ranking members of the transition government, in search of a peaceful solution to the crisis in DRC, sparked when rebellious soldiers overran Bukavu, a key eastern town.

Michel said yesterday the European Union (EU) was considering sending peacekeepers to Bukavu, although an EU diplomat in Brussels later said there were no plans to send soldiers.

If an EU mission were to be mounted for Bukavu, on the border with Rwanda, it would "work alongside Monuc," the UN mission in DRC, said Michel.

He also said he favoured "reinforcing the current UN mission in DRC and the means at its disposal." Monuc currently has around 11 000 soldiers in DRC.

An EU diplomatic source told AFP that "there are diplomatic and regular political contacts but there is no talk of an operation."

Troops led by dissident general Laurent Nkunda, drawn from a former rebel group which is now incorporated into DRC's transition government, captured Bukavu last week, despite the presence there of UN peacekeepers.

At least 88 people are believed to have died in 10 days of fighting in and around the town.

The UN peacekeepers' inertia in Bukavu triggered protests against Monuc in Kinshasa and other cities, in which at least 12 people reportedly died.

Nkunda began pulling his renegade troops out of Bukavu on Sunday, but soldiers under the command of another dissident officer, Jules Mutebusi, remained in the town, according to Monuc.

Tension remained high in the volatile east, with Kabila openly accusing Rwanda of backing the dissidents.

DRC armed forces head of staff Admiral Liwanga Mata-Myamunyobo reiterated the accusations yesterday, and said his soldiers would "kick out... Rwandans who are on our territory."

Regular DRC troops were closing in on Bukavu yesterday, and the remaining dissident soldiers were "everywhere in town, taking up defensive positions," a Monuc official in Bukavu said.

At a meeting yesterday with Monuc's military commander, Nkunda said that he had pulled out all of his troops, spokesman Sebastien Lapierre told AFP, adding that Monuc believed the pledge to be genuine.

Nkunda announced on Sunday he was pulling out of Bukavu, after failing to remove his troops following a similar pledge four days earlier.

According to Lapierre, Nkunda said he was pulling out after realising that his kinsmen from the Banyamulenge community - Congolese Tutsis of Rwandan origin - were not being massacred as he had believed.

The UN Security Council was holding talks on the situation in the town, diplomats said yesterday.

In a telephone conversation Friday with French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, Kabila asked the world for help in containing the unrest, which many feared would cause the country's fragile peace to shatter, diplomats said.

The French government said it has "in the past few days had numerous contacts with partners" about the unrest in eastern DRC.

"The international community is mobilised, notably through the UN Security Council," said French foreign ministry spokeswoman Marie Masdupuy.

South Africa, which hosted and mediated marathon peace talks that led to the accord that ended DRC's war, yesterday insisted that DRC's peace process was still on track.

Pretoria was liaising with the DRC government, UN, European Union and African Union to try to resolve the crisis, Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma told reporters.

The Belgian foreign minister, whose country ruled the central African country for 75 years until 1960, urged DRC to continue its transition to peace and democracy.

The main task of the transition government sworn in 11 months ago is to guide the country, the continent's third largest, to its first democratic elections since those held on independence from Belgium.

Key steps on the path to those elections are the bringing into government of the former foes in the five-year war and the integration of fighters from rebel and other armed groups into a national army.

Nkunda and Mutebusi, who led the dissident soldiers into Bukavu, are among diehard remnants of the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) who have been reluctant to allow Kinshasa to re-establish its influence in the east of the country, most of which was controlled by the rebel movement during the war. - Sapa-AFP

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