Congo's Kabila has few options but talk to rebels

By David Lewis - Analysis

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Congo's battered government has little choice but to open unpopular talks with dissident General Laurent Nkunda, but the rebel leader himself faces a challenge converting his military upper hand into political capital.

Nkunda's fighters have over-run the weak and chaotic national army in weeks of fighting in North Kivu province, displacing 250,000 people and sparking fears of a repeat of a 1998-2003 war that sucked in six neighboring armies.

Nkunda met administrators on Friday to discuss taxation in a major eastern town captured during weeks of fighting. President Joseph Kabila, who has resisted talks, jetted off to visit allies including Angola, which sent troops to help in the 1990s.

Much of the fighting has now died down and Nkunda's rebels have pulled back from some positions as attention turns to talks proposed by U.N. peace envoy Olusegun Obasanjo, a former Nigerian president, who has just met both Kabila and Nkunda.

"The government has not been willing to negotiate but they haven't been able to force anything militarily. They have no choice (but to enter talks)," said a Kinshasa-based diplomat.

"Obasanjo's job is now to get them agree to this. The politics is catching up with the reality on the ground."

Nkunda began his rebellion in 2004, rejecting peace deals that ended Congo's last war, which killed some 5 million people, mostly from hunger and disease, and saying he had to protect fellow Tutsis from Rwandan Hutu rebels in the east.

Some of these Hutu rebels were part of the militia that crossed into Congo after taking part in the 1994 genocide, which killed 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

But Nkunda has now broadened his cause, saying he wants to liberate all Congolese. he says they have been failed by Kabila, who won historic post-war elections in 2006.

"They (the rebels) were frustrated at not having direct talks with the government, so they flexed their muscles," said another diplomat who has followed the crisis.

"If they sense they are not being taken seriously, they will flex them again. The government doesn't seem to have been any match for them, militarily, politically or strategically."

The U.N. Security Council voted on Thursday to send 3,000 extra peacekeepers to Congo to help protect civilians after its mission there was heavily criticized during the fighting.

The troops will take weeks to arrive. Ideas of a European bridging force have been floated but not yet got off the ground.

Meanwhile, Nkunda's men have pulled back from positions captured at the weekend, saying they wanted to foster peace.

Congo's government maintains it will only talk to Nkunda within the framework of a January peace deal that involved a number other minor groups and has collapsed.