July 27, 1999
Web posted at: 4:47 a.m. EDT (0847 GMT)

CYANGUGU, Rwanda -- A rebel leader in Congo said on Tuesday at least 24 government soldiers had been killed in a fresh wave of fighting in the north of the country.

Jean-Pierre Bemba, who heads the Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC), told Reuters by satellite phone that government troops had shelled rebel positions in Djombo and Lusengo, two small towns about 850 km (530 miles) northeast of the Congolese capital Kinshasa, on Monday.

"Yesterday in Djombo they shelled our positions while our soldiers were on the defensive," Bemba said from a base in northern Congo. "We replied, we shelled them, made an ambush and killed 21 soldiers."

Bemba said government troops based in Makanza, around 90 km (60 miles) northeast of Djombo, launched a separate attack with heavy artillery on Lusengo, a small town along the Congo river. Three government troops were killed and one rebel soldier was wounded in the clash, he said.

"It shows Kabila doesn't want peace in Congo. Kabila wants to fight," he said.

The news came as leaders from the Congo's three rebel factions met in the Tanzanian capital Dar es Salaam to decide who should sign a peace pact for the main rebel group fighting in the Congo.

Six African governments involved in the conflict -- including Rwanda and Uganda who back the rebels, and Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe who back the Kinshasa government -- signed a cease-fire accord in Zambia earlier this month along with Congolese President Laurent Kabila.

But internal divisions among the rebels have driven a stake into the accord and armies on both sides of the conflict have reported clashes and artillery exchanges both in the north and on the southern front, where rebels are inching closer to the country's vast diamond mines around Mbuji-Mayi.

Ugandan soldiers make up the military backbone of Bemba's MLC, which operates exclusively in Equator province where it has made a series of gains over the last several months.

he mainstream rebel Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) is backed by Rwanda and controls most of the eastern half of Congo.

On Monday, RCD officials claimed to have captured Bokungu and Mondombe, two small towns in the north in a push towards the regional capital of Mbandaka.

Meanwhile, Moise Nyarugabo, another rebel leader, dismissed as lies reports from Kinshasa that 3,000 rebel troops had surrendered to government forces in the northern part of Kabila's home Katanga Province in southeastern Congo.

Nyarugabo said, however, that 41 rebels deserted during recent fighting at Kisele in northern Katanga. He said the deserters were recently captured government soldiers who had been enlisted in the rebel ranks.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.