By Michelle Faul
Associated Press
Saturday, November 8, 2008

GOMA, Congo, Nov. 7 -- Angolan troops have joined Congolese soldiers battling rebels near the city of Goma, U.N. officials in the region reported Friday, raising fears that the conflict would spread as African leaders struggled to find a way to stop it.

New clashes between soldiers and rebels erupted just outside Goma near Kibati, where about 45,000 refugees from the rebellion in mineral-rich eastern Congo have taken refuge. Thousands fled toward the relative safety of Goma.

A U.N. official and a Uruguayan peacekeeping officer in Congo said Friday that an unspecified number of Angolan troops arrived four days ago. The two officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity.

But in New York, the U.N. assistant secretary general for peacekeeping, Edmond Mulet, denied that Angolan troops had joined the fighting.

"We have no evidence of that, and MONUC has not been able to confirm any of that," Mulet said, referring to the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo by its French acronym. "So for us it is not happening."

Mulet said some people might have mistaken Congolese government troops who had trained in Angola, and who therefore spoke Portuguese, for Angolan troops.

Congo asked Angola for political and military support Oct. 29 as rebels led by renegade Gen. Laurent Nkunda advanced toward Goma, capital of North Kivu province near the border with Rwanda. Nkunda called a unilateral cease-fire last week when his forces reached the outskirts of the city, but the truce has crumbled.

The involvement of Angolans could spread the conflict beyond Congo's borders. Neighboring Rwanda probably would consider Angolan troops a provocation. Rwanda's government is accused of supporting the Congolese rebels.

Congo's 1998-2002 war drew in more than half a dozen African nations, including Angola and Rwanda, which profited from the vast country's wealth of diamonds and other minerals.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, holding a peace summit in Nairobi with Congolese President Joseph Kabila and six other African leaders, warned that the "crisis could engulf the broader subregion."

The Nairobi meeting was unlikely to achieve much without the presence of rebels, who were not invited. "We expect nothing" from it, said rebel spokesman Bertrand Bisimwa.

The Congolese government has refused direct talks with the rebels.

The conflict is fueled by ethnic hatred left over from the 1994 Rwanda genocide, when 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed. Nkunda says he is fighting to protect Tutsis in Congo from Rwandan Hutu rebels who participated in the genocide and fled to Congo afterward.

Violence in eastern Congo has driven 250,000 people from their homes since August. New York-based Human Rights Watch says at least 100 have died in the past two months.

The latest fighting broke out Friday near the town of Kibati, six miles north of Goma.

Distant machine-gun fire was audible in Goma. The road toward the city was again lined with thousands of refugees.

The refugees, who are sleeping in the open amid daily tropical rainstorms, said they have not eaten since Tuesday and have received no food, water or other help from the peacekeepers.

A top African Union official criticized the U.N. peacekeeping force Friday for failing to protect civilians.

"MONUC has failed," said Eddie Kwizera, a top aide to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

U.N. spokeswoman Sylvie van den Wildenberg said the overstretched force has fewer than 300 peacekeepers in the area around Kiwanja and nearby Rutshuru, a small town near Kiwanja that rebels seized last week. Rutshuru is about 45 miles north of Goma.