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KIGALI, July 22 (AFP) - Leaders of the most active rebel group in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) left the Rwandan capital for peace talks in Pretoria on Monday, rebel sources said.

The Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), which is backed by Rwanda, sent a delegation led by Sectretary General Azarias Ruberwa, said the source, who asked not to be named.

The talks, chaired by South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma, began Thursday and bring together officials from Rwanda and the Kinshasa government.

They are focussing on one of the root causes of the four-year-old war in the DRC: the presence in the east of the country of Rwandan Interahamwe militia, the extremist Hutu group which carried out much of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

A proposal to set up a joint buffer force along the Rwanda-DRC border was also high on the agenda.

On Sunday, Rwandan President Paul Kagame met in Kigali with leaders of the Banyamulenge community, Tutsis of Rwandan origin who settled in eastern DRC several generations ago.

An RCD source told Nampa-AFP that Kagame used the occasion to explain Rwanda's current military activities in the region's Sud-Kivu area, where Banyamulenge leader and renegade RCD commander Patrick Masunzu has been fighting the rebels and their Rwandan allies.

Meanwhile, Rwandan military sources denied claims the RCD had lost control of the Sud-Kivu settlement of Lulimba last week to forces allied to Masunzu. - Nampa-AFP

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