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KINSHASA, June 17 (AFP) - President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) left here Monday for Equatorial Guinea, where he is expected to meet on the sidelines of a regional summit with President Paul Kagame of Rwanda to on-going tensions between the two states.

Both leaders will take part in the tenth summit meeting of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), in the Equatoguinean capital Malabo, where heads of state and government from 11 member states are expected to decide on measures necessary for promoting regional economic co-operation.

ECCAS was set up in 1983 with the aim of establishing a Central African common market and promoting economic cooperation among its member states -- Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of Congo, DRC, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Rwanda, and Sao Tome and Principe.

The war that broke out in the DRC in 1998 is a divisive factor in ECCAS because two of the organisation's member states, Rwanda and Angola, back opposing sides.

Angola has backed the government in Kinshasa, while Kigali backs a key rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), that controls the eastern third of the vast central African country.

Another main rebel movement, the Ugandan-backed Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC) signed a power-sharing agreement with Kabila's government after marathon peace talks for the DRC were held in South Africa earlier this year.

The RCD was not party to that agreement, and since it was signed, there has been an escalation in violence in eastern DRC, controlled by the Rwandan-backed rebels.

On Thursday, the Hague-based International Court of Justice began to hear a suit brought by Kinshasa against Rwanda, which the DRC has accused of genocide and of practising a scorched earth policy in eastern DRC. - Nampa-AFP

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