Rival Congolese Rebels Sign Pact to End Civil War : Africa: Truce has already been approved by nation’s president and neighboring leaders. If it holds, it will halt a year of fighting.

Rival rebel leaders agreed Tuesday to put aside internal squabbles and sign a cease-fire to end Congo’s yearlong civil war, a morass that has spilled over into neighboring countries and raged on despite months of negotiations.

“The signing of the cease-fire agreement on the Congo is a demonstration that Africa is beginning to assume responsibility for solving its own problems,” said Zambian President Frederick Chiluba, a key mediator in the peace process.

With international officials looking on, 50 rebels from the Congolese Rally for Democracy, or RCD, took turns putting their names to the peace accord during an hourlong ceremony at a hotel in this capital city.

Emile Ilunga, head of the RCD’s main faction, pledged later that he would order his fighters to observe the truce, scheduled to take effect this afternoon. However, he reserved his troops’ right to defend themselves.

Analysts said the RCD’s participation improves the prospects of peace because it controls half of Congo.

Ilunga’s chief rival, Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, leader of a splinter group that broke away from the RCD, also signed the accord and said his group would honor it. But he added that suspicion remained between the two RCD factions.

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan welcomed Tuesday’s agreement and urged all parties to start a dialogue on Congo’s political future. He also stressed the importance of providing food to residents and reestablishing essential services such as water, health care and education.

The Congolese war has threatened both security and development in Central Africa, continuing the chaos that started when President Laurent Kabila unseated former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997, when the country was still known as Zaire.

The peace agreement had already been signed by Kabila and the countries that backed him--Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia. The leaders of Rwanda and Uganda, which had backed the rebels, also signed, as did a smaller rebel group.

But fighting had dragged on over a dispute between the two RCD factions over which one of them would get to sign the accord.

The accord calls for a 90-day period of national dialogue to chart Congo’s political future, leading to free elections. Peacekeeping troops from the United Nations and the Organization for African Unity are expected to help monitor the pact.

Congolese officials expressed doubts Tuesday that the agreement will hold. One suggested that anything signed by six heads of state and 50 rebels would be difficult if not impossible to implement.