KINSHASA, June 25 (Reuters) - United Nations peacekeepers play an essential role in Democratic Republic of Congo but they should be much more active in combating rebels and renegade militias in the east of the country, the president said.

In published comments, President Joseph Kabila said the 17,000-strong U.N. mission in Congo (MONUC) risked losing relevance unless it achieved better results on the ground in the fight to bring peace to the conflict-torn east.

"MONUC plays an essential role. But it should be much more effective," the Congolese president said in an interview published by the French-language news magazine Jeune Afrique.

The U.N. troops and police in Congo, the biggest peacekeeping force in the world, have several times been accused by civilians in the eastern provinces of not doing enough to protect them from attacks by several marauding armed groups.

In one of the latest incidents, suspected Rwandan fighters, remnants of Hutu militias responsible for Rwanda's 1994 genocide, slaughtered 18 sleeping villagers in Congo's South Kivu province in May.

"The population in the east sometimes ask what (MONUC) is there for," Kabila said.

Catholic Church leaders have warned that unless the Congo army and its U.N. allies take firmer action, the volatile east could slide back into all-out conflict, despite elections last year which crowned a peace process ending a 1998-2003 war.

The U.N. Security Council voted in May to keep its 17,000 peacekeepers in Congo at least until the end of the year.

But U.N. envoys have urged Kabila's government to work with neighbour Rwanda to find a political solution to the violence.

Kabila also said in the interview he hoped Congo's state prosecutor would pursue legal proceedings against his former political rival, Jean-Pierre Bemba, who is accused of provoking fierce fighting in Kinshasa in March.

Several hundred people were reported killed in the clashes which pitted Bemba's private militia against the Congo army. After the fighting, Bemba, the defeated contender in last year's elections won by Kabila, left for Portugal.

"Let's let justice do its work," Kabila said, repeating his own belief that Bemba had wanted to kill him and take power.

Public Prosecutor Tshimanga Mukeba wrote to the Senate in April requesting that Bemba's immunity as a senator be lifted so he could be prosecuted as "intellectual author" of the violence.

Bemba's advisers said earlier this month that he hoped to return from a self-imposed exile in Portugal at the end of July after Senate leaders allowed him to extend his leave of absence requested on medical grounds.

In the Jeune Afrique interview, Kabila also promised to take a tough line against corruption and illicit enrichment among members of his government, saying that all those found guilty of wrongdoing would be sent to prison.

((Writing by Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Mary Gabriel))

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