By Joe Bavier

BANGUI, July 1 (Reuters) - Central African Republic will include an exiled former president in a planned amnesty and could bring rebels into a unity government in a bid to end years of bush warfare, the Communications Minister said on Tuesday.

President Francois Bozize's government signed a peace deal last month in Gabon's capital Libreville, consolidating earlier ceasefire agreements with three insurgent groups from the north of the landlocked former French colony.

The simmering conflict has mingled with rising banditry and cross-border raids by armed groups from Chad and Sudan's western Darfur region, emptying rural villages and driving an estimated 300,000 people from their homes.

The peace deal foresees an amnesty law for crimes committed during the conflict followed by a national conference to bring together the government, rebels, and the civilian opposition.

Communications Minister Cyriaque Gonda said the two-week talks could lead to the granting of government posts to the insurgents.

"It's not excluded ... There will be a reshuffling of the cards after the political dialogue," he told Reuters in an interview.

"The government, since the signing of the first agreements, already started to give something. If that must continue in the name of national reconciliation, then it will continue."

At least two rebel leaders are already on the government payroll as advisors to the president after signing initial ceasefire deals last year.

The conflict in Central African Republic has its roots in Bozize's 2003 overthrow of then-president Ange-Felix Patasse.

Bozize won elections two years later at which Patasse was barred from running, and his supporters launched a rebellion in the northwest of the country soon after.

Gonda said that Patasse, who now lives in exile in Togo, will be included under the amnesty law, even though he has never been officially linked to the rebels.

"He will be part of it, absolutely. He's one of the principle actors in the process. It's inclusive. There will be no exclusion at all," he said.

The amnesty offered under the peace deal does not give immunity from prosecution for war crimes or crimes against humanity which might be initiated by the International Criminal Court (ICC), based in The Hague.

Patasse's ouster followed bloody fighting between government loyalists and Bozize's rebellion that included the systematic rape of hundreds of women.

Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former rebel leader in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, was arrested in Belgium in May on an ICC warrant for war crimes committed by fighters he sent to support Patasse.

Some observers believe the ICC might also seek to prosecute the former president himself.

Sparsely-populated Central African Republic, one of the world's poorest states, has suffered from recurring cycles of political violence since gaining independence in 1960.

It has suffered 11 attempted coups or mutinies in the past decade alone, and instability hampers the exploitation of its gold, diamond and uranium wealth.

A contingent of European Union soldiers, part of a larger EU force (EUFOR) sent to east Chad this year to protect civilians and refugees, has been deployed in northeast Central African Republic to carry out similar security duties there. (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/) (Editing by Ingrid Melander and Daniel Flynn)

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