By George Obulutsa

ARUSHA, Tanzania, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Congolese President Joseph Kabila on Saturday urged the eradication of rebel groups which are blamed for destabilising his country's volatile eastern region, and resolution of a border dispute with Uganda.

U.N. peacekeepers are struggling to preserve a shaky ceasefire in eastern Congo -- home to myriad militia groups -- after a dissident general accused government troops on Friday of breaking the truce.

The east has long been a tinderbox of wars and ethnic conflicts.

Congo says local rebels recruit from Ugandan refugee camps while Kampala believes at least three different Ugandan rebel groups operate in the area, including Lord's Resistance Army leaders wanted by an international war crimes court.

"I would like to call upon all of us for measures ... in order to eradicate definitively what is remaining of these insurrectional groups: Ugandan and Congolese which are present or which are benefiting from one side or the other," Kabila told an open session of a meeting with Uganda's Yoweri Museveni.

"This is the same for the question of the borders that we inherited from colonialism."

Kabila and Museveni are meeting in northern Tanzania to discuss tensions over oil exploration in Lake Albert -- which straddles both their countries -- after an oil worker was killed last month.

The lake is a frontier in the quest for African oil with Heritage Oil <HOC.TO> and Tullow Oil <TLW.L> both drilling in concessions around the Albertine basin.

A British Heritage Oil contractor died on August 3 when Ugandan soldiers and Heritage guards fought a gunbattle against Congolese troops. Kinshasa says they are prospecting illegally in its waters.

Ugandan soldiers then captured two Congolese soldiers it said had illegally crossed the border.

Relations between the two have been fraught for years and Uganda has twice invaded Congo. Kampala has said those incursions were to flush out Ugandan rebels.

AlertNet news is provided by