By Lubunga Bya'Ombe

GOMA, Congo, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Torn from her home and husband by conflict, Congolese peasant Mwavita Bakungu is praying a peace pact signed by warring parties in the country's east will allow her to put her shattered life back together.

"I abandoned my fields to come suffer here. I haven't had any news from my husband since we fled. All we want is that peace returns and we can go home," the 22-year-old said.

The ceasefire deal signed on Wednesday by President's Joseph Kabila's government and 25 rebel and militia groups offers a glimmer of hope to tens of thousands of traumatised refugees packed into camps and slums around the eastern town of Goma.

Diplomats and analysts see the accord thrashed out at a two-week conference in Goma under intense pressure from Kabila's Western allies as the best chance in years of pacifying Democratic Republic of Congo's war-torn east.

The eastern Kivu provinces, which border Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, have been gripped for more than a decade by a cycle of killing, looting and rape inflicted by several rebel groups and militias and maurauding government soldiers.

Long after Congo's wider 1998-2003 war ended, fighting has raged on in the east, adding to a humanitarian catastrophe that has caused more deaths -- 5.4 million since 1998 -- than any other conflict since World War Two, relief experts say.

The Goma deal establishes a ceasefire and offers an amnesty for the rebels and militias, including Tutsi guerrillas loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda who have battled government troops in recent months in North Kivu province.

"It's the first time we have a political process to replace the military stand-off," said Jason Stearns, a Congo expert who is writing a book about the country's conflicts.

But while the Goma accord is hailed as a diplomatic success in Washington, London and Brussels, experts like Stearns caution that its implementation could prove harder than the signing especially since it leaves several key issues unresolved.

Prominent among these is the fate of Nkunda himself. The tall, lanky guerrilla chief, who since 2004 has led his men in a bush rebellion he says defends Congo's Tutsi ethnic group, is wanted by Congo's government for alleged war crimes.

His case is not specifically covered in the amnesty deal to be offered and so his future remains uncertain.

"In a way, they've deferred many of the most prickly questions ... If you look at the peace deal, the only thing they signed onto is the ceasefire. All the other issues they've signed onto in principle, but the details have been left up to the technical commission," Stearns said.

LEGACY OF RWANDA GENOCIDE

Also excluded from the deal are Nkunda's sworn enemies, Rwandan Hutu rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) who also operate in the eastern region.

Congo signed an agreement with Rwanda late last year promising to drive out the FDLR, some of whose leaders were responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide that slaughtered 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Analysts believe the FDLR will be a tough nut to crack militarily for Congo's government, even with the support it receives from more than 17,000 U.N. peacekeepers.

Failure to eliminate the FDLR rebels will keep alive the justification for Nkunda maintaining his own armed rebellion.

"If you look at the FDLR, they are a much bigger force, spread over both North and South Kivu. They mingle with the population. They will be much more difficult to get rid of," said Henri Boshoff, a military analyst with South Africa's Institute for Security Studies.

The Goma deal foresees the creation in five days of U.N.-patrolled buffer zones between the armed groups.

"We are already reinforcing our deployment in the Kivus," Alan Doss, head of Congo's U.N. peacekeeping mission, said.

The U.N. and humanitarian agencies hope a halt to the fighting will allow more than 400,000 North Kivu residents, who, have fled clashes over the past year, to return to their homes.

But Willy-Aime Bahonga, a 25-year-old teacher and refugee who gives classes to children in the Goma camps, recalls many past peace announcements which have failed.

"They signed, while we the refugees, those most affected by the whole thing, were not even invited to the conference. This is a deal for politicians," he said. (Additional reporting by Joe Bavier in Kinshasa; editing by Pascal Fletcher)

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