By Joe Bavier

KINSHASA, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Congo's President Joseph Kabila called on Monday for nations across Africa's troubled Great Lakes region to cooperate on cross-border security with the aim of spurring development after decades of conflict.

Addressing a meeting of Great Lakes parliamentarians, Kabila said Democratic Republic of Congo would ratify an agreement signed by regional leaders in December to stamp out roving rebel factions which have preyed on civilian populations.

"This situation has contributed greatly to the slowing down of growth in the sub-region with the consequence of a blocking of development," Kabila told lawmakers from the region's 11 member nations at the opening of the conference.

Under the Pact on Security, Stability and Development in the Great Lakes agreed in Nairobi at the end of last year, regional governments vowed non-aggression and mutual defence, including coordinated efforts to dismantle rebel groups.

Democratic Republic of Congo's 1998-2003 conflict, sometimes described as Africa's first World War, sucked in six neighbouring nations, turning the vast central African country's east into a battleground for plundering armed factions.

It left an estimated 4 million people dead, mainly from conflict-related hunger and disease, and a legacy of lawlessness in eastern Congo where fighting continues.

"We are together at the stage where open war between our states has come to an end, and dialogue has become the method of resolving conflicts," said Kabila, who took office in December as Congo's first freely elected leader in more than 40 years.

Kabila said his government was closely following peace talks between the government and rebel groups in Uganda and Burundi, and expressed hope they would be successfully concluded.

Congo's east remains a refuge for a number of armed groups.

The Congolese army, backed by the world's largest U.N. peacekeeping mission, has in recent weeks staged operations against the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Rwanda, a Hutu rebel group composed in part of the Interhamwe militia responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Addressing the conference, Kenya's parliament speaker Francis Ole Kaparo said the Great Lakes nations must not depend on outside help to deal with problems of insecurity.

"The solution to our problems lies with us, not others," he said. "Others may help us to finance conferences. They may finance us to observe elections. But they cannot finance us to like one another."

AlertNet news is provided by