By Joe Bavier

KINSHASA, March 29 (Reuters) - The guards at Congolese President Joseph Kabila's offices have a new pet.

"His name is Bemba," said a smiling soldier of a sad-looking male chimpanzee crammed into a tiny cage. "He's for sale."

Like his namesake, former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba has little room for manoeuvre and an uncertain future.

With an arrest warrant for high treason hanging over him since hundreds of his fighters battled Kabila's government troops last week, Bemba is waiting in the South African embassy in Kinshasa to travel to Portugal for medical treatment.

His departure may defuse the immediate crisis but diplomats said sending the new senator abroad for good would undermine the momentum of democracy created last year by the first free polls in over 40 years, which cost donors over $500 million.

"De facto exile for Bemba would be another hammer blow to political opposition and the future of democracy in the DRC," said a Western diplomat in Kinshasa, where EU envoys say up to 600 people were killed in last week's mortar and gun battles.

"After the violence used to settle political scores in Bas-Congo and Kinshasa, and harassment of opposition politicians, it only needs a couple more whacks to finish it off," the diplomat said.

Last week's fighting began when Bemba soldiers defied an order to disarm and be replaced by a smaller police guard.

European diplomats said the government use of force was premature and disproportionate. Kabila denied any score-settling and said it was a military response to a military threat.

It was the worst fighting in Kinshasa since a presidential run-off vote in October, although political violence in the province of Bas-Congo killed nearly 100 people in January.

"MOMENT OF TRUTH"

"In his first three months, Kabila has used force against two political opposition groups, shut down Bemba's TV channels and tried to weaken parliament. This is not the inclusive democracy he promised," the Western diplomat said.

Kabila won the October poll with 58 percent of votes, but the vote confirmed Bemba's popularity in the sprawling, decrepit capital and among western Congolese sharing his Lingala tongue.

"We don't know what will happen. It's the moment of truth to see whether Kabila is for democracy," said Thomas Luhaka, executive secretary of Bemba's Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), the biggest opposition party in parliament.

Kabila has assured opposition politicians they are safe, but Luhaka said MLC officials had been intimidated and arrested arbitrarily. "We are waiting to see if the problem is Bemba, or if the opposition in general is the problem," he said.

Diplomats and MLC officials said Bemba had threatened to pull his MPs out of parliament if he is forced into exile, but one party member said it was more likely the party would split, further strengthening Kabila's parliamentary bloc.

The MLC fought Kabila and his late father Laurent in a 1998-2003 war that killed an estimated 4 million people as half a dozen foreign armies fought over Congo's minerals. The war brought more misery for Congolese after decades of repression and corruption under late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

"The president has simply executed a political "liquidation" plan against the leader of the MLC," columnist Ka Mana wrote in opposition daily Le Potentiel. "Joseph Kabila has used the army to express his impatience to become the new Mobutu."

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