By Joe Bavier

KINSHASA, Sept 9 (Reuters) - The Congolese army is deploying troops in a remote northern border region to try to box in Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels and stop them attacking civilians, a U.N. military spokesman said on Tuesday.

Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich said the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) was offering logistical support to what he called the army's "containment operation" against the LRA fighters.

Several hundred Congolese troops had already been sent to Dungu, on the edge of the Garamba National Park, an LRA stronghold near Congo's porous northern border with Sudan. A total of around 2,000 troops were expected to be deployed.

"The goal of this operation is to dissuade LRA elements from attacking the population of Congo's extreme north," Dietrich told Reuters. "This is a containment operation. It falls under MONUC's mandate to protect the civilian population," he added.

The LRA, led by self-proclaimed mystic Joseph Kony, has waged one of Africa's longest guerrilla wars against the Ugandan government. Harried by the Ugandan army, the rebels have sought shelter in Congo's northern forests and earlier this year raided Central African Republic, looting homes and abducting civilians.

In June, Uganda, Congo and Sudan agreed to coordinate military efforts to stamp out the 20-year LRA rebellion, which worsens instability in a remote corner of the continent rich in minerals.

WANTED

LRA leader Kony, wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, failed to show up in April for the signing of a peace deal after more than 18 months of talks.

Rebel negotiators said Kony was again ready to sign, but warned the Congolese army operation could damage peace chances.

"This is the wrong approach, coming at the wrong time," chief rebel negotiator David Nyekorach Matsanga told Reuters in the South Sudan capital of Juba.

"All it is doing is restraining the LRA from taking any action ... Kony will use this as an excuse, he will say 'they are attacking us, how can I come (to sign)'?" Matsanga added.

Dietrich said MONUC, the world's largest U.N. peacekeeping mission with around 17,000 soldiers and police deployed, had no immediate plans to deploy peacekeepers directly in combat against the LRA rebels.

In 2006, eight Guatemalan U.N. troops were killed during a botched operation to capture or kill then LRA deputy commander Vincent Otti in the Garamba Park.

MONUC is already heavily deployed in Congo's violence-hit eastern borderlands and opening a new front against Kony's highly mobile bush fighters could further stretch the peacekeeping operations in the vast, former Belgian colony.

Experts also doubt the capacity of Congo's ill-disciplined army to take on Kony's guerrillas on their own terrain.

Northern Uganda's two-decade civil war forced around two million people from their homes and also destabilised neighbouring parts of oil-producing south Sudan and mineral-rich eastern Congo. (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/) (Additional reporting by Skye Wheeler in Juba, Sudan; Editing by Pascal Fletcher)

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