PRETORIA, July 30: The presidents of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo signed a peace agreement on Tuesday aimed at ending a devastating war that has killed up to two million people in the heart of Africa.

South Africa and the United Nations acted as guarantors for a deal which optimists hope will mark the start of the end of the four-year-old war in Congo.

Rwanda’s Paul Kagame pledged to withdraw thousands of troops from eastern Congo and Congo’s Joseph Kabila undertook to help disarm Rwandan Hutu gunmen blamed for the slaughter of the Tutsi minority in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.

“It’s a bright day for the African continent,” South African President Thabo Mbeki said at a grandiose signing ceremony in Pretoria witnessed by his government ministers and diplomats.

“No more blood must run,” Kabila said in his address. “There is a time for war and a time for peace.” But analysts are wary about the accord’s prospects for success after the collapse of previous ceasefires and say the latest deal is fraught with difficulties.

“Any step forward is welcome. But the prospects of implementing this accord are completely unrealistic,” said Alison Des Forges, an expert on Rwanda with Human Rights Watch.

The conflict in the Congo, dubbed Africa’s World War, has sucked in the armies of Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola, which have backed the Kinshasa government. Rwanda and Uganda support splintered rebel groups in the vast country’s remote east.—Reuters