Nairobi- The Democratic Republic of Congo's armed forces are undermining the prospects of peace by working alongside rebel groups to mine tin and gold in the east of the resource-rich African nation, independent watchdog Global Witness said Wednesday.

The DR Congo's army (FARDC), supported by the United Nations peacekeeping force, is supposed to be fighting the Hutu Forces Democratiques pour la Liberation du Rwanda (FDLR), a group implicated in the 1994 massacre in neighbouring Rwanda.

However, Global Witness said that Congolese soldiers were collaborating with the FDLR in order to profit from the mining industry.

"Our researchers visited areas where the FARDC and the FDLR were operating side by side... trading in minerals from 'their' respective mines without interfering with each other's activities," Patrick Alley, director of Global Witness, said in a statement.

There have been increasing clashes in the DR Congo in recent months, despite both a 2003 peace deal that officially ended the conflict in the sprawling Central African nation and a January 2008 agreement designed to end sporadic clashes that had continued.

Government troops clashed with rebels aligned with rogue general Laurent Nkunda's Congres National pour la Defense du Peuple (CNDP) in the eastern region of North Kivu last week.

UN troops have also had to fire warning shots at the rebels this week.

Global Witness, which lobbies to end human rights' abuses linked to the exploitation of natural resources, said that unless the issue of mining was addressed then lasting peace would be unlikely.

The watchdog said that there had been little progress in disarming the FDLR because the rebel group had consolidated its economic base.

"Their trading activities have become an end in themselves," Alley said.

Global Witness also said that the DR Congo armed forces were helping themselves to the nation's resources.

"Local residents told us that the FARDC are doing exactly the same thing as the FDLR: taking over the mines, forcing civilians to work for them or to hand over their mineral production and extorting taxes," Alley said.

The DR Congo is a massive nation with huge deposits of gold, tin and coltan.

Coltan's use in mobile phones has attracted the attention of the Chinese, who are building a network of roads in exchange for coltan and other minerals and metals.

Despite the DR Congo's resources, however, the majority of the population lives in poverty after decades of conflict.

Over 5 million people are estimated to have died as a result of the long conflict in DR Congo.

The conflict is often referred to as the African World War due to the large number of different armed forces involved. (dpa)