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| - The presidents of four countries agreed to step up efforts to strengthen security in the African Great Lakes region in the face of armed groups and the plundering of natural resources. The talks, twice postponed because of disagreements over agenda and format, gathered the heads of Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda, who spoke by video link, the Congolese president's office said. Burundi did not take part. They agreed to "cut funding sources from the negative forces," a joint statement said after the brief summit, in an apparent reference to militias in eastern DRC. The four also pledged to "jointly fight gang networks, regionally and internationally, which contribute to the exploitation and illegal trade of natural resources." President Felix Tshisekedi took part in the summit from Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, where hundreds of people have been massacred over the last year by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a militia which originated in the 1990s as a Ugandan Muslim rebel group. Two other eastern DRC provinces, South Kivu and Ituri, are also struggling with armed groups, many of them with ethnic roots. Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye had been invited to attend, but gave notice on September 8 that he would not take part. Ndayishimiye received DR Congo Foreign Minister Marie Tumba Nzeza on Monday. The countries agreed to promote exchange of information "especially on cross-border security" and to stage "patrols" to oversee navigation on Lake Tanganyika, which the two states share, a joint statement said. DR Congo, the largest country in sub-Saharan Africa, has sometimes fractious relationships with its neighbours -- a legacy of two regional wars, in 1996-97 and 1998-2003, in which it accused Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda of supporting insurgencies in the east of the country. ak-bmb/thm/ri/erc
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