Kigali — The international community must mount unwavering pressure on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to solve the problem of Rwandan rebels holed up on its territory, a senior British opposition politician has said. David Cameron, the leader of the UK's Conservative Party and opposition chief, said yesterday that it is high time for a decisive action to be taken against the Interahamwe/ex-Far militia, one of the negative forces that continue to threaten regional peace and security.

"The international community should keep pressure on the Congolese government to ensure that the problem of Rwandan rebels is addressed. The pressure must not subside," he said.

He was addressing journalists jointly with President Paul Kagame after the two held discussions at Village Urugwiro.

Majority of ex-FAR and Interahamwe members fled to DRC after perpetrating the 1994 Genocide, which claimed at least one million lives, and have largely been responsible for years of violence in the region particularly sharply straining relations between Rwanda and DRC. The fighters are now grouped under the Forces for the Democratic Liberation for Rwanda (FDLR), which is one of the negative forces blacklisted by regional countries.

Cameron who had briefed Rwanda's Parliament moments before meeting Kagame was responding to concerns that despite the declared commitment by the West to regional peace and development, little was being done to a halt the activities of the negative force.

His remarks come at a time when the UN peacekeepers in DRC are in the spotlight for allegedly trading arms, intelligence information and foodstuffs with the Rwandan militias in exchange of gold.

However, the UN has dismissed the accusations saying that only one Pakistani soldier was found to have aided gold smuggling. The 17-000 strong UN force, Monuc, was deployed in the DRC to help disarm and repatriate the rebels, but many years on, only individual combatants - have under isolated circumstances - returned home.

During his meeting with President Kagame, Cameron said they discussed a number of domestic and international issues such as development aid, Darfur and Zimbabwe.

Rwanda has about 2,000 soldiers among 7000-strong Darfur AU peacekeepers. Early this year, Kagame threatened to pull out Rwandan troops citing frustration arising from the continued disagreements over the proposed deployment of a UN-AU hybrid force in the troubled Sudanese region.

Khartoum is reluctant to allow in a UN-controlled force making life more difficult for the ill-equipped and inadequate AU peacekeepers.

Addressing journalists, President Kagame described Cameron's visit as "worthwhile".

"Certainly we are happy to have the Conservative Party leader here with a big team, which has been doing voluntary work to the local people," he told reporters, most of them from Britain.

Cameron, who arrived on Monday a week after forty-three members of his party started voluntary work in various parts of the country, said that he intends to maintain the UK's development support to Rwanda when he wins the next election back home.

UK, which is Rwanda's biggest development partner, is providing 500 million pounds to Rwanda's development for ten years spanning from 2005.

Addressing MPs earlier on, Cameron also backed Rwanda's bid to join the Commonwealth. "If Rwanda decides to apply for membership and meets the required criteria, it will have the wholehearted support of my Party and any government I lead," the 38-year old parliamentarian said.

Rwanda has already applied to join Commonwealth and the application is set to be discussed during the November Commonwealth Heads of State and Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Kampala, Uganda. President Kagame is set to attend the meeting, which will attract about a third of world leaders including Queen Elizabeth II, as an observer.

Meanwhile, some critics in the UK have already made calls criticized Cameron's visit to Rwanda at a time when his West Oxfordshire constituency is troubled by floods.

However, his spokeswomen Gabby Bertine, who traveled with him here, told The New Times yesterday: "He visited those areas before flying to Rwanda. And besides, we don't think he could have done anything in these two days."

Asked whether she thinks Cameron would win the next election if he stood with new Premier Gordon Brown, she said: "It's going to be a hell of a fight. It will be so close this time round."

Over the last eighteen months, the Conservative Party has been coming ahead of the ruling Labour Party in opinion polls but the latter is believed to have regained huge support following Tony Blair's resignation from both the party and government helm.

Brown, a soft-spoken politician as opposed to both Blair and Cameron, recently announced that general election would be held within a year but he has can extend it to as late as 2010 - the time when Blair's second term was due to end.