A document signed Thursday by RCD leader Azarias Ruberwa set up three military regions in eastern, northern and southern DRC that it controlled before a peace plan signed last year in the South African capital Pretoria.

"It is a scenario for preparation of a coup by military force. Ruberwa has caressed the media and the population of Kivu and put things in place to attack from the regions he has created," said one military officer on condition of anonymity.

The committee monitoring the peace process suspended its work Saturday after learning of Ruberwa's unilateral creation of the military zones, with one member calling the move treasonous.

In the eastern city of Goma on Saturday Ruberwa officially announced the end of his movement's five-year war against the Kinshasa-based government.

Later Saturday, RCD official Crispin Kabasele-Tshimanga told AFP the issue of the military zones was still open to discussion.

"All we did was adapt our situation to that of the territories administered by the government or the (rebel) Congo Liberation Movement," he said in a telephone interview.

The official denied that the three regions created by the RCD extended beyond the area controlled by the group, which on Saturday declared its five year war against Kinshasa as over.

Kabasele-Tshimanga said the RCD "was very open to national talks on the division of the country into new military regions and even on attributing these regions to new bodies."

But Saturday the officer in Kinshasa described the situation as tense.

"The situation is very tense because we know that the RCD has infiltrated" the army's officer corps, said the officer.

The move by the RDC caused sharp reactions in Kinshasa, but none of the members of the national unity government named in June has commented yet, which a member of the monitoring committee said was in order not to further inflame the situation.

"What he did was an act of high treason. A government of national unity -- in which Ruberwa is a vice president -- has been named and the responsibilities in the future army have been decided in conjuction with the rebels," said the committee member.

WAR.WIRE