By David Lewis KINSHASA, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Congo's recently elected President Joseph Kabila carried a reconciliation message on Friday to his country's lawless east, where he is hugely popular but where rebel violence still threatens peace. Days after the Supreme Court confirmed him as the winner of an Oct. 29 presidential run-off, Kabila visited the eastern city of Goma, which was threatened earlier this week by forces loyal to a renegade general, Laurent Nkunda. In the worst fighting in Democratic Republic of Congo since last month's vote, Nkunda's fighters battled U.N. peacekeepers who used helicopter gunships and armoured vehicles to check the rebel advance in eastern North Kivu province. At least five people were killed, more than 100 wounded, and up to 20,000 civilians were displaced by the clashes, which highlighted the east's volatility despite the historic polls, which were meant to draw a line under a 1998-2003 war. Presidential spokesman Kudura Kasongo said Kabila was in Goma "to deal with a worrying security situation there". He refused to give details but U.N. and Congolese officials said the mission appeared to be focused more on fostering reconciliation than trying to defeat Nkunda militarily. "He doesn't seem to be on a war mission -- it seems to be more about appeasement," said one U.N. official. In Kabila's ballot box contest against former rebel chief Jean-Pierre Bemba, voting was largely along ethnic and linguistic lines. Kabila won over 90 percent of votes in his Swahili-speaking native east, where civilians bore the brunt of the war and many see the president as a man of peace. But pockets of rebel groups remain, such as the fighters loyal to Nkunda, a dissident Tutsi general who continues to oppose the Kinshasa government in the name of protecting threatened ethnic minorities. "He (Kabila) wants to ensure that people understand he wants to work with everyone, including the Tutsis," an official at the presidency, who asked not to be named, told Reuters. "It's a trip aimed at calming the people. It's aimed at reconciliation," he added. Before flying to the east, Kabila held a meeting on Thursday with his defeated rival Bemba in Kinshasa. "CONFIDENCE-BUILDING" The humanitarian crisis triggered by Congo's 1998-2003 war has killed around four million people and aid agencies say 1,200 Congolese still die every day from violence, hunger and disease. In the recent fighting with Nkunda's men, U.N. troops -- part of the world's biggest peacekeeping force deployed in Congo -- were forced to call in helicopters after government soldiers, a chaotic cocktail of fighters from various armed groups, fled. Security sources and U.N. officials said Kabila's presidential guard had been deployed to Sake, a town 20 km (12 miles) west of Goma that the rebels briefly seized over the weekend. Kabila was due to visit it on Friday. One security source said the president was believed to have already spoken to Nkunda on the phone. "These are confidence-building measures," he said. An international arrest warrant has been issued for Nkunda, who is accused of war crimes committed in attacks during the three-year transition to this year's elections, the first free polls in Congo in more than 40 years. Nkunda says he is defending the rights of the Congolese who, like himself, are of Rwandan origin but are unpopular in the east after Kigali openly sent its army to support rebels in Congo during the war. Security sources say discussions about a possible amnesty for him are under way.
