President Joseph Kabila has decided to immediately suspend mining in three eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the mining minister said Saturday.

Kabila made the decision because the mineral mining there was supporting the "mafia groups" responsible for the chronic instability in the region, said a statement from mining minister Martin Kabwelu.

The illegal mining was also going on with the complicity of local and national officials on both the civilian and military side, said the statement.

The presidential decree covers the provinces of Nord Kivu, Sud Kivu and Maniema.

But the ministry statement did not spell out how the president's decision would be enforced.

The two provinces of Kivu mark DR Congo's eastern borders with Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, where much of the bloodiest fighting between the various rebel groups, local militia and government troops takes place.

The mining minister of one of the provinces affected, Nord Kivu, said on Friday that the president was planning the move.

Kabila wanted to clean up the sector and give the local people better living conditions, said D'Assise Masika, as the president visited the region.

Rebel groups who prey on the local populations in Nord Kivu, Sud Kivu and Maniema, also control much of the lucrative mining activities in the region.

Saturday's announcement however made it clear that Kabila believed the corruption surrounding the mining there went deep into the country's civilian and military administration.

Nord Kivu and Sud Kivu are rich in cassiterite and coltan, the minerals used in the West to build telephones, computers and games consoles. It also has some reserves of gold.

Among the armed groups running illegal mining operations there are the Hutu rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), considered one of the main sources of instability in the region.

A 2009 UN report said that the FDLR was making million of dollars from its mining activity in the two Kivu provinces.

(Source: AFP)