Annan asks Congo rebels to end northeastern attack
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 27 (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Friday called on rebel leaders pursuing a deadly offensive in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo to rein in their troops. A "deeply concerned" Annan urged Jean-Pierre Bemba of the Movement for the Liberation of Congo and Roger Lumbala of the Rally for Congolese Democracy-National "to restrain their forces from further advances," U.N. chief spokesman Fred Eckhard said. "He reminds those responsible for violating humanitarian law that the international community will hold them accountable for their actions," Eckhard said. The U.N. Security Council earlier this week also expressed deep concern over the offensive under way in Ituri province in the northeast of the vast central African nation, near the Ugandan border. U.N. officials and Amnesty International have previously warned of a possible ethnic blood bath in the area, comparable to the 1994 genocide in nearby Rwanda, in which 800,000 people were massacred. Council members issued a statement on Tuesday urging all sides to end the hostilities, and Annan found it disturbing that the rebel groups had failed to heed the council's calls, Eckhard said. The offensive has driven tens of thousands of civilians from their homes and threatens the key eastern town of Beni, according to U.N. officials. They warn that an attack on Beni could have a disastrous impact on the local population and possibly draw Ugandan troops into the fray. The fighting, which violated a truce recently brokered in Ituri by the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo, flared up shortly after the signing of a peace deal in the South African capital Pretoria, aimed at ending Congo's 4-year-old civil war. The conflict has drawn in six foreign armies and killed an estimated 2 million people despite years of international efforts to end the fighting. The offensive in Ituri pits rebels from the Rally for Congolese Democracy-National and the Ugandan-backed Movement for the Liberation of Congo, against the rival Rally for Congolese Democracy-Kisangani, also supported by Uganda, U.N. officials said.
