Boost U.N. force in Congo to tackle LRA rebels: U.S.
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) - Uganda's fugitive rebel leader Joseph Kony is re-arming, and the United Nations should boost its peacekeeping force in Congo to contain or catch him, the top U.S. diplomat for Africa said on Monday.
Two years of peace talks between Kampala and Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) broke down in April prompting Uganda, Sudan and Congo to threaten a joint military offensive against the guerrillas, who are now based in northeastern Congo.
Jendayi Frazer, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said the talks established a mechanism for reconstructing war-torn northern Uganda and had been very positive. But she said LRA violence against Congolese civilians demanded a response.
"We need to pursue other avenues, particularly since we've seen that he has increased his attacks against local villages forcing into service women, children," Frazer told reporters on the sidelines of an African Union summit in Egypt.
"He is re-arming himself. He's preparing himself militarily and so we can't just stand by when he is doing that."
Uganda's two-decade civil war uprooted 2 million people and destabilized neighboring parts of oil-producing south Sudan and mineral-rich eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Kony and two of his deputies are wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes including massacres, rapes and the abduction of thousands of children to serve as fighters, porters and sex slaves.
In April, the elusive rebel chief failed to appear on the Congo-Sudan border to sign a final peace deal.
Frazer said Washington was working with the region to help governments coordinate their operations against the rebels. That included the U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo, MONUC, she said.
"We would hope the U.N. would increase its capability so that it can provide support for the Congolese forces so that they can, at a minimum, contain him so that he can't attack villages, and preferably pursue him until he agrees to sign the agreement or until he's actually apprehended," she said.
(Editing by Ibon Villelabeitia)
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