The UN adviser on genocide urged the combatants in eastern Congo on Friday to refrain from actions that might encourage genocide and warned that anyone promoting ethnic killings will be held accountable.

Francis Deng, the special adviser to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, noted the tragic loss of life in the region over at least 15 years, "including on the basis of ethnicity," and said he has been "especially alarmed by the escalation of violence in the past few weeks".

The conflict in eastern Congo is fueled by ethnic hatred left over from the 1994 slaughter of a half-million Tutsis in neighbouring Rwanda.

Rebel leader Laurent Nkunda, who went on the offensive on 28 August, claims he is fighting to protect minority Tutsis from Rwandan Hutu rebels who participated in the genocide and fled to Congo afterward.

In a statement released at UN headquarters, Deng emphasised "that the belligerents in eastern Congo must refrain from actions that might encourage genocide and that they, and any actors who provide material support, will be held accountable if they fail to do so."

A grave humanitarian crime

Under international law, he said, "the intention to destroy an ethnic population group, in whole or in part, is a grave crime... which the international community, including member states in the region and beyond, has an obligation to prevent and to punish when it does occur."

Alan Doss, the top UN envoy to Congo, has warned repeatedly of heightened ethnic tensions as a result of the upsurge in fighting.

Among the dozens of militia groups operating in eastern Congo's remote terraced valleys and hills are Nkunda's Tutsi fighters, the anti-Tutsi Mai Mai, and ethnic Hutu insurgents who fled from Rwanda after helping carry out Rwanda's bloody genocide.

Last week, Anneke Van Woudenberg, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, wrote in The Independent, a British daily, that to avert war, diplomats must acknowledge "two uncomfortable truths," at last tacit support for Nkunda from Rwanda's Tutsi-led government and "the cosy relationship" between the Congolese army and the Rwandan Hutu FDLR, which incorporates some combatants who participated in the Rwandan genocide.

Nkunda actively recruits hundreds of his most experienced soldiers within Rwanda, she wrote, and their presence "fuels hostility and suspicion toward Rwanda, and toward Congolese Tutsi."

"Officials anxious to solidify their own power spur that hatred, creating the conditions for potential anti-Tutsi violence. Since August about 40 Tutsi have been arbitrarily detained in Goma, some of whom were tortured," Woudenberg wrote.

She said there also has been "a resurgence of collaboration" between Congolese government soldiers and Rwandan Hutu FDLR based in Congo, who say they intend to overthrow the government of Rwanda but are now just plundering Congolese citizens and resources.

"Just as the presence of Rwandan troops among Nkunda's ranks spurs anger and suspicion among Congolese, the Congolese army's collaboration with the FDLR is a red flag to Rwandans," Woudenberg wrote.

Deng, a human rights expert and former Sudanese diplomat, was appointed to the full-time post in May 2007. He is responsible for determing from existing sources of information whether there is a risk of genocide in any part of the world and to alert the international community to such risks.

Sapa