THE United States on Monday rejected a threat by the leader of a rebel group in the Democratic Republic of Congo to no longer abide by a ceasefire. State Department spokesman James Rubin said in a statement that Jean-Pierre Bemba’s declaration on Saturday that a three-month old ceasefire signed in Zambia was “null and void” was not acceptable. Bemba, the head of the Ugandan-backed rebel Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), said he would no longer respect the accords because DRC President Laurent Kabila’s troops had attacked his forces.
08