By Sue Pleming

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Ethiopia Woyanne on Wednesday to avoid acts that would raise tensions with Eritrea but got new promises from Africa’s Great Lakes nations to end fighting in eastern Congo.

In a rare public foray into African diplomacy, Rice spent a day in the Ethiopian capital shuttling between meetings with African leaders and ministers with the goal of tackling conflicts in eastern Congo, Somalia and Sudan and preventing a border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

In a swipe at her Ethiopian hosts, Rice pressed Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi to reduce tensions with Eritrea.

“I also urged the prime minister dictator to avoid any acts that might heighten friction between Eritrea and Ethiopia Woyanne and to take concrete steps to lessen tensions on the border. There must not be a resumption of hostilities initiated by either side,” Rice said in a statement.

The United States, which has close counter-terrorism cooperation with Ethiopia Woyanne, has been accused in the past of siding with it over the border dispute.

On only her second trip to sub-Saharan Africa in two years, Rice met with the presidents of Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda, as well as a minister from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and listed three areas of agreement in trying to resolve the Great Lakes conflict.

They included the “rapid strengthening” of security forces in Congo, reiteration of a commitment not to “harbor negative forces” and a recommitment to previous agreements. But there appeared to be no new or concrete ideas on the table.

“The three-point plan which she summarized is a good restatement of what we have talked about before, but this time with more vigor,” said Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni at a news conference with Rice.

BASHIR BOYCOTT

Congo’s 1998-2003 war pulled in six neighboring states and became a place to settle scores from previous conflicts, including Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.

Fighting has flared in the past few months in eastern Congo, now home to various militias, including some linked to neighboring countries.

Washington wants all sides to deal with “negative forces” including the FDLR (Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda), made up of key figures in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, plus Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army and renegade Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda.

Later Rice met officials from southern Sudan to try to prevent the unraveling of a north-south agreement but Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir declined to send a delegate.

Rice dismissed Bashir’s decision to boycott the meeting. “That’s fine, we have had plenty of contact with the Sudanese government on this issue.”

Congolese President Joseph Kabila was another no-show and he sent his interior minister instead.

In her meeting with Somalia’s new prime minister, Nur Hassan Hussein, Rice sought to bolster his credibility while at the same time urging him to be more “inclusive” in pulling together his fragile government.

“I think everyone understands the difficulty of the job ahead of you but also that you are a respected leader, and the importance of broadening the political basis for reconciliation in Somalia,” Rice said at the beginning of her meeting.

Five Somali cabinet members have resigned, a day after being appointed, to protest against what they said was their clan’s under-representation in the government.

She also appealed for more peacekeepers in Somalia to replace Ethiopians. ”

Rice raised concerns with African Union Secretary General Alpha Oumar Konare over delays in deploying a U.N.-AU peacekeeping force for Darfur and said Sudan was putting up obstacles preventing the force from going there.

(Editing by Bryson Hull and Giles Elgood)