U.N Secretary General Kofi Annan urged leaders of Africa's resource-rich but blood-soaked Great Lakes region on Friday to implement a peace plan that could herald a "new era" for millions of Africans. Annan was speaking at the start of a two-day U.N.-backed summit that has been 10 years in the making and aims to approve a peace framework for the volatile area that includes Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). "What is at stake is nothing less than a new era for many millions of African men, women and children, who have been through a lot, who have buried too many relatives, who look to us not to waver in this effort," Annan told at least 13 heads of state gathered in Tanzania's commercial capital. "We cannot afford to have them write this process off as a theoretical exercise." Under a pact approved by regional foreign ministers on Thursday and due to be adopted at the Dar es Salaam summit, Great Lakes leaders are expected to pledge greater cross-border cooperation and confidence-building. The agreement also calls for moves to disarm rebel groups and build regional security structures, a first step towards ending a violent decade across the region that saw 3 million people die in war and genocide and from hunger and illness linked to political chaos. --More 2113 Local Time 1813 GMT
