Peace summit underway in Maputo

President Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique on Monday welcomed regional African leaders to the Mozambican capital Maputo for another summit meeting, to be chaired by South African President Thabo Mbeki, to try to get the Lusaka peace process back on track. Presidents Laurent-Desire Kabila and Robert Mugabe were in attendance to represent DRC and its military ally Zimbabwe, while Kabila’s other allies in the conflict, Namibia and Angola, were to be represented by Prime Minister Hage Geingob and Defence Minister Kundi Pahyama respectively, news organisations reported. Uganda and Rwanda, which back the Congolese rebels opposing Kabila, were represented by Presidents Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame, reports said.

Monday’s meeting, a South African initiative, was the follow-up to a 16 October meeting in Maputo at which all the state combatants in the DRC conflict (but not the rebel groups, who have not been included in the Maputo summits) agreed withdraw their troops by at least 15 km from the positions they held when they signed the Lusaka accord in July 1999. That agreement has not been implemented and continued fighting in the conflict jeopardises the deployment of peacekeepers under the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC). Discussions in Maputo were due to focus on the disarmament of militia groups inside the DRC and enforcement of the previously agreed disengagement of foreign troops, the BBC reported, citing diplomatic sources.