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Leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) pro-Kinshasa Allied Forces are to convene an urgent meeting to review the situation in the Congo following the “assassination” of President Laurent-Desire Kabila, Zimbabwe’s official daily the ‘Herald’ reported on Thursday.
After the meeting, the leaders are expected to request that chief mediator to the 29-month-old conflict, Zambian President Frederick Chiluba, call for a meeting of all signatories to the 1999 Lusaka peace agreement, the newspaper said. “We are reviewing the situation. First, we want to know the actual truth and circumstances of the death. We will then discuss it as allies on one side and the Lusaka signatories on the other. We have got to discuss the situation and see what is the way forward,” Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was quoted as saying on Wednesday in Yaounde, Cameroon. Mugabe, attending the Africa-France summit, cut short his trip after receiving the news of Kabila’s assassination. The ‘Herald’ said that reports from Kinshasa suggested that Kabila’s son, Major-General Joseph Kabila, Justice Minister Mwenze Kongolo, and Interior Minister Gaetan Kakudji were in charge of the country.
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