No SADC summit this week

As President Laurent-Desire Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was buried in Kinshasa on Tuesday, South African foreign affairs officials told IRIN that there were no plans for a Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit on the Congo crisis in Maputo this week. “There is no such planned summit,” department spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said. “No such meeting can take place until all the relevant heads of state have been consulted.” News reports suggested that regional leaders would gather in Mozambique on Thursday. South Africa is the current chair of SADC.

Mamoepa said that following events in the DRC in recent days there was “most certainly” increased urgency among the various parties for the implementation of the Lusaka peace accords. But news reports on Monday quoted Congolese cabinet minister Mawampanga Mwana Nanga as saying that the Kinshasa government would do anything to end the war in the country, but that a peace summit should not be rushed. “People should not be rushing into calling summits. How many summits did President Kabila attend and nothing came out. Why should we now rush, thinking that the Rwandans would become angels,” he said.