Mugabe returns home

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe abandoned a key summit in Cameroon and returned home on Thursday, taking charge in the wake of the reported assassination of his regional ally, Congolese President Laurent-Desire Kabila.

A spokesman for Mugabe, Munyaradzi Hwengwere, said Zimbabwe could not offer any information on the fate of Kabila until the DRC government made a formal announcement. Kabila is believed to have been flown to Zimbabwe on Wednesday, after he was shot and wounded in Kinshasa on Tuesday. Reports said he was either dead on arrival, or critically wounded.

Mugabe was attending a Franco-African summit in Yaounde, Cameroon, this week that was due to discuss the situation in the DRC. Following the news of Kabila’s shooting, Mugabe held talks with French President Jacques Chirac and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
He also had a two-hour meeting with Namibian President Sam Nujoma, who together with Angola and Zimbabwe, has deployed troops in support of the Kinshasa government against Rwanda and Ugandan-backed rebels.

“The president in Yaounde spoke of the need for a summit of all belligerents in the DRC. That means there will be one, but I don’t know when,” Hwengwere said. He added that Mugabe had “impressed on the UN Secretary-General and Chirac that the situation in the DRC should not be allowed to deteriorate.”

Hwengwere said he could not confirm whether Zimbabwe’s 11,000 troops in the DRC had been put on alert, but commented: “Zimbabwe and allied troops remain committed to their duty to safeguard the sovereign integrity of the Congo. This principal will be safeguarded today, and tomorrow.”