OWN CORRESPONDENT, Lusaka | Thursday 10.00pm.
UN Secretary-General Koffi Annan will hold a special meeting of southern African states on the Angolan crisis at this month’s Non-Aligned Movement summit in Durban, South African officials said on Thursday.
Annan’s special envoy to Angola, Lakdar Brahimi outlined plans for the meeting when he briefed South Africa’s Deputy President Thabo Mbeki in Cape Town late Wednesday, Mbeki’s spokesman Ricky Naidoo said.
Annan plans to ask the heads of the SADC how they can assist the UN in Angola, Naidoo said, adding: “The UN wants SADC to take the role of assisting the UN to try and resolve the situation in Angola.” SADC defence chiefs have meanwhile met in Lusaka to discuss the conflicts in both the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola.
At a two-day routine regional meeting of the SADC security committee, Zambian defence minister Chitalu Sampa said on Thursday: “This region is faced, once more, with a serious security situation which threatens peace and stability on the whole subcontinent. The Congo situation in particular has the potential to engulf the Great Lakes and SADC regions.”
The meeting included army commanders and senior defence officials from South Africa, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania and Zambia.
Also in Lusaka, UN special envoy Brahimi said on Thursday that the UN has no evidence that Zambia is involved in the shipment of arms to Unita in Angola. He told reporters that frequent arms shipments had been smuggled into Angola by land and air from neighbouring countries. But “whether it’s by Zambia or others, I don’t know. The UN has no evidence,” he said.
He called on members of the international community to discourage arms manufacturers from doing business in Angola.
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