An 11-nation summit on restoring stability to Africa’s Great Lakes region, earlier scheduled for December in Kenya, has been postponed to the second half of next year due to rescheduled elections in Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations announced on Thursday.
The summit in the Kenyan capital was to be held on December 15 and 16, but has been put off to the second half of 2006, according to a joint statement released by the UN, African Union and the International Conference on the Great Lakes (ICGLR).
”The postponement has become necessary because of … the general election in Tanzania and the referendum on the Constitution in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the need for that country to complete its transition on June 30 2006,” the statement said.
Therefore, the ICGLR ”recommended that the Second Summit in Nairobi be held in the second half of 2006”, according to the statement.
The Great Lakes region has been Africa’s worst trouble spot since the 1960s, raging with ethnic and civil wars — including Rwanda’s 1994 genocide — that have claimed millions of lives.
In November last year, 15 African presidents and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan signed a common declaration in Dar es Salaam, calling on participating nations to promote peace and security in the powder-keg region.
The declaration called for the region’s transformation into an area of ”sustainable peace and security, of political and social stability, of shared growth and development”.
The countries included Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. — Sapa-AFP