President Thabo Mbeki will join United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and other leaders at the inauguration in Kinshasa on Wednesday of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Joseph Kabila.
In his weekly newsletter on the ANC website last Friday, Mbeki paid tribute to the various formations and leaders who guided the DRC through its transition, weathering many storms, including continuing armed violence, to the point the country had now reached, when it could proudly and justly claim its place as one of the largest democracies on the continent.
”We must salute the United Nations, which has played and continues to play a critical role in the various processes that have enabled the Congolese people to make history, standing tall today as a messenger of hope, communicating the message that Africa ,is firmly on its way towards its rebirth,” he said.
The DRC people’s achievement in the holding successful presidential and legislative elections had sent a message of a bright future for all their neighbours, and the imperative to seize the moment, to build a new neighbourhood of friendship and shared prosperity for the peoples of the DRC on the one hand, and those of the Congo and Angola, Zambia and Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan and the Central African Republic, on the other.
”Our warmest congratulations go to the Congolese masses. Despite the painful disappointments of many decades, these great masses did not lose confidence in the capacity of their nation to pull itself out of the abyss,” Mbeki said. — Sapa