Congolese mourn deceased Kabila, war allies meet

Congolese mourn deceased Kabila, war allies meet

KINSHASA (Reuters): Thousands of Congolese mourned slain
President Laurent Kabila when his body arrived back in the
capital Kinshasa on Sunday and his military allies met to discuss
the many-sided war he leaves behind.

Leaders of Kabila's allies, Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia, met
to discuss Democratic Republic of Congo, and diplomatic sources
said Southern African leaders were considering a full summit on
the Congo in Mozambique on Wednesday.

In Angola's capital Luanda, government spokesman Aldemiro de
Conceicao said President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and President
Nujoma of Namibia had begun talks with President Jose Eduardo dos
Santos in his city office before midday.

"It is just a one-day meeting and it has started. They are
here to deal with the situation in the Congo," he said.

The three leaders deployed thousands of troops in Democratic
Republic of Congo in 1998 under the banner of the 14-member
Southern African Development Community (SADC) to help Kabila
fight rebels backed by Rwanda and Uganda.

They have all pledged to continue supporting the former Zaire
after Kabila's death.

Congolese Information Minister Dominique Sakombi said the
Congo government had no representative at the Luanda talks.
"Dos Santos said clearly that there would be a meeting between
the three allies to assess the situation," Sakombi told Reuters
in Kinshasa. He also could not confirm reports that a summit was
planned for Maputo next week.

"Whatever happens, if there are summits we will be there,
provided it takes after the funeral," he said. He declined to
comment on whether Joseph Kabila, who will succeed his father,
would attend such a summit.

Joseph Kabila, 31, will be sworn in as president of Africa's
third largest country once his father is buried on Tuesday.

Kabila's body was returned to the Congolese capital, where he
was shot by a bodyguard last week in his hilltop palace.

Groups of police and crowds of people, many wearing T-shirts
printed with Kabila's image, lined the 40-km route from N'djili
airport, where the body arrived, to the People's Palace, where he
will lie in state until Tuesday's burial.

Female relatives wailed and one woman had to be restrained by
soldiers as the body was taken off a plane from Lubumbashi,
Kabila's home city in the south where he was taken last Saturday.

Army generals saluted and wheeled the coffin along a red
carpet as government ministers and dignitaries looked on. It was
the final stage of Kabila's return from Harare, where Congolese
officials said he had died on Thursday after being flown there
for treatment after he was shot.

In Kinshasa cars sported clumps of leaves under bonnets and
windscreen wipers as signs of mourning, and some taxi drivers
said they had been given free fuel to bring mourners to watch.

Until Sunday, mourning in Kinshasa for the slain leader who
ousted former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko more than three years ago
had been low-key, although Agriculture Minister Mawampanga Mwana
Nanga predicted an outpouring of emotion.

"The quiet means they were really mourning. You just wait when
they see the body come. The people will really be crying," he
told reporters last Saturday.

In the first official account of Kabila's murder, Justice
Minister Mwenze Kongolo said last Saturday the president had been
talking to an economic adviser before the assassin came into the
room, made as if to speak to Kabila, and shot him three times.

"One of the bullets went right behind the ear and came right
behind the ribs. I think that's the one that killed him," Mwenze
told a news conference.

Preparations were under way for an elaborate state funeral on
Tuesday. After that, Joseph Kabila, an army major-general, will
be sworn in.

"He's the president of the republic," Mwenze said.
Mwenze dismissed a common criticism on the streets of Kinshasa
that the cabinet's chosen replacement for the elder Kabila was
tantamount to making Congo a monarchy.

"These people you see on the street loved him. They need this
quietness. They also understand that this is a very fragile
moment," Mwenze said.

State television has shown the younger Kabila meeting foreign
diplomats during the past few days, but he has made no public
comments. One of his first acts, however, was to order the
payment of civil servants' and soldiers' salaries on Friday.

The head of the UN mission in Congo said last Saturday after
meeting Kabila that he had shown willingness to work for peace.

Mwenze pledged that the government would resume negotiations
to end the civil war after Kabila's funeral. "As soon as we have
finished the burial of the president, we will start negotiating
again," he said. But he said Kinshasa would continue to demand
the total withdrawal of Ugandan and Rwandan forces.

"We are saying they have to go. Our negotiations have always
been about that question. They have to withdraw," Mwenze said.