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.