JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has postponed the extraordinary summit of heads of state and government that was originally scheduled to be held, in virtual format, on Friday.
A
Thursday statement from the SADC Secretariat said that the summit will now be
held next Wednesday, 12 January, in the Malawian capital of Lilongwe. Malawian
President Lazarus Chakwera is the current chairperson of SADC, and he will
chair the extraordinary summit.
The
purpose of the summit, the statement added, is “to review progress of the SADC
Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM) which was deployed to support Mozambique to
combat terrorism and acts of violent extremism”.
Prior
to the summit, on Tuesday, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, will
convene an extraordinary meeting of the Troika of the SADC Organ on Political,
Defence and Security Cooperation. Attending this meeting will be the three
current members of the troika, namely South Africa, Botswana and Namibia, plus
Mozambique.
The
Troika summit will be followed, on Tuesday evening, by an extraordinary session
of the SADC Council of Ministers.
The
statement notes that, “in accordance with the SADC Treaty, the SADC Summit is
responsible for the overall policy direction and control of functions of the
community, ultimately making it the policy-making institution of SADC”.
Clearly,
the Summit’s immediate priority must be to decide on the future of SAMIM. The
mission was deployed in July 2021 following approval by an Extraordinary SADC
Summit held in Maputo, on 23 June 2021, as a regional response to support
Mozambique in the fight against terrorism in the northern province of Cabo
Delgado.
Eight
SADC member states have provided personnel for SAMIM, namely South Africa,
Botswana, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, Tanzania
and Zambia, working under the overall coordination of the Mozambican defence
forces. A non-SADC member, Rwanda, is also supplying forces to assist in the
anti-terrorist drive.
The
summit is expected to decide on whether to extend the mandate of SAMIM, and for
how long. - Africa
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