Kabila to meet Museveni on Wednesday

Presidents Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda are scheduled to hold a one-day summit in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on Wednesday aimed at finding a peaceful resolution to the crisis in the DRC and normalising relations between Uganda and the DRC, the Ugandan independent ‘Monitor’ newspaper reported on Tuesday. The two presidents are meeting for the first time since Kabila came to power in January 2001 following the assassination of his father, the late President Laurent Desire Kabila. Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa will chair the summit, according to Museveni’s press secretary, Hope Kivengere. Kivengere told ‘The Monitor’ that a major issue on the agenda is the implementation of the Lusaka peace process to end the three-year conflict in the DRC. “But since they are meeting for the first time, they surely have many more issues to talk about,” Kivengere was reported as saying. The meeting will be the fruition of extensive efforts to thaw relations between the DRC and Uganda and to end hostilities that erupted in August 1998 when Uganda backed rebels attempting to overthrow the late Kabila.