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President Mugabe

Farirai Machivenyika in Gweru
SADC will convene an extra-ordinary summit in South Africa to discuss a stand-off between the Lesotho government and military leaders next Wednesday, President Robert Mugabe said yesterday. President Mugabe, who is the current Sadc chairman, revealed this while addressing chiefs attending the annual chiefs’ conference at Zanu-PF’s Convention Centre in Gweru.

“We’re grateful to have been given the Sadc chairmanship. In Sadc, we work together to keep our region peaceful. Now, we’re currently seized with the situation in Lesotho and this Wednesday we’ll be meeting in South Africa for an extra-ordinary summit to discuss this issue,” he said.

He added: “There’s a commander, Lieutenant General Tlali Kamoli, who was asked to step down. According to their law, the Prime Minister Thomas Thabane went to inform the King (Letsie III) and they dismissed the commander from the army in writing. They asked him to come and get his letter of discharge and he refused and organised his supporters within the army to retreat with their weapons to the mountains.”

He said the Sadc Troika commanders (Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa) tasked to deal with the matter in Lesotho visited the country and said the matter had been resolved. “We don’t know what’s wrong now. We will monitor the situation over the weekend, that’s the only trouble spot,” he said.

Thabane briefly fled his country to South Africa last month accusing the army of staging a coup.
Since independence from Britain in 1966, Lesotho has undergone a number of disturbances.

In 1998, at least 58 locals and eight South African soldiers died and parts of Maseru were damaged during a political stand-off and subsequent fighting.