Mbabane — Mozambican President Armando Guebuza arrived in the Swazi capital of Mbabane on Thursday morning for a meeting of the SADC (Southern African Development Community) troika on Political, Defence and Security Cooperation, to discuss the crisis in Madagascar, where the elected president, Marc Ravalomanana, has been overthrown by the mayor of Antananarivo, Andry Rajoelina.

Swazi King Mswati III is the chairperson of the troika, and Guebuza is the deputy chair. The third member is Angola, and Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos was expected to send a representative.

Speaking to Mozambican reporters in Mbabane on Wednesday night, the SADC Executive Secretary, Tomas Salomao, said "In practical terms, we are witnessing a coup d'etat, and so we have to take a position in light of the SADC statutes. Madagascar is a member of our organisation, and so SADC must take a position towards what is going on there".

The SADC response is somewhat late, given the speed at which events are occurring in Madagascar. Forced out of office, Ravalomanana resigned on Tuesday, handing over power to a military junta, who soon declared their loyalty to Rajoelina.

The ambitious mayor seems to determined to be declared president, despite the fact that he is only 34 years old, and the Madagascan constitution states that the president must be at least 40.

Speaking in Maputo, before he left for Mbabane, Salomao said that SADC had been closely following the crisis. "We have been in Madagascar since the day the crisis broke out", he said, rebuffing the suggestion that SADC has been ignoring it.

"The Madagascan Prime Minister took part, on 2 February, in the African Union summit. He spoke to me and asked me to organize a meeting of SADC heads of state for him to brief them about the situation in Madagascar", he added.

Salomao stressed that this meeting had taken place during the AU summit, and SADC then sent a delegation to Antananarivo on 7 March. He said he had visited Antananarivo twice "and I do not know if the day after tomorrow I will return to Antananarivo".

Salomao added that SADC does not need to issue communiques to prove its involvement in attempts to solve the crisis, because what is important is for the Madagascan people themselves to find a solution that, above all, may prevent any further loss of life.

"100 Madagascan citizens have already been killed, some of them unnecessarily, and thus we are going to help them and we will continue helping the Madagascar people find a solution to their problems", he said.

Meanwhile, Zambia became the first AU member country to demand the suspension of Madagascar from the continental organization until constitutional order is restored. Zambian Foreign Minister Kabinga Pande said that Madagascar should also be suspended from SADC, and called on the international community to boycott the new government.