Maputo — The SADC (Southern African Development Community) Political and Diplomatic Committee, consisting of the foreign ministers of the member states, is meeting in Maputo on Thursday, to discuss preparations for the next heads of state summit of the African Union, to be held in Addis Ababa from 31 January to 3 February.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, SADC Executive Secretary Tomas Salomao stressed that the rotating chairmanship of the AU is due to be occupied by a southern African leader this year. SADC had decided at its 2009 summit in Kinshasa to support the candidature of Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika.

Salomao said that this situation remains unchanged despite the recent deterioration in relations between Mozambique and Malawi. Mozambican President Armando Guebuza had been present when the decision was taken, "and SADC has received no indication from Mozambique of any change of mind".

Salomao stressed that the SADC region "needs to speak with a single voice", and he was sure Mozambique would not do anything to endanger this.

The Malawian authorities were angered in November, when Mozambique pulled out of a project to establish a shipping route from Malawi to the Indian Ocean, along the Shire and Zambezi rivers. This project was dependent on a favourable outcome to environmental impact studies and, according to Mozambican Foreign Minister Oldemiro Baloi, the deadlines for these studies had not been respected.

Relations with Malawi had already cooled because of a Malawian attack on a Mozambican police station in August, and because of groundless claims that a fuel shortage in Malawi was caused by congestion in the Mozambican ports of Beira and Nacala.

Salomao was confident that these problems are temporary and will be resolved at bilateral level. "Malawi needs Mozambique, just as Mozambique needs Malawi", he said.

The Malawian foreign minister has not yet confirmed participation in Thursday's meeting, but even if no minister showed up, the country could be represented by its ambassador in Maputo, Salomao said.

The SADC ministers would also discuss the reports to be given to the AU about conflicts in the region. Salomao was confident that progress had been made in two of them. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, "matters are on the right track in the east of the country with regard to reconciliation".

In Zimbabwe, negotiations had resumed between the three partners in the power-sharing agreement, President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF and the two factions of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Salomao said the South African mediatinPf/ (614)g team and the SADC secretariat believed that Zimbabwe too was "on the right path".

He could not be so optimistic about Madagascar, which remains suspended from both SADC and the AU following the coup d'etat of last March, in which the former mayor of Antananarivo, Andry Rajoelina, seized power.

Negotiations in Maputo and Addis Ababa between Rajoelina, the man he ousted, Marc Ravalomanana, and two previous presidents, Didier Ratsiraka and Albert Zafy, led to an agreement on a transitional government. But Rajoelina refused to attend the follow-up meeting in Maputo in early December, where ministerial portfolios were shared out between the four factions.

Rajoelina then tore up all previous agreements and unilaterally appointed a new prime minister. The International Contact Group for Madagascar was meeting in Addis Ababa again on Wednesday, in a further attempt to break the deadlock created by Rajoelina's actions.

"Madagascar is a challenge", Salomao admitted. He insisted that agreements reached during negotiations could not simply be discarded when one party changes its mind.

"There are a series of agreements signed by the parties, and the parties should be loyal to what they have signed", he said.