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SADC Member States Sign Mutual Defense Pact

Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
NEWS
August 27, 2003
Posted to the web August 27, 2003
Maputo
The heads of state and of government of the Southern African Development
Community (SADC) signed on Tuesday a Mutual Defense Pact at the end of a two
day summit in Dar es Salaam, in Tanzania, reports Wednsday's issue of the
Maputo daily paper "Noticias".
Besides this document, the summit also approved the Regional Indicative
Strategic Development Plan (RISDP), designed to be a model of priority
interventions in the fight against poverty in Southern Africa.
The Mutual Defense Pact is intended to deepen cooperation in Politics, Defense
and Security between the SADC member states.
Mozambican Foreign Minister Leonardo Simao explained to reporters over the
weekend, after the SADC miniters meeting in preparation of the summit, that in
the terms of the pact an agression against one state will mean one against all
members of the community, thus legitimising their intervention.
He said that the document is to enter into force as soon as it is ratified, and
he compared it to the Northern Atlantinc Treaty Organization (NATO). He said
that it envisages joint military manoeuvres and coordinated actions between the
member countries' police forces.
Chissano described the signing of this pact as a win of the Mozambican
diplomacy, since it was this country that drafted by Mozambique, in its quality
as the chair country of the SADC Organ for Politics, Defense and Security, a
post that was handed over to Lesoto during the Dar es Salaam summit.
As the contribution of Mozambique while chairing the defense and Seecurity
organ, he stressed its role in the solution of conflicts in Lesoto, Zimbabwe,
and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and in helping perevnt conflicts in
other cases.
As from this summit, tha chairmanship of SADC has been passed to Tanzania, with
Mauritius as deputy chair country.
In his speech, Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa anounced the approval of the
creation of a Regional Fund for the Implementation of a Strategy and Programme
of fight against HIV/AIDS for the period of 2002/2007 within SADC, for which
10.5 million US dollars have been made available, so far.

   

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