Officially, the Angolan jets that boomed over Kinshasa on 20 November were merely on "manoeuvers". But given the decrepitude of DRC's air force, the neighbouring's state's planes were clearly signalling Angola's support for President Felix Tshisekedi, who has been trying for several months to cut ties with his predecessor and political ally Joseph Kabila. Four days earlier, Tshisekedi had travelled to Luanda to seek the support of his Angolan counterpart. João Lourenço came up trumps, sending two recently acquired Russian SU-30 MK2 multirole fighters, an AN-72 cargo plane, and an Augusta Westland AW139 helicopter. This support was all the more valuable as it arrived on the same day that Angola took over the presidency of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (CIRGL), whose executive secretary is now Angolan diplomat and geologist João Samuel Cabolo, the former number two of the Southern African Development Community.
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