Uprisings in north Africa serve as a warning to leaders in the rest of the continent not to ignore their citizens' demands, Zambia's president said, opening a regional summit Thursday.

"If there is anything that we must learn from the upheavals going on in the northern part of our continent, it is that the legitimate expectations of the citizens of our countries cannot be taken for granted," President Rupiah Banda said.

He spoke at the opening of a security summit of the 15-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC), where four leaders are set to discuss the mounting political tensions in Zimbabwe.

"We must therefore continue at the SADC level to consolidate democracy through the establishment of institutions that uphold the tenets of good governance, respect for human rights and the rule of law," Banda said.

"The issues that we will be addressing require decisive resolutions in charting the future of our regional body," Banda said.

The protests in north Africa prompted a crackdown in Zimbabwe, where 46 people were arrested last month for watching a video of the Egyptian protests that brought down president Hosni Mubarak. Six of them have been charged with treason, a capital offense.

Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, who is attending the summit along with his rival President Robert Mugabe, is expected to ask SADC to intervene to stop a wave of arrests and political violence.

He also wants SADC to lay out a "road map" to new elections that would end the transitional unity government created after failed polls in 2008.