Angola wants peace with Unita
2002-03-14 00:14
Luanda - Angola's government on Wednesday ordered the military to halt all offensives against Unita rebels, beginning at midnight, and said in a communiqué it was ready to declare an amnesty for rebel fighters.
The measures were included in a national reconciliation plan,
which calls for folding politicians from the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita) into government bodies, in line with a 1994 peace accord.
The plan follows the death on February 22 of Unita's veteran
leader Jonas Savimbi, who was killed in fighting against government
troops in the east of the southern African country.
According to Luanda, Savimbi's death reignited hope for peace in the nation plagued by civil war since independence from Portugal in 1975.
The Lusaka peace accord of 1994 has long been in tatters.
Wednesday's orders came a day after the Luanda government
confirmed the death of General Antonio Dembo, who had been seen as a possible successor to Savimbi until he went missing late last month.
Dembo dead
"General Dembo is dead, but that doesn't mean the war is over," General Carlitos Wala, leader of the soldiers who killed Savimbi on February 22, had said on Tuesday.
Officials had never before officially confirmed the death, but
admitted on March 4 that they had begun looking for the body of the Unita vice-president.
The Angolan press had speculated that Dembo might have died of
wounds sustained in the same battle in the central-eastern province of Moxico that claimed Savimbi's life.
Unita rebels have maintained continued attacks since Savimbi's death,
despite calls from Luanda for them to lay down their arms.
Last week, President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos endorsed the plan
to implement the Lusaka peace accord, which was signed in a bid to end renewed fighting after Unita lost elections to the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA).
The plan included "concrete and immediate measures" and stressed the government's "availability (to consider) all signals that could contribute to a definitive peace in a spirit of openness", Dos Santos' office said on Friday.
According to the most conservative estimates, over 500 000 people have died in the civil war, which followed a 14-year colonial war against Portugal, and more than one third of the nation's 12 million people have been displaced. - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA