Luanda | Wednesday
ANGOLA confirmed on Tuesday the death of General Antonio Dembo, who was seen as a possible successor to slain Unita leader Jonas Savimbi until he went missing late last month.
“General Dembo is dead, but that doesn’t mean the war is over,” said General Carlitos Wala, who led the army troops who killed Savimbi on February 22.
Angola had never before officially confirmed the death, but admitted on March 4 that it had begun looking for the body of the vice president of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita).
“He who harms others must be killed,” Wala told the Catholic radio station Ecclesia.
The Angolan press had long 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.
The army had earlier said that a rebel captured in the province claimed to have witnessed Dembo’s burial shortly after Savimbi’s death.
Unita, which has been carrying on a brutal 27-year civil war since Angola achieved independence from Portugal in 1975, has still not confirmed Dembo’s death.
Unita rebels have continued attacks since Savimbi’s death, despite calls from Luanda for rebels to lay down their arms. – AFP