THURSDAY, 4.00PM
SOUTHERN African leaders have agreed to meet to discuss the deteriorating political and security situation in Angola, government sources said on Wednesday.
No date has been set, but the meeting is expected to take place within a fortnight. A planned meeting in Luanda on Tuesday next week has in the interim been called off, the sources said. The new talks will probably be held in South Africa.
The intended focus of the postponed Luanda meeting was to have been the attitude of Unita rebel leader Jonas Savimbi towards United Nations’ demands that Unita abide by the terms of the Lusaka Peace Protocols. The same issues are due for discussion in the new meeting of regional leaders.
Meanwhile, Unita has threatened that implementation of proposed new UN sanctions against the rebel movement could reignite the civil war in Angola.
Horacio Jijunjivili, a senior Unita official, said any additional sanctions will increase Unita hardliners’ leverage over Savimbi. “Sanctions will discourage those who are committed to peace and encourage those who are against it,” Jijunjivili said. He added Unita “is making a great effort” to comply with the accord. “If the reward for all this effort is sanctions, then the whole peace process will be killed off,” Jijunjivili said.
However, a UN official dismissed the warning as a ploy. UN spokesman David Wimhurst said the warning is an attempt to keep the UN security council from imposing further sanctions against Unita. “They’re trying to exert pressure on the international community. It’s a question of who’s going to blink,” Wimhurst said.