Chris Gordon and Ann Eveleth
Zambia sent 500 troops to its border with Angola on Monday following persistent allegations that arms to Unita are being ferried across it.
After months of denial that the border was porous, the Zambian government this week finally agreed to take action.
The agreement, announced by Zambian foreign minister Keli Walubita, is that both sides send troops to the border to investigate conditions.
This follows allegations made at a press conference in Lusaka on March 5 by the Angolan ambassador to Zambia, Augusto Emanuelle, who alleged that Zambia had not moved decisively to stop the flow of arms to Unita by road and air, and that the border with Zambia was under effective Unita control.
The Zambian agreement also comes in the wake of growing concerns over the country’s use as a supply route for arms to rebel factions allied to former Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in the fractious Central African region.
The United Nations Integrated Regional Information Network for Central and Eastern Africa (IRIN-CEA) said this week that Ugandan, Rwandan and Burundian rebels were being armed through old apartheid black market smuggling operations led from Johannesburg by three of the late Mobutu’s most senior military allies, generals Kpama Baramoto and Ngbale Nzimbi and former Zairean defence minister admiral M udima Mavua.
IRIN-CEA quoted an East African news-paper claim that these arms were moving through Zambia to the Lake Tanganyika port of Nsumbu, from which they are shipped to smaller ports and into the Congolese battles zones of North and South Kivu.
The Johannesburg-based Institute for Strategic Studies also acknowledged that there is now mounting concern in South African security circles over some clandestine arms links with the Great Lakes region, but lamented a lack of hard evidence on the connec tion.
Emanuelle also claims that Unita has infiltrated the Maheba and Mayukuyuku refugee camps in north-west Zambia, and was recruiting Hutus. Africa Watch confirmed there had been a degree of Unita penetration of the camps.
Unita’s supply lines via Zambia have taken on new importance with the strangulation of routes through the Democratic Republic of Congo and Congo-Brazzaville.
The Zambian Air Force was empowered to shoot down any plane using the country’s airspace without permission.
Researchers in the region have cited two major routes for supplies via Zambia to Unita’s bases in Angola, including Cazombo near the frontier with Zambia.
The routes are though Zambezi Lodge base in north-west Zambia and Mfuwe in northern Zambia, which is also said to be a route by which weapons reach the Great Lakes region.
The airstrip at Zambezi Lodge was reported to be upgraded and lengthened, though Alex Vine of Africa Watch, recently returned from Zambia, warned that stories of fully-fledged Unita military airstrips were an overstatement.
Angolan intervention in Zambia is not seen as a likely outcome, and would hardly be tolerated by the 14 Southern African Development Community nations.
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