WEDNESDAY 12.00NOON:
THE former commander of the United Nations observer force in Angola says there is evidence in the country of a military build-up that “indicates preparations for a possible return to war”.
Zimbabwean army Major-General Phillip Sibanda, who has just returned to Harare from a two-and-a-half-year command of the formerly 7000-strong UN military monitoring force in the war-crippled country, said he has reported the evidence to the UN peacekeeping operations headquarters in New York, and has briefed UN special envoy to Angola Alioune Blondin Beye.
“I made my views very clear,” he said. He added that war is probably not imminent, but, he said, “the situation is pretty volatile”.
Sibanda would not say who appears to be preparing for hostilities, but he stressed his suspicions that the Unita movement of Jonas Savimbi is concealing military hardware. “For as long as Unita refuses to verify [its military strengths], I am bound to conclude they have something to hide. It obviously indicates something is wrong.”
Sibanda’s statement comes on the heels of an announcement by Beye that Unita is still maintaining an army in contravention of the peace accord, and threatening to resign in response to Unita’s incessant stalling.
If Beye resigns, “because he sees no hope, we are headed for serious problems in Angola,” said Sibanda. He added that Unita announced in March that it had handed in all its weapons and demobilised all its troops, in terms of the 1994 Lusaka accord. “I said fine, but we need to verify. To be able to produce a statement confirming what you have produced, we need to verify certain areas,” said Sibanda. “The answer I got was no.”
Sibanda added that banditry is “a major cause for concern”. He said most of the activity is politically motivated, and “should be tackled before somebody finds an excuse to going back to finding a military solution to the problems of Angola”. He said there are hardliners on both sides “who feel a military solution is the only answer”.
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