OWN CORRESPONDENT, Luanda | Tuesday, 9.30PM.
THE Angolan rebel movement Unita has called its exclusion from the Angolan government a “setback for peace”.
Late on Monday the government and parliament simultaneously announced the suspension of four ministers and seven deputy ministers as well as 70 parliamentary deputies. The ruling MPLA in Luanda said the move is in response to Unita’s “flagrant violation” of the 1994 United Nations-brokered peace accords, aimed at ending 20 years of civil war in Angola.
Luanda says Unita attacks have claimed 650 lives since March and that the movement has retaken 90 towns and cities that were handed to central administration under the peace accords.
Horacio Junjuvili, who represents Unita on the joint commission overseeing the peace process, said on Tuesday: “At the most we’ve retaken five, and that’s because administrations could not be set up there because of the absence of roads.”
Junjuvili said Monday’s suspension of Unita members “shows the inconsistency and impotence of this government, which wants to govern alone. It’s a step towards dictatorship and not national reconciliation.”
On Tuesday the official Jornal de Angola said Unita forces had taken Luremo, a diamond town in north-eastern Lunda Norte province. Other attacks took place at the weekend in central Huambo, Bie and Benguela provinces, the paper said, adding that 10 people were killed in an ambush in the Huambo area on Saturday.