OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 10.00pm.
ANGOLA on Wednesday lifted the month-old suspension banning Unita members from its government.
Prime Minister Franca Van-Dunem said the decision had been made after consultations between the government and the provisional leadership set up by Unita dissidents who split from hardline leader Jonas Savimbi earlier this month.
President Jos Eduardo dos Santos, however, dismissed two Unita members from the government. The two Savimbi loyalists, Marcos Samondo, in charge of geology and mining, and deputy information minister Aurelio Joo Evangelista, had not sided with the dissidents earlier this month.
The Angolan government decided on August 31 to ban Unita’s four ministers and seven deputy ministers from the government, as well as 70 deputies elected in 1992 who took up their seats in March.
The expulsion came after Unita repeatedly violated the terms of a 1994 United Nations-brokered peace accord which ended almost 20-years of civil war.
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