The UN Security Council lifted a travel ban on Angola’s Unita rebels for 90 days to help push forward a cease-fire signed last month by rebels and the government in the war-ravaged nation.
A resolution adopted unanimously by the council Friday said that lifting the travel ban would enable Unita members to advance the peace process and national reconciliation and to reorganise following the February death of rebel leader Jonas Savimbi.
Three previous peace deals brought only brief pauses in Africa’s longest-running civil war, but the international community is cautiously optimistic that this one might end the conflict that began after Angola’s 1975 independence from Portugal.
The main reason is the death of Savimbi, who led the rebels’ struggle for more than 30 years in this southwest African nation.
He was killed by the Angolan army on February 22, following the death or capture of dozens of his senior officers over the previous year as the army retook control of most of the country.
Following Savimbi’s death, a new round of peace talks began, culminating in the April 4 cease-fire announcement.
In an attempt to force Unita to end the war, the United Nations had imposed a ban on rebel diamond exports that were helping to finance the conflict, an arms and fuel embargo and the travel ban.
The top UN adviser on Angola, Undersecretary-General Ibrahim Gambari, had recommended that the council suspend the travel ban so Unita can bring its different factions together.
Gambari said there were Unita rebels fighting in the country, Unita parliamentarians close to the government, Unita parliamentarians close to Savimbi and Unita officials outside Angola.
”It’s very important to get them to organise so there can be a single voice of Unita,” he said.
The Security Council resolution lifts the travel ban for 90 days starting Friday and says before the suspension ends the council will decide whether it should be extended. The other sanctions remain in effect.
The resolution passed on Friday was sponsored by Portugal, Russia and the United States – the three sponsors of a 1994 UN-brokered peace accord signed in Lusaka, Zambia, which collapsed in 1998.
Welcoming the cease-fire and the Angolan government’s efforts to restore peace and security in the country, the council emphasised the importance of fully implementing the Lusaka agreement and its previous resolutions.
The council also reaffirmed ”the need for Unita to cooperate fully with the demobilisation and quartering of Unita soldiers and their reintegration into the armed forces, police and civil society of Angola,” as called for in the April 4 agreement. – Sapa-AP