Luanda | Thursday
ANGOLA’S government ordered a halt to its attacks on Unita rebels beginning on Thursday, and said it was ready to jump start a moribund peace deal by offering amnesty for rebel fighters.
The announcement issued late on Wednesday follows the death on February 22 of Unita’s veteran leader Jonas Savimbi, who was killed in fighting against government troops in the east of the southern African country.
The halt in the offensives should “allow authorities to make direct contact with rebels of the Nation Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita) and to arrive at a ceasefire,” said a presidential statement.
The move is part of a plan for national reconciliation offered by the government, which also said it would begin implementing the 1994 Lusaka accord, for example by folding the Unita leadership into the government.
In Luanda, Savimbi’s death has reignited hope for peace in the nation plagued by civil war since independence from Portugal in 1975.
An agreement signed in Lusaka in 1994 barely made it off the page, with the war resuming shortly after the agreement was signed with many Unita troops leaving UN-monitored camps to resume combat.
The government also said it was ready to help the rebels choose a new leader and that it “wants to make a contribution to the Unita militants so that they can resolve their internal problems, notably concerning the naming of its leader.”
But Luanda demanded that Unita demilitarise to allow a reconciliation process to get underway.
On Tuesday, Interior Minister Fernando da Piedade — known as Nando — said there were “signs of moderation and good sense on the part of our Unita brothers.”
“We note a certain sense of responsibility and patriotism from our brothers and we should encourage that gesture,” said Nando, a close aid to President Jose Eduardo dos Santos.
Wednesday’s orders came a day after the Luanda government confirmed the death of General Antonio Dembo, who had been seen as a possible successor to Savimbi until he went missing late last month.
“General Dembo is dead but that doesn’t mean the war is over,” General Carlitos Wala, leader of the soldiers who killed Savimbi on February 22, said on Tuesday.
Officials had never before confirmed the death but admitted on March 4 that they had begun looking for the body of the Unita vice president.
The Angolan press had speculated that Dembo might have died of wounds sustained in the same battle in the central-eastern province of Moxico that claimed Savimbi’s life.
Unita rebels have continued attacks since Savimbi’s death, despite calls from Luanda for them to lay down their arms.
Last week, Dos Santos endorsed the plan to implement the Lusaka peace accord, which was signed in a bid to end renewed fighting after Unita lost elections to the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA).
The plan included “concrete and immediate measures” and stressed the government’s “availability (to consider) all signals that could contribute to a definitive peace in a spirit of openness”, Dos Santos’ office said on Friday.
According to the most conservative estimates, over 500 000 people have died in the civil war, which followed a 14-year colonial war against Portugal, and more than one third of the nation’s 12-million people have been displaced. – AFP