Angolan Vows to Help Free 75 Captives

UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi agreed Thursday to do “everything possible” to free about 75 Russians and Brazilians captured by his rebels at a dam project east of Luanda, U.N. officials said.

International mediators also stepped up efforts to end fighting between UNITA and the government that has threatened to renew Angola’s civil war.

Savimbi made his promise about the captured foreigners during a conversation with Margaret Anstee, the special U.N. envoy for Angola, said a U.N. spokesman in New York, Joe Sills.

In Moscow, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Alexander Rozanov, said the rebels had given assurances that “the lives of the people are not at risk and perhaps they will be liberated soon.”

Fighting between rebels and government forces in the past week has left at least 1,000 people dead. The clashes are the most serious since a May, 1991, peace accord ended 16 years of war.

Tensions mounted after the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola defeated the rebel group in the country’s first multi-party elections Sept. 29-30.

The rebel group, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, accused the government of fixing the election, despite a U.N. declaration that the voting was generally free and fair.