Absent Rebels Sink Angola Peace Talks
The United Nations canceled the Angolan peace talks Monday after UNITA rebel leaders failed for the second time in a month to show up for negotiations with government representatives.
“A cease-fire seems more remote than ever,” special U.N. envoy Margaret Anstee said at a news conference.
Talks had been scheduled to resume Friday, but rebels insisted that intense fighting prevented their delegates from leaving the central Angolan town of Huambo. The government denied this.
On Sunday, Anstee gave the rebels an ultimatum to send representatives to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, by 9 a.m. Monday or the talks would be canceled.
Six hours after the deadline, Anstee said she decided to cancel the talks because UNITA--the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola--declined to accept her offer of a U.N. escort to Ethiopia and then asked for a postponement without naming a new date for talks.
The rebels of UNITA also failed to attend talks on Feb. 10, which had been scheduled after inconclusive negotiations in Ethiopia in January.
Angola’s civil war resumed after rebel leader Jonas Savimbi rejected his faction’s loss in elections held in September under a U.N.-mediated peace accord signed in May, 1991.
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