Angola OKs U.N. Search for Plane

The government of Angola finally responded to repeated U.N. requests for safe passage to the site of a downed plane, promising full cooperation Thursday in an effort to determine the fate of the 14 people on board.

The response came as the U.N. Security Council called an emergency meeting and threatened to retaliate for Angola’s inaction.

In announcing the decision, a government spokesman noted that rebels with the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, or UNITA, have not responded to the U.N. appeals.

After four years of relative calm, the government and UNITA recently resumed fighting in the area where the U.N.-chartered C-130 transport plane crashed Saturday for reasons still unknown. The plane was carrying eight members of a U.N. observer mission overseeing the implementation of a 1994 peace accord.

The United Nations says it asked both sides for guarantees that a U.N. rescue mission will not come under fire.

UNITA Secretary-General Paulo Lukamba Gato denied receiving the request and said the fighting around the cities of Huambo and nearby Kuito will escalate.

“There’s a low-intensity war all over the country and a high-intensity war around Huambo and Kuito. But there’ll be a crescendo in the next few days,” Gato said in a telephone interview from UNITA’s central highland base.

Huambo, Angola’s second-largest city and the base for the U.N. observer mission, is about 300 miles southeast of the capital, Luanda.

The United Nations began evacuating its staff from Huambo after a rebel artillery barrage killed at least eight people Wednesday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said 20 wounded civilians were admitted to the Huambo hospital after the hour-long bombardment by long-range artillery.

One private radio station in Luanda said 12 people died in the barrage, while another said eight people were killed.