U.N. Calls On Rebels to Seize the Chance for Peace in Angola

The Security Council, endorsing what U.N. officials call Angola’s best chance for peace in a generation, urged that country’s UNITA rebels Thursday to embrace a new government proposal for “reconciliation” with insurgent forces.

The battle death last month of UNITA founder Jonas Savimbi led to almost immediate cease-fire talks between rebels and the Angolan army in the war-ravaged province of Moxico, about 500 miles southeast of Luanda, Angola’s capital. The negotiations could produce a truce within a few days, Angolan officials said Thursday.

U.N. officials are urging Angolans to follow any cease-fire deal with wide-ranging political negotiations that would lead to UNITA’s disarmament and the full participation of rebel leaders in the country’s political life after nearly three decades of war.

“The Security Council urges UNITA to recognize the historic nature of this opportunity to end the conflict with dignity, to give a clear, positive response to the government’s offer of peace,” the council said in a statement.

Rebel forces should begin by “disavowing the use of arms and demilitarizing completely,” while the government should cooperate with U.N. mediators to “ensure the transparency and credibility of the peace process,” the council said.

Although U.N. officials say some leaders of UNITA, or the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, are cooperating with the peace initiatives, they have expressed concern that without rapid demilitarization, the rebel forces could splinter into regional factions that would try to retain control over territory and lucrative diamond-smuggling enterprises.

Earlier this month, the Angolan government asked UNITA to select representatives for a peace commission that would revive a failed attempt at negotiations to end a war that has killed an estimated 500,000 people.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s special advisor on Africa, Ibrahim Gambari, told the council last week that Savimbi’s death and the government’s offer had given Angola a major opportunity to end the bloodshed.

But Gambari said that some rebel bands have refused to lay down their arms and that local residents continue to flee UNITA’s remaining rural strongholds.

Angola has what the United Nations says is the world’s highest proportion of internal refugees, with an estimated 4.5 million of the country’s 13 million people living in temporary shelter far from their home villages. An additional 450,000 Angolans are housed in refugee camps in Zambia and other neighboring countries, according to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Gambari said negotiating efforts have been complicated by competition among “the many UNITAs”--rebel fighters in the countryside, die-hard Savimbi loyalists in the rebels’ political leadership, the UNITA Renovada movement that favors peace talks, and UNITA diplomatic and business operatives outside Angola.

“It is very important to get them organized so that there can be a single voice of UNITA,” Gambari said.