Posted on 04/04/2002 10:34:53 AM PST by rightwing2
April 4, 2002 Angola, UNITA ink peace deal
LUANDA, Angola, April 4 (UPI) -- The Angolan government and UNITA rebels signed a cease-fire deal Thursday, formally ending a 27-year civil war that killed nearly a million people. Army chief Gen. Armando da Cruz Neto and UNITA head Gen. Abreu Muengo Ukwachitembo "Kamorteiro" signed the deal at the country's National Assembly. "Peace has a price but it is a lesser price than the price of war," Kamorteiro said. Neto said peace in the country would "benefit ... Africa and the world as a whole." The accord comes following a preliminary cease-fire signed over the weekend. U.S., Russian and Portuguese ambassadors also initialed the accord. The countries were observers to the 1994 Lusaka peace accords, which collapsed four years later.
Addressing the National Assembly, U.N. Deputy Secretary-General for African Affairs Ibrahim Gambari said the world body was "glad to note now that peace is being given a chance in Angola." "War in Angola has gone for far too long and has (brought) unimaginable suffering to ... Angola," he said. "There should now be collective determination of the Angolan people that peace will come to this country to stay, forever." In an address to the nation Wednesday, President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who also was present at the formal signing, called the deal "the reunion on the great Angolan family." "The war in Angola is over and that peace is here to stay," he said. He urged Angolans to "forgive and forget" the civil war that began in 1975 and which claimed about a million lives.
The ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola or MPLA and UNITA rebels have been embroiled in a bitter rivalry since before the country's independence from Portugal in 1975. Following independence from Portugal after 500 years of colonial rule, UNITA and MPLA forces engaged in 16 years of fierce conflict that killed up to 300,000 people. The fighting ended temporarily with a 1992 peace deal that was supposed to lead to elections.
However, UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi, who was killed by government troops in late February, rejected the election results and the fighting resumed. The 1994 accord resulted in the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers to Angola but fighting continued and in 1999 the peacekeepers withdrew. The United States and South Africa supported UNITA in its battle against the MPLA. The MPLA was supported by Cuban ground forces and received military equipment from the former Soviet Union. The civil war has left the oil- and diamond-rich country devastated. According to U.N. estimates, more than a third of the Angolan population is homeless and depends on international agencies as a direct result of the war. The country also is regarded as among the world's least developed.
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