International

UNITA leader killed in clash

The leader of Angola's rebel group UNITA, Jonas Savimbi, is seen in this file picture. — AFP .

LUANDA (ANGOLA), FEB. 23. The body of the UNITA rebel leader, Jonas Savimbi, riddled with 15 bullet wounds, is being kept in a government building in a village near where the army killed him, State media reported Saturday.

Savimbi, who has led the rebel group's fight for power in Angola for more than 30 years and was blamed by the United Nations for scuppering peace efforts, was killed on Friday during a gunbattle, the armed forces said. There was no independent confirmation of the claim, but State broadcaster Televisao Popular de Angola was expected to show footage of the body later on Saturday.

Officials said they had not yet decided what to do with Savimbi's body, which is in Lucusse, about 700 km east of Luanda, the capital. A correspondent for the State-run Radio Nacional de Angola

reported seeing the body on Saturday. Savimbi's reported death raised hopes for peace in Angola which has been devastated by two decades of civil war which broke out after the south-west African nation's 1975 independence from Portugal.

Dozens of people were hurt by stray bullets in Luanda overnight as government soldiers celebrated Savimbi's death by firing into the air, police said. The armed forces said in a statement that Savimbi died during an army attack on UNITA forces in Moxico province in south-east Angola on Friday at around 3 p.m. (1400 GMT). UNITA officials, who are hidden in the Angolan bush, were not available for comment.

Joffre Justino, a UNITA member living in Portugal, dismissed the army's claim as "just government propaganda." However, he was not in contact with UNITA — a Portuguese acronym for the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola — inside Angola. Savimbi rejected three peace deals designed to end the fighting because they did not give him control of the country. Savimbi, who was 67, was a key player in the Cold War struggle for dominance in Africa but became internationally isolated after he resisted democracy. He has not been seen for several years. His animosity toward the President, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has ruled since 1977, has repeatedly frustrated efforts by the international community to end the fighting. However, Savimbi's threat has kept the governing MPLA united against a common enemy, and his death could prompt a power struggle in the ruling party.

The civil war is believed to have killed about 500,000 people, though there are no confirmed figures. About four million people — roughly one-third of the population — have been driven from their homes by the fighting, creating a humanitarian crisis. The Government said it would now prepare for an end to Angola's civil war and said it was ready to implement fully a failed 1994 peace accord that called for regular democratic elections. It was not clear whether anyone from UNITA's ranks could replace Savimbi, who has ruled the group ruthlessly since he founded it in 1966 to battle Portugal's colonial administration. The UNITA vice-president, Antonio Dembo, as well as Savimbi's close aide, Paulo Lukamba Gato, are believed to be hiding out in rural Angola.

UNITA is thought to have a stockpile of diamonds, sold on the international black market, which have allowed it to keep fighting despite U.N. oil and arms sanctions. The Government has financed its war through offshore oil production. Human rights groups claim both sides have committed atrocities. The government army has routed UNITA from its main strongholds over the past year, following the country's return to war when a 4-year-old peace accord, brokered by the United Nations, collapsed in 1998, like two prior agreements.

Savimbi became the proxy of the United States and South Africa in the Cold War battle

against the then-Marxist government. In 1986, the rebel leader travelled to Washington where he was received like a Head of State, meeting then-President, Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office. But after the break-up of the Soviet Union, the Government dropped its Marxist policies and moved closer to the United States, prompting U.S. oil companies to invest billions of dollars in Angola. Also, Savimbi's rejection of his defeat in Angola's first elections in 1992 and his return to war left him isolated as Western powers pushed for democracy in Africa.

Born into a poor family in the village of Munhango in the Southwest African nation's central highlands, Jonas Malheiro Savimbi was a university-educated guerilla fighter who spoke three African and four European languages. — AP

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

International

News: Front Page | National | Southern States | Other States | International | Opinion | Business | Sport | Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary |

Stories in this Section

• Pearl killing was part of a wider plot: Omar Sheikh
• Videotape dropped at news agency's office
• Hunt on for Osama in Kashmir
• UNITA leader killed in clash
• Chandrika in battle mode as truce begins
• Pak. not to release Pearl tape
• Chuck Jones dead
• U.S. hails truce
• U.S. `megaphone diplomacy' irks E.U.
• Blair Govt. accused of academic censorship
• Fresh protests in Argentina
• Refugee boat intercepted

Copyright © 2002, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu