Portugal urges UN to stay

Portugal has urged the UN to remain in Angola despite the breakdown of the UN-brokered 1994 Lusaka Protocol peace accords and the withdrawal of UN observers from provincial capitals because of heavy fighting. In a national radio broadcast monitored by the BBC at the weekend, Portuguese Foreign Minister Jaime Gama said: “No matter how high the degree of criticism of the way in which the UN has followed the Angolan question, the abandonment of Angola by the UN would be the worst of all possible developments.” Portugal, with Russia and the United States, is one of the three Angola observer nations reporting to the UN Security Council. In remarks on the eve of a report on Angola to the Security Council to be made this week by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Gama added it was important for the UN “to continue playing a role at the service of peace and humanitarian aid”. “On the other hand we recognize that, in circumstances and areas where it may become altogether impossible for UN observers to be stationed, their deployment plan should be reconfigured,” Gama said. UN officials told IRIN that Annan was due to deliver his report on whether to extend the mandate of the UN Observer Mission in Angola (MONUA) on Friday 15 January, but that because of the situation in Angola he would submit it earlier. When the mandate was extended on 3 December to 6 February, Annan warned that he would consider pulling the observer mission out, and said he was only recommending it remain “to dissuade the parties” from a return to war: “If the security situation were to become untenable, I would immediately revert to the Security Council and submit further recommendations, including, if necessary, the withdrawal of MONUA.” With fighting between the government and the UNITA rebel movement, which have been in conflict since independence in 1975, now reported around the country, the situation has deteriorated daily, forcing MONUA last week to start pulling its staff back to the capital Luanda for safety. Meanwhile, a MONUA spokesman told IRIN on Monday, that arrangements were being made to recover the bodies of 14 UN personnel and crew who perished aboard a UN Hercules C-130 transport shot down near the second city of Huambo on 26 December. Local and Portuguese media reports said some bodies had been found buried alongside the wreckage of the aircraft and that the cause of death, if they had initially survived the crash, would only be known once the remains were exhumed. The spokesman said MONUA was still trying to locate the site where a second UN Hercules C-130 with nine aboard, was shot down nine days ago. “We have been pledged the cooperation of both the government and the UNITA in locating and investigating that one as well,” the spokesman said.