UN sanctions panels to probe UNITA

The UN Security Council this week finalised the formation of two panels comprising 10 experts to investigate how Angola's UNITA rebel movement managed to evade UN-imposed sanctions and to recommend appropriate action, diplomatic sources told IRIN on Wednesday. Robert Fowler, chairman of the Security Council committee on Angola, said UNITA was estimated to have raised between US $3 billion and US $4 billion through diamond sales over the past eight years, which probably earned interest from investments. Fowler added that the first panel, made up of six experts, would investigate UNITA's sources of revenue, funding and petroleum supplies. The second panel of four experts will probe sources of military support to UNITA. Ambassador Anders Mollander of Sweden, who represented his country in Angola from 1992 to 1995, would act as chairman for both panels while Botswana's Colonel Otisitswe Broza Tiroyamodimo will be the vice-chairman. The other panel members include Stanlake Samkange of Zimbabwe, a former UN official, Hannes George McKay, Namibia's chief detective inspector with the Ministry of Mines and Energy, Olivier Valles, an independent consultant from France, Benny Lombard, a small arms expert from South Africa and Melvin Holt, a special agent with Interpol from the United States. The panels will convene in New York at the end of August and would submit to the Security Council an interim report a month later. UNITA rebels and the Angolan government forces resumed fighting in December last year following the breakdown of the 1994 Lusaka peace pact to end more than 20 years of hostilities that has left millions dead and more than one million displaced from their homes.