UNITA rebels believed to be bartering drugs for weapons

The UNITA rebel movement in Angola is believed to bartering South American cocaine for weapons, Reuters reported on Wednesday. The news agency quoted a senior United Nations official as saying: “We have reason to believe that cocaine from producer nations like Columbia is being smuggled to Angola’s southern border with Namibia via Brazil.”

But a regional analyst quoted by Reuters said it was unlikely that the rebels were trading drugs for weapons. “UNITA deals in bulk and gets its weapons by container and by air. It is plausible that UNITA may be bartering cocaine for vehicles from South Africa and other commodities, but not weapons. You simply could not bring weapons in the kind of bulk that UNITA deals in through Namibia,” Jakkie Potgieter from the Institute of Security Studies was quoted as saying.