Bishops appeal to UN

Angola’s Roman Catholic bishops have made an impassioned appeal to the United Nations to promote peace talks between the government of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA rebels. They asked the UN to “review its policy in Angola and try to play a more efficient role”.

“The truth here is that we are talking of 25 long years of war, of brothers spilling their brothers’ blood, of 25 years of history seeped in blood, of one of the longest lasting genocides in contemporary Africa,” the bishops said. “There is no city where people can feel safe and secure.”

Citing human rights abuses by both sides in the civil war, the bishops urged the UN to step up its human rights monitoring in Angola, and said it had to push both sides towards dialogue aimed at ending the war: “Closing the doors to dialogue would be opening them to a war with no end in sight.”