UNITA wants ceasefire offer from government

A UNITA rebel spokesman told IRIN on Wednesday that his movement was ready to accept a ceasefire if the call came directly from Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, whom they blame for the country’s civil war.

“The Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (UNITA’s military wing) will respond to a call for peace by our people, but President Jose Eduardo dos Santos must agree to call the ceasefire because it is he who declared war against UNITA on December 5, 1998,” Joffre Justino said, speaking from Lisbon.

Angola’s war, which broke out in 1975 following 14 years of fighting against the country’s Portuguese colonial rulers, resumed in earnest in 1998 after the collapse of a 1994 peace accord.

“It is incumbent that Jose Eduardo dos Santos silences his weapons and halts the ground offensive which is aimed at killing a defenceless population and at searching for and killing (UNITA leader Jonas) Savimbi,” said a UNITA military statement, released on Tuesday.

In escalated military activity in recent weeks, more than 200 rebels attacked Caxito, a town of 50,000 people 60 km north of Luanda. Aid officials in the town said 79 people, including soldiers, police officers and civilians, were killed. State television put the death toll at over 100. Justino told IRIN that the Caxito attack “showed the world we are still strong and can launch offensives against towns like that at will”.
UNITA’s assault on Caxito, and their alleged abduction of more than 60 children from an orphanage outside the town, attracted condemnation from many quarters.

Despite recent reports that dialogue between the two protagonists could soon become reality, analysts believe UNITA’s attempts to continue fighting illustrate that getting round the table is still a long way off. A foreign diplomat in Luanda told IRIN that UNITA’s policy of stepping-up military pressure would only make peace negotiations even less likely. “The killing and kidnapping in Caxito a few weeks ago, very close to Luanda, turned even more people against negotiations,” she said. Justino told IRIN that the Caxito raid was launched “to liberate Angolans from the MPLA (ruling party) thugs”.