SADC slams UNITA

Heads of state attending the Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in Blantyre on Tuesday in principle agreed tough measures to enforce UN sanctions against the Angolan rebel movement UNITA. The new measures include monitoring illegal flights over their borders and installing mobile radar systems to detect illegal flights across national borders.

Leaders said in a communiqué that that would also adopt measures to set up a certification system for the trade in rough diamonds. The heads of state also agreed to establish a task force to formulate strategy to stop the supply of petroleum products to UNITA. SADC leaders created an ad-hoc committee made-up of Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe and coordinated by Mozambique’s President Joaquim Chissano to compile a report on how SADC member states were enforcing the sanctions. UN sanctions against UNITA were first imposed in 1993 in an attempt to bring UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi to peace negotiations. The summit also appealed to the international community to provide humanitarian assistance to people displaced by the war in Angola as well as in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Meanwhile, diamond industry officials were quoted as saying that UNITA earned an estimated US $2 billion from the sale of smuggled stones between 1992 and 1998. Analysts said that none of the SADC states, except for South Africa, had the means to implement the measures announced on Tuesday.