From: barnhart@gagme.chi.il.us (Mr Aaron Barnhart)
Subject: IPS: ANGOLA: UNITA SPLITS FURTHER AS POLLS DRAW NEAR
Originator: barnhart@gagme
Organization: Evanston, Illinois
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 01:18:40 GMT


Copyright Inter Press Service 1992, all rights reserved.  Permission to re-
print within 7 days of original date only with permission from 'newsdesk'.

Area: Asia, southern
Title: ANGOLA: UNITA SPLITS FURTHER AS POLLS DRAW NEAR


lubango, angola, sep 24 (ips/ruby ofori) -- with only a week to
go before angola's 4.8 million voters go to the polls, the
national union for the total independence of angola (unita)
appears to have suffered another political blow.

two senior unita members are reported to have defected to the
rival popular movement for the liberation of angola (mpla),
which has ruled angola since independence from portugal nov. 11,
1975, a government official told ips here thursday.

roberto de almeida, the mpla party chief in angola's southern
province of huila, thursday confirmed news of the defection,
first reported by the portuguese news wednesday, but he declined
to name the defectors.

two other senior officials, tony fernandes and n'zau puna,
left unita mar. 2, accusing the organisation of gross human
rights violations, including the torture and execution of
critics within the leadership and their families.

de almeida described the defectors as ''colonels'' and
said they had given themselves in at rundu in northern
neighbouring namibia.

the defections, added to the growing spate of violent
confrontations between unita and the police, showed clearly
unita's fear of defeat at the elections, the mpla official said.

scheduled for sep. 29-30, the elections will be angola's
first ever multi-party polls.

hopes of a peaceful resolution to a civil war which began
soon after independence from portugal nov. 11, 1975 are fast
slipping away.

president jose eduardo dos santos and unita leader jonas
savimbi signed a cease-fire agreement last year to end the
16-year war.

as the countdown to polling days begins, flashpoints have
occurred throughout the country of about 10 million people,
pointing to a reluctance on unita's part to play the democracy
game.

two unita battalions are said to have districts in benguela
province under seige. at the weekend 11 people were killed and
several others injured in confrontations between unita activists
and the police in luena, moxico province, and luanda, the
capital. (more/ips)


angola: unita (2)

in the southern town of cuito, 11 members of the presidential
guard were kidnapped and two presidential cars set ablaze hours
before president dos santos was due to arrive. the hostages were
released wednesday, according to angolan radio.

these incidents, and savimbi's claims to want a peaceful
transitional process, have angered many people who had hoped
unita would provide an alternative leadership to the former
marxist-leninist mpla with its reputation for corruption and
mismangement of the war-torn economy.

''the people here are tired of bad government'', daniel pena,
a unita chief in the southern town of xangongo. ''many support
unita but fear to say so because of police intimidation''.

unita, which is backed by the ovimbundu people -- angola's
biggest ethnic group -- has earned itself the image of a tribal
party.

dark predictions of civil war after the elections -- a repeat
of 1975 when angola became indepedence -- are widespread.

for pena, the mpla will not accept defeat. but no one can
hazard a guess who will win next week's poll race.

the mpla has given it all to the campaign. the government
has virtually come to a standstill in angola, with all personnel
and resources committed to the campaign, one non-governmental
worker told ips.

but the mpla has had to deal with a number of ongoing issues:
the demands of 220,000 combined force of guerillas and soldiers
due to be retired to make way for a new national army of 50,000
as agreed under the 1991 dos santos-savimbi agreement.

some 23,500 angry, recently-retired government soldiers
wednesday held a spontaneous demonstration outside the town hall
in huila, demanding their five months' arrears in their
pensions. the vice-governor of the province was forced to hide.

critics say corrput government officials misappropriated the
funds.

about 28,000 soldiers have so far been demobilised, most of
them are said to be government troops.

the process of disarming and retiring most of the 200,000
government soldiers and 70,000 unita troops is proving to be one
of the failures of the peace accord.

sep. 27 is the deadline to complete the disarming process.
but both sides are blaming the other for delay.

de almeida accuses the u.n. monitoring group (unavem) in
angola, of having contributed to the delay ''because of its
neutral mandate''. as one unavem officer told ips: ''our hands
are tied'' (to just a monitoring role). (end/ips/ro/apc/92)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african