From: kautaj@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (kauta)
Subject: Re: ANGOLA: The govt decides to give war a chance...
Organization: Indiana University, Department of Mathematics.
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 01:02:32 GMT


The immediate top is (a part of) what a fellow netter (name withheld) 
e-mailed me today:

>Much as I dislike Savimbi we have to remember that not all of the thousands 
>of people being killed are his type and even if he loses it wouldn't surprise
>me if the CIA saves him.

How very true...

The stuff below is from the AP. The newer one at the top. Enjoy!

   Angola's Rebels, Government Clash   
     In Field And Over Airwaves        
                 ---
    LUANDA, Angola - Rebels said Monday
they attacked government forces in
three provincial capitals, killing
hundreds of government soldiers.
    The government denied the report.
    Rebel radio said UNITA rebels
attacked Luena, Kuito and Huambo at
dawn Monday with heavy artillery.
    The radio station said UNITA forces
captured Kuito, 200 miles southeast of
Luanda.
    There was no way to independently
check the report.
    The government claimed over the
weekend that its forces seized Huambo,
the town where UNITA had its headquar-
ters.
    But rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, in
a recorded announcement on rebel radio,
said he continued to command UNITA from
Huambo, 300 miles southeast of Luanda.
    The government's military chief of
staff, Gen. Joao de Matos, denied
UNITA's claims to have attacked the
three towns.
    De Matos said government troops
held Luena, Kuito and Huambo and were
driving the rebels into the deserts of
eastern Angola.
    Parliament will meet this week to
consider a declaration of war against
UNITA, Prime Minister Marcolino Moco
said on national radio.
    Fighting broke out Oct. 31, after
Savimbi rejected the results of Septem-
ber elections intended to end Angola's
16-year-old civil war.
    The rebels lost a parliamentary
majority to the ruling party.
From the Associated Press:

   Rebels Attempt To Recapture         
     Angolan Headquarters, But Fail    
                 ---
    LUANDA, Angola - Rebels
counterattacked with artillery and
infantry Sunday in a failed attempt to
recapture their headquarters town in
central Angola, government radio said.
    A day after government troops
seized Huambo in heavy fighting, the
rebels were driven farther east toward
the deserts of eastern Angola, the
report said.
    It gave no casualty figures.
    Huambo, about 300 miles southeast
of Luanda, had served as rebel leader
Jonas Savimbi's headquarters since he
rejected the results of multiparty
elections in September.
    The vote was held under a May 1991
peace accord intended to end 16 years
of civil war that killed 350,000
Angolans.
    The rebel's group is the National
Union for the Total Independence of
Angola, or UNITA.
    When fighting resumed Oct. 31,
rebel forces occupied more than half
this vast southern African country,
including diamond-rich territory in the
north and several towns near Luanda,
the capital.
    Government troops backed by armed
civilians also fought rebel forces
Sunday in Luena, 510 miles east of
Luanda, where a contingent of rebels
retreated after the defeat the previous
day in Huambo, government radio said.
    It said about 50 people died in
that fighting.
    A siege on rebel positions
continued Sunday in Ndalatando and
Caxito, two cites about 120 miles from
Launda, national radio said.
    Diplomats met with Prime Minister
Marcolino Moco Sunday to make an urgent
appeal for a cease-fire. They said they
were concerned that the rout of the
rebels from Huambo further jeopardized
hopes for a negotiated peace.
    ''UNITA lost their command center,
so we no longer have communication with
their leadership,'' a spokesman for the
U.S. liaison office said.
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