A permanent cease-fire agreement between the Angolan government and its long-time military adversary, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) was signed on April 4, 2002. It provides for the demobilization of UNITA forces and for their integration into a unified national military, in accordance with the Lusaka Protocol, an abortive peace accord. A new law provides UNITA forces with a general amnesty for wartime offenses. In mid-April, over 9,000 of about 55,000 UNITA troops had reported to demobilization areas. The cease-fire agreement was holding. Some logistical delays related to the supply of food, medicine, and other goods to the newly established cantonment were reported. The cease-fire accord followed the death of Jonas Savimbi, UNITA's founder and long-time leader. He was killed in a government ambush in February, 2002 in the eastern province of Moxico. The former Savimbi-led faction is led by General Paulo "Gato" Lukamba, the UNITA secretary-general and head of UNITA's Administrative Affairs commission. In mid-March, just prior to initial cease-fire talks, he issued a communiqué to UNITA fighters appointing an interim management commission, which he heads. Angola, a country of about 12.7 million people that is nearly twice the size of Texas, has vast oil reserves, diamonds and other minerals deposits, and rich agricultural potential. Most Angolans remain poor, however, due to a 25-year civil conflict that is estimated to have taken more than 1 million lives. A tripartite agreement among the three major liberation movements to form a transitional government collapsed just after Angola became independent of Portugal in 1975. Parties to the agreement included the Popular Liberation Movement of Angola (MPLA), the current ruling party; its armed rival, UNITA; and the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), led until recently by Holden Roberto. Although all three groups sought national liberation and included members from across Angola, each drew the core of its support from different ethnic coalitions. UNITA has been dominated by the Ovimbundu ethnic group of central Angola, although it has also drawn support from the Chokwe, Luena, and Ovambo communities of eastern and southern Angola. The MPLA was originally predominantly a coalition between the Mbundu of northwest Angola, persons of mixed race, and urban dwellers. The FNLA drew much of its support from the northern Bakongo people and some rural Mbundu. A civil war began following the collapse of the agreement, as the MPLA, UNITA, the FNLA and other splinter groups fought one another for control of the government in Luanda, then – and since – held by the MPLA. In the 1970s and 1980s, the conflict was shaped by the Cold War. The Soviet Union and Cuba assisted the then-Marxist MPLA, which established a de facto one party state. The United States and South Africa aided UNITA and the FNLA. In 1985, Congress repealed a 1976 ban on covert aid to Angolan belligerents; in 1986 the Reagan Administration initiated covert military assistance to UNITA. In 1979, Eduardo dos Santos, Angola's current president and leader of the governing MPLA, succeeded Agostino Neto, the country's president at independence. Dos Santos, born in1942 in Luanda to a family of ethnic Mbundu origins, studied petroleum engineering in the Soviet Union at the Institute of Oil and Gas in Baku. Before becoming president, he had been minister of foreign affairs in Angola's first post-independence government, after serving as first deputy prime minister and minister of planning (1978-1979). Dos Santos oversaw a gradual liberalization of the MPLA's socialist political ideology during the late 1980s and early 1990s, and later supported a reorientation toward liberal, free market policies, as did many other African leaders. He has presided over the long-running civil war, and in recent years he appears to have taken closer control of its prosecution. In 1999, he abolished the post of prime minister and created a highly autonomous Defense Ministry. The Dos Santos government has been labeled authoritarian by many observers because of its sometimes harsh repression of its domestic political opponents, and journalists – and for curtailing public expression and the opportunity for its citizens to change their government (see " Human Rights " section, below). The country's first and only national election was held in 1992; it ended in an aborted run-off election and a return to civil war. The government's fierce prosecution of the war against UNITA, in which thousands of young Angolans were impressed into military service, has also contributed to a hardline image of the government. In May 1991, UNITA and the dos Santos government signed a peace pact known as the Bicesse Accords, which provided for disarmament, the creation of a unified national army, and national multi-party elections. Multi-party competition was permitted under constitutional amendments ratified in April 1992. In September 1992, Angola held its first and only multi-party elections, in which 18 parties contested, and which were monitored by the United Nations (U.N.). Campaigning was reportedly tense, given the recentness of open conflict, and because the separatist Cabinda movement FLEC (see below) called for an electoral boycott. Over 75% of voters cast ballots. The MPLA won a parliamentary majority, but the presidential race resulted in the necessity of a run-off election. Neither dos Santos, with 49.6% of the vote, nor Savimbi, with 40%, won a required majority. UNITA officials alleged that the MPLA government had engaged in widespread election fraud, including the use of dummy ballots, stolen ballot boxes, and rigged counts, and asserted that the personal security of UNITA supporters was being violated by government supporters. In an atmosphere of increasing conflict across Angola, UNITA dismissed a U.N. finding that the election had been substantially free and fair and, asserting that the conditions for a fair run-off did not exist, rejected a run-off election, effectively abandoning the Bicesse Accord. It rearmed and rapidly took control of large areas. The MPLA, which had substantially demobilized, faced the increasing UNITA attacks with the help of armed civilians and police; it subsequently invested heavily to build its military capacity, and launched a broad offensive against UNITA. International pressure on UNITA to return to negotiations grew. In September 1993, the United Nations imposed an oil and arms embargo on UNITA. Peace talks subsequently ensued, culminating in the November 1994 Lusaka Protocol, which called for a renewed cease-fire, the re-validation of the Bicesse Accords; the disarmament and demobilization of UNITA; and UNITA's participation in a government of national reconciliation. A 7,000-member U.N. peacekeeping operation was deployed, but implementation of the Protocols was repeatedly delayed. A Government of Unity and National Reconciliation was installed in April 1997, but Savimbi refused to come to the capital, citing safety concerns, and low-level conflict continued. In the same year, the fall of the Mobutu government in the Democratic Republic of Congo (the DRC, then called Zaire) – a strong UNITA backer – and of the Lissouba government in the Republic of the Congo (also known as Congo-Brazzaville), deprived UNITA of rear supply bases, and of political and logistical channels for the arms and diamond transshipments. The U.N. Security Council enacted stronger sanctions against UNITA, including a flight and travel ban, in October 1997. The Protocols were never fully implemented, and a period of continuing insecurity characterized by sporadic conflict ensued; by mid-1998, armed clashes had become more frequent. In August 1998, UNITA was suspended from parliament. Full scale war did not resume until December 1998, when the MPLA government, angered by UNITA's failure to honor the Protocols, attacked UNITA strongholds in central Angola, causing the final collapse of the Protocols. UNITA managed to stall the offensive, and launched counterattacks, making significant territorial gains by mid-1999, including the seizure of much of diamond-rich eastern Angola. The U.N. targeted further sanctions against UNITA in April 2000. The U.N. has primarily blamed UNITA for its failure to implement the Lusaka Protocol. UNITA charged that the U.N. showed bias toward the government, and accused the government of violence against UNITA's supporters. The MPLA claimed many military successes in 1999-2000. In September 1999, the government captured key UNITA strongholds in the central towns of Bailundo and Andulo, although UNITA mounted a strong counter-offensive, and laid siege to several government-held cities. By July 2000, the government claimed control of over 90% of the country. In late 2000, the government undertook large scale operations along the Namibian border, in apparent military cooperation with Namibia, and later attacked UNITA in the east, near Zambia. UNITA also came under pressure as a result of the Angolan government's military presence in Congo-Brazzaville and the government's participation, as an armed ally of the DRC government, in the DRC war. The government conducted extensive military operations against UNITA in eastern Moxico Province, near Zambia in late 2001 and early 2002. It claimed to be routing Savimbi's forces, but some observers remained skeptical. Public comments by Angolan government officials had often predicted imminent military victory, but the conflict had endured.