May 25, 1999
Lisbon, Portugal - Angolan rebels suggested Tuesday they were open to peace talks with the government, while urging an end to U.N. sanctions on the guerrilla movement.
"A forceful solution to this conflict, imposed by the government, is not possible," said a UNITA statement faxed to The Associated Press in Lisbon. "There should be a diplomatic initiative under way instead of respect for the government's warring attitude," the statement added.
The rebels have said before that they are willing to negotiate, although they have also insisted they should have a strong army and acquire new weapons to keep fighting government forces. Government officials in Luanda were not immediately available for comment. So far, the government has showed no signs of being open to negotiating a solution to the war that resumed last December after four years of tenuous peace under a U.N.-brokered pact.
Angolan Defense Minister Kundi Paihama recently pledged the army would overrun UNITA's highland strongholds, Andulo and Bailundo, by the end of the year.
The 1994 peace deal unraveled amid deep-running hostilities and entrenched mistrust between President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and rebel chief Jonas Savimbi.
The rebels' statement also urged the international community to lift U.N. sanctions on the movement and "persuade Dos Santos to resume the dialogue with Savimbi."
In June 1998, the United Nations imposed a package of sanctions, including a ban on diamond sales, designed to limit UNITA's ability to wage war as the rebels failed to comply with the peace accord. Regardless of the sanctions, UNITA has maintained a diamond trade which brought in $3.7 billion between 1992 and 1998, according to a London-based human rights group called Global Witness
