U N I T E D N A T I O N S Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Integrated Regional Information Network for Southern Africa
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Southern Africa: IRIN-SA Weekly Round-Up 1 covering the period 31 Dec 1998 - 8 Jan 1999
ANGOLA: UN Secretary-General to report to Security Council
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan will report to the Security Council next week on the crisis in Angola, where UN operations now virtually at a halt with aid flights stopped, emergency humanitarian supplies in combat zones dwindling and UN and humanitarian staff being withdrawn to the capital Luanda for safety.
In some of the heaviest clashes since the breakdown late last year of the UN-brokered 1994 Lusaka Protocol peace accord, fighting between government forces and the UNITA rebel movement opened along a third front this week with UNITA subjecting the government-controlled town of Malanje, 300 km east of Luanda to daily artillery barrages.
The withdrawal of staff, nevertheless described as a temporary move, and the stop to all aid flights was ordered after two UN chartered Hercules C-130 transport planes carrying staff of the UN Observer Mission in Angola (MONUA) were shot down outside the country's second city of Huambo, in Angola's central highlands.
The first flight carrying 14 people came down on 26 December and the second, carrying nine passengers and crew, on Saturday 2 January. The government and UNITA, in conflict since independence from Portugal in 1975, blamed each other for shooting down the aircraft.
Annan, SC "outraged"
In New York, the UN Security Council reiterated a statement by Annan expressing "outrage" at the shooting down of the planes. In the words of Security Council President Celso Amorim of Brazil, the 15 council members had voiced their "outrage at the disappearance of a second United Nations-chartered aircraft over the territories held by UNITA" which he said should cooperate "fully and immediately" with UN rescue requests that include demands for a ceasefire to conduct a search of the crash sites.
The UN said it also held the Angolan government responsible for the safety of its personnel. By the week's end, both sides agreed to cooperate with the UN and a search and rescue mission was dispatched on Friday to the site where the first plane went down.
Annan's report
Diplomats told IRIN that Annan could go so far as to recommend a withdrawal of MONUA personnel at least until conditions improve. That recommendation will largely depend on the views of UN Under-Secretary General for Security Affairs Benon Sevan who arrived in Angola on Monday to seek help in investigating the crashes.
Officials said Sevan would also look into the security situation and make recommendations to Annan prior to the Security Council's next review of the situation in Angola on 15 January. The diplomats said it was likely that MONUA personnel in the meantime would remain in Luanda.
Number of displaced people top half a million
Humanitarian sources said they were concerned that emergency food stocks in the towns under siege, Huambo, its sister city Kuito and Malanje would dwindle in coming weeks if the fighting continued to prevent deliveries for hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people.
Their numbers in Angola have now reached half a million, according to the latest situation report on Friday of the UN Humanitarian Assistance Coordination Unit (UCAH). That figure it added, could be higher because access to many conflict zones was currently impossible.
Sergio Vieira de Mello, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs said: "I am extremely concerned by the current situation in Angola and Sierra Leone, where recent heavy fighting and insecurity has forced humanitarian agencies to either drastically reduce their presence and activities, or as in the case of Sierra Leone, to pull out all staff from the country.
"As the violence intensifies, civilians already in an impoverished state, suffer loss of life, property and are forced to flee the fighting. Hundreds of thousands have become refugees or have been internally displaced in both countries in 1998. This must cease." He urged all sides in the conflicts to protect civilians and their UN and humanitarian helpers.
Tighter sanctions urged
In Brussels this week, European Union said it would favour tighter sanctions against UNITA. Earlier, Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard, recalled that the UN had been providing humanitarian assistance to Angola since the early 1980s. It was currently assisting about one million war victims, and providing survival rations to 387,000 of the internally displaced persons fleeing the conflict. Without MONUA's military escorts, he warned that commercial operators would be reluctant to transport aid.
The WFP has said it has approximately 20,000 mt of food in Angola, an amount sufficient for at least two months.
Cost of aid to be reviewed upwards
UCAH said the renewed fighting across Angola was forcing aid agencies to change their logistical arrangements: "It will only be possible to reach many areas by air. This will have enormous costs that are currently being re-assessed by WFP and other organisations." It said that this would have "an enormous impact" on the UN Inter-Agency Consolidated Appeal launched in Geneva last month. This would no have to be reassessed. Contributions to the 1998 appeal currently stood at over 71 percent of the US $59 million requested.
"With the continuation of unabated military activities around the country, especially in the central highlands around Huambo and in Malanje, the humanitarian situation of affected populations continues to deteriorate rapidly," UCAH reported.
NAMIBIA: News blackout on DRC intervention
The Namibian authorities this week announced a news blackout on the country's military intervention in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) because of concern for the safety and security of Namibian soldiers. The blackout, condemned by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), was announced in the form a letter from Prime Minister Hage Geingob, to
the independent daily, 'The Namibian'. In it, he said that the defence minister, Erikki Nghimtina "had instructed his staff not to release any information to the media generally because of a number of reasons".
'The Namibian' last month asking him to intervene because defence ministry information officials were declining to speak to the newspaper. In his letter, Geingob said: "Rest assured, information is not being held back only from 'The Namibian', but from all newspapers."
He agreed with Nghimtina that "information about our men in the DRC should not be given if it is felt that it might compromise the safety and security of our soldiers". The Namibian government has declined to disclose how many troops were sent to DRC or to discuss fatalities unless already reported in the press.
LESOTHO: Veteran leader dies
A former prime minister and founding father of Lesotho, Dr Ntsu Mokhehle, has died at the age of eighty on 6 January. A university colleague of South African President Nelson Mandela, Mokhehle played a key role in securing the kingdom's independence from Britain. He was Head of Government of the Kingdom during the period 1993-98, when he retired from active politics.
As a founder member of the Basotholand Congress Pary (BCP), and subsequently leader of Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD), Mokhehle led his party to the first democratic elections in 1965. In a statement of condolences, the South African foreign ministry said: "His contribution to the struggle for Independence and Democracy for the Basotho nation will always be remembered by the people of Lesotho and the continent."
Johannesburg, 8 January, 1999 11:30 GMT
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