Angola: CIA/UNITA's Grisly Handiwork Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - Rick Rozoff via John Clancy Angola: UNITA's Grisly Handiwork [Acquired as a CIA asset in the mid-1970s, and harbored and supplied by Mobutu's Zaire and the former apartheid regime in South Africa, so- called UNITA is a prototype contra operation. How they've operated over the past twenty seven years is indicated below. Kofi Annan's non-committal, non-partisan comments at the end of the report are perfectly in character for him and the role assigned him by his Western sponsors: Periodically making vague denunciations of violence in general, applicable to the internationally recognized federal government in Luanda and the mysteriously funded rebels alike. As with NATO in Macedonia and, earlier, Kosovo, no true distinction is drawn between an established government and Western- trained contras. During the 1970s and 1980s Jonas Savimbi and his UNITA bandits were the darlings of certain Western 'humanitarians' and alleged leftists - as were their Afghan Mujahedin counterparts; much as the various incarnations of the KLA currently are. Note how Annan's UN doesn't even pretend to care about the KLA invasion/uprising in Macedonia, ceding this part of the world, as he had done earlier with Kosovo and Southern Serbia, to NATO control. The humanitarian brigades don't say a word about this circumvention and effective dismantling of the United Nations by an aggressive military bloc. Why quibble about minor technicalities?] Wednesday August 15, 6:50 AM Death toll from Angolan train ambush reaches 252: official LISBON, Aug 14 (AFP) - The death toll from last week's ambush by Angola's UNITA rebels of a passenger train east of Luanda has risen to 252, with a further 165 people injured, according to new official Angolan figures. The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) claimed responsibility for last Friday's attack and put the death toll at 152. The train, consisting of four passenger cars, two freight cars and two oil containers, was derailed when it struck an anti-tank mine in Cuanza Norte province. Witnesses said rebels had fired on passengers trying to extricate themselves from the carriages after the ambush, which occurred between the towns of Zenza and Dondo, some 150 kilometres (95 miles) east of Luanda. Some 500 passengers were aboard the train. A UNITA statement issued in Lisbon on Monday acknowledged rebels had fired on passengers after the train was upended by the mine. Angola is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world. The updated official toll of 252 was given in a letter sent by Angola's UN ambassador Ismael Martins to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. In his letter, details of which were published by Portugal's LUSA agency, Martins said the train had been "traitorously attacked" by the UNITA rebels of Jonas Savimbi. "The forces at the disposal of Jonas Savimbi, after immobilising the train with mines placed on the tracks, fired indiscriminately on the passengers who were attempting to flee in an atmosphere of panic," the ambassador wrote. "This barbaric act has so far caused the death of 252 people," the letter continued, adding that 155 people were being treated in hospital following the attack. "It was an act without any military objective with the sole aim of causing death, suffering and destruction among the people". The Angolan ambassador called on the international community to redouble its efforts to "isolate those who wage war and who refuse to respect the decisions of the security council". The Angolan government has battled UNITA almost non-stop for 26 years, leaving an estimated 500,000 dead, another 100,000 mutilated, and four million of the 12 million population forced from their homes and relying on international food aid. Annan has condemned the ambush, saying he was "very disturbed by the military and humanitarian situation in the country". "This incident underlines the urgent need for a political settlement of the conflict, to achieve durable peace and stability in Angola," Annan said. ***** Background from John Clancy: Guardian Weekly March 23-29, 2000 "U.N report names backers of Angolan Rebel Army." By Colum Lynch in New York Jonas Savimbi, the Angolan rebel leader who was once armed and supported by the CIA, fights on with the support of several African leaders, a Lebanese arms broker, a Belgian diamond merchant and many Eastern European dealers, according to a United Nations report. The report, by a panel established by the U.N Security Council sanctions Committee, charges that Savimbi has financed the latest phase in his 24-year war against the Angolan government through the sale of Angolan diamonds in violation of a U.N. embargo. It recommends imposing sanctions against countries, individuals and companies that violate the embargo and calls for a "very substantial bounty" for those who track or identify assets controlled by members of Savimbi's rebel group, UNITA. "Diamonds had a uniquely important role within UNITA's political and military economy," says the report, which draws on U.S. and British intelligence and visits to African and European capitals. But at least one observer cautioned that the reports chief author, Robert Fowler of Canada, relied too heavily on military defectors with Savimbi. The report charges that the rulers of Togo, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Gabon and Rwanda helped shipped weapons, spare parts and fuel to Angola's rebel movement in exchange for diamonds. Togo's president, Gen. Gnassingbe Eyadema, emerged as Savimbi's key supplier of documents used to conceal the destination of arms purchased from Bulgaria, says the report. "The Togo connection took on a particular importance for UNITA in January 1997, following the overthrow of Mobutu [Sese Seko]," the former ruler of Zaire, the report says. "The Rwandans are reported to have allowed UNITA to operate more or less freely in Kigali for the purposes, of arranging diamond sales and weapons" deals, the report states. Togo's ambassador to the United Nations did not return phone calls, while Rwanda's U.N. ambassador declined to comment until he had read the report. Despite his political isolation, Savimbi has proven adept at buying new political allies, said Alex Vines, a London-based specialist on the African arms trade. Angola's attempts to use its military muscle to crack down on UNITA's arms suppliers in the former Zaire and the Republic of Congo were undermined when arms brokers shifted their bases of operation and new countries stepped in. The report says a Lebanese arms broker operating under an assumed name, Imad Kabir, was UNITA's key arms broker from 1995 through October 1999. Offering packages of rough diamonds, Savimbi also found a ready source of arms in the surplus stockpiles of former East Bloc countries, particularly Bulgaria, the report says. "The evidence .. overwhelmingly points to Bulgaria as the primary source of origin for the majority of the arms purchased by UNITA - at least since 1997," the report charges. The report is particularly, critical of the Belgian authorities in Antwerp, the world's diamond trading center, citing "extremely lax controls and regulations" that encouraged illicit activities. Comment from Clancy: Some people may not remember that Fidel Castro had sent an army of about 250,000 Cubans with tanks and artillery to assist the Angolan Socialist Government, together with medical staff and school teachers. Some were sent to aid Eritrea. The problems were that the US, while speech making about oil sanctions on South African White Apartheid, was actually supporting the Apartheid and the South African Army with oil, weapons and supplies based in Namibia. (lately from Democratic Congo!) My post to Reg.Africa News from John Pilger's 1992 Book page 113 was "Gen.Savimbi is the West's "mafia arm" to ensure that Angola's people and their ownership of its resources will fail. Page 226 -In Angola, the UN-monitored elections produced the "wrong" winner -in the MPLA, which is not forgiven for its ties with the communist bloc. The MPLA won in spite of American and tacit UN support for Jonas Savimbi, Washington's oldest ColdWar client in Africa, who lost the election. Now US is withholding recognition, while Boutros-Ghali pressures the 'democratically' elected gov't of Jose Eduardo Dos Santos to accommodate Savimbi/Unita losers as power-sharers in his Government. Watch as 'power-sharing with Mandela's Nationalists and Inkatha Zulus is promoted as the 'only acceptable' solution to bringing instant peace in South African Government. Angola at the moment, is suffering from the most vicious American- United Nations attacks via UNITA's Savimbi. (Does this suggest to you what is happening against Serbia and Macedonia at the moment? The US makes a lot of dollars, and kills a lot of people, by its control of the UN Security Council but with more certainty -NATO. Allies are paid) Finally, as far as Cuban forces were concerned, the UN forced a deal wherein Cubans went home after the South African Army stopped supporting Savimbi - well, that is what was signed. There were many casualties and there are many Cubans today who do not wish to be part of any discussion groups on this subject. Fidel's books can give you the facts. ) ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytaf-08.15.01-15:27:40-14220