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Group for Reflection on Peace joins with GARP and GAP


LUANDA, Oct 18 (AFP) - A group of intellectuals announced Monday it would be joining Angola's main peace movement, amid reports of continuing violence against civilians in the war-torn country.

The group, called the Group for Reflection on Peace (GRP) said it would be joining forces with two other groups: the Angolan Group for Reflection on Peace (GARP) and the Group for the Promotion of a Culture of Peace (GAP). GARP and GAP merged in August because they wanted to be more effective in their search for a peaceful solution to the civil war which ravages Angola.

Meanwhile 12 civilians were killed and eight injured when suspected rebels opened fire on the lorry they were travelling in Saturday, the Roman Catholic radio Ecclesia reported. The attack took place 27 kilometers (17 miles) east of Ndalatando, the chief town of Angola's Kwanza-Norte province, Ecclesia radio said Monday. Government authorities said rebels from the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) carried out the attack.

The eastern part of the Kwanza-Norte province, 248 kilometers (150 miles) east of Luanda, has been the theatre of recent violence. More than 60 people have been killed since January in ambushes on the road linking Ndalatando to Lucala, according to government figures cited by Ecclesia radio.

The war between the governing People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the rebel National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) resumed in November 1998 after the collapse of a UN-mediated peace pact, signed in Lusaka in 1994.

The government launched an offensive on September 14 against the main UNITA strongholds in the center of the territory. Officials have declared UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi a "war criminal" and the public prosecutor has issued an international warrant for his arrest.

In another development on Monday, the head of a UN expert group on a committee responsible for sanctions against UNITA, Anders Mollander, arrived here on Monday to assess the measures. He said he planned to talk to members of the government, UN staff and representatives of non-governmental organizations.

For failing to disarm under the Lusaka accords, UNITA leaders have been barred from travelling abroad and the bank accounts of Savimbi and his aides have been frozen. Several countries have closed UNITA's offices on their territory or expelled the movement's delegates.

Asked about international steps to boycott diamonds the rebels get on to the international markets to fund their war, Mollander simply said that this was the domain of another UN working group.


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