2nd U.N. Plane Shot Down In Angola
Rebel forces Saturday shot down a cargo plane chartered by the United Nations, the second U.N. plane to crash in Angola's central highland war zone in eight days, U.N. officials said.
The C-130 aircraft, with eight people on board, was hit by anti-aircraft fire 20 minutes after it took off from the city of Huambo in the central highlands, about 300 miles southeast of the capital, Luanda, U.N. spokesman Hamadoun Toure said.
Toure did not know if there were any survivors.
UNITA officials were not immediately available for comment.
Another U.N.-chartered plane with 14 people on board crashed in the same area Dec. 26 when it was flying over an area of fighting between the government army and rebels.
The United Nations mission in Angola wants to ask UNITA rebel leaders about government claims that the movement is holding survivors from the earlier crash, Toure said.
A rebel leader told The Associated Press earlier Saturday he was unaware of any crash survivors.
"It went down in flames. I can't believe there are any survivors," UNITA Secretary-General Paulo Lukamba Gato said by telephone.
Gato said he had not been contacted by the United Nations, and called government claims of survivors a ploy.
"They know (the passengers) died, but they want to get some political advantage out of making UNITA look bad," he claimed.
There were eight U.N. peacekeepers and six other people on board the plane in last month's crash.
On Friday, army spokesman Brig. Manuel Jota said captured rebels had told the government they shot down the plane and that an unknown number of survivors were being held at rebel bases near Huambo.
Jota did not say how many of those on board had survived, and the report could not be independently confirmed.
The Angolan government has often used the radio to broadcast claims against UNITA that are difficult to verify because of the remoteness of many regions of the country.
The U.N. Security Council has condemned the rebels for failing to help the United Nations determine the fate of the crash victims and has signaled it may take unspecified action against UNITA.
UNITA a Portuguese acronym for the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola stymied implementation of the 1994 peace pact by refusing to relinquish control of its central highland strongholds and by keeping a 30,000-strong army hidden in the bush.
The accord unraveled in December when government troops tried to take the strongholds by force and were beaten back. Both sides returned to a war footing, and battles have focused around Huambo the town near the crash site and Kuito, 80 miles away.
Written by Casimiro Siona