A PLANNED summit between Angola's President and the Unita rebel movement has been cancelled as the country's UN sponsored peace programme slides further off track.
President Eduardo dos Santos told journalists yesterday that the meeting, which was expected to take place tomorrow, in either Gabon or Namibia, had been cancelled by Dr Jonas Savimbi, leader of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita).
He also said that Unita was not honouring its commitment to move 20,000 of its fighters into four UN monitored assembly points.
The United Nations, which has 6,500 peacekeeping troops in Angola, has confirmed that only 123 fighters have so far been registered at the camps. According to a peace schedule agreed on December 21st, the entire process should be completed by tomorrow.
News of the latest setback comes as the United States representative at the UN, Ms Madeleine Albright, is visiting Angola to try to keep the peace process alive.
Arriving in Luanda yesterday morning, Mr Albright said the UN had invested considerable money and effort in Angola - "the second biggest peacekeeping operation in the world" - but warned that its patience and resources were not limitless.
Angola had seen so many ups and downs it was like a "fever chart", she said. She appealed to both sides to make an extra effort for peace.
Ms Albright is the most senior diplomat in the United States and enjoys cabinet rank. She is about to take over as president of the UN Security Council and therefore speaks with some authority.
Unita's failure to comply with the quartering of troops also drew a strong response from the UN's special envoy to Angola, Mr Alioune Blond in Beye. "The international communities have had enough of words and promises. If you make an agreement, you make an agreement," he said.
Mr Beye said that he had received a communique from Dr Savimbi yesterday saying that Unita was still in favour of moving its troops into camps. This was welcome news, Mr Beye said, since the quartering of troops band their eventual integration into one army was vital to the peace process.
Much now depends on what Dr Savimbi tells Ms Albright when she visits his bush headquarters in Bailundo, central Angola tomorrow. There was no explanation yesterday for the cancellation of the summit meeting with President dos Santos in the Angolan capital, Luanda.
Dr Savimbi has not visited the Angolan capital since he repudiated the result of United Nations sponsored elections in 1992 leading to a further outbreak of heavy fighting between his movement and the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA).
While Unita soldiers were initially able to seize two thirds of the country, including vital diamond producing areas in the far north, the Government used its substantial oil revenues to fund a counter offensive.
Frequent skirmishes between the two sides worsened last November, when army units launched co ordinated attacks in the northern Zaire province.
Under heavy pressure from the US, the Angolan government and Unita were persuaded to sign the latest peace schedule on December 21st.
According to UN and diplomatic sources, the Angolan government has already complied with its commitments under the agreement. Several hundred members of its feared rapid reaction police have been withdrawn to barracks, and the contract of a South African mercenary firm employed by the government, Executive Outcomes, has been terminated.