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China Calls for No Arms Supply for UNITA
July 27 (Xinhua) -- China Thursday voiced a strong appeal to the parties concerned to honor relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions by stopping supplying the rebel National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) with any weapons and other materials which can be used by the rebels to drag on the 25-year civil war.
The appeal came as Shen Guofang, deputy Chinese permanent representative to the United Nations, took the floor at an open Security Council meeting on the latest report by U.N. Secretary- General Kofi Annan.
"As known to all, UNITA bears the primary responsibility for the current situation in Angola, so the international community has all the reasons to condemn it and impose sanctions on it," Shen said.
Shen stressed, "The sanctions against UNITA are not the end, but the necessary means to achieve the political settlement to the Angolan problem."
"It is our hope that the international community can make concerted efforts, and coordinate their actions, so as to force UNITA by strengthening the sanctions to lay down their arms, stop hostilities and begin the national reconciliation at an early date, "he said.
Meanwhile, Shen voiced his satisfaction that the Security Council has strengthened the sanctions against UNITA by setting up a monitoring mechanism to oversee the U.N. sanctions of illicit diamond trade and weapons against UNITA.
A 1994 peace accord, known as the Lusaka Protocol, broke down in December 1998 after the government and UNITA resumed the civil war that began after the freedom from Portugal in 1975.
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