The Angolan government yesterday said it would prove veteran UNITA rebel leader Jonas Savimbi was dead by bringing his body to the capital.
It announced Savimbi was killed on Friday in a battle with Luanda's troops, fuelling hopes for an end to one of Africa's longest-running wars.
The elusive 67-year-old guerrilla fighter -- who combined charisma and guile to wage a decades-old struggle for power -- died in a clash with army troops in Moxico province, the government said.
"The government of the Republic of Angola would like to inform the national and international public of the death of Jonas Malheiro Savimbi," it said in a statement.
There was no official reaction from UNITA, but an unofficial UNITA contact in Lisbon, Rui Oliveira, said: "We are waiting for our forces in the interior to get in contact with us, only after that can we talk."
State radio said Savimbi's body would be flown to the capital on Saturday from Moxico and displayed in public.
A senior Angolan intelligence officer said Savimbi was "shot several times" during a battle with government forces.
Savimbi and some of his troops had been surrounded by the army since Monday, the intelligence officer said, adding that up to two dozen people died in the battle.
A regional military source in Pretoria said that Savimbi actually died earlier in the week but that Luanda had delayed announcing his death to coincide with President Eduardo dos Santos's visit to the US tomorrow.
"Of all the reports over the years of Savimbi being killed, this one sounds the most credible," the source said.
"Our information is that he actually died early in the week on Monday or Tuesday. But the government wanted maximum propaganda out of the killing ahead of the president's visit to Washington next week," the source added.
The whereabouts of Savimbi's two most senior aides, vice-president Antonio Dembo and secretary-general Paulo Lukamba Gato remained unknown, fuelling speculation they too may have been caught up in the fighting along the Zambian frontier.
News of Savimbi's death was greeted with celebrations in the poorer outlying slums of Luanda on Friday evening, but the capital was quiet early yesterday as people waited for fresh announcements from the government or UNITA.
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
Both sides of the Taiwan Strait share a political foundation based on the “1992 consensus” and opposition to Taiwanese independence, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today said during her meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Both sides of the Strait should plan and build institutionalized and sustainable mechanisms for dialogue and cooperation based on that foundation to make peaceful development across the Strait irreversible, she said. Peace is a shared moral value across the Strait, and both sides should move beyond political confrontation to seek institutionalized solutions to prevent war, she said. Mutually beneficial cross-strait relations are what the
ECONOMIC COERCION: Such actions are often inconsistently applied, sometimes resumed, and sometimes just halted, the Presidential Office spokeswoman said The government backs healthy and orderly cross-strait exchanges, but such arrangements should not be made with political conditions attached and never be used as leverage for political maneuvering or partisan agendas, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks after China earlier in the day announced 10 new “incentive measures” for Taiwan, following a landmark meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in Beijing on Friday. The measures, unveiled by China’s Xinhua news agency, include plans to resume individual travel by residents of Shanghai and China’s Fujian
RSS