Hundreds, possibly thousands, of suspected opponents of the government were detained without trial, including prisoners of conscience. Some prisoners "disappeared". A wave of extrajudicial executions by government forces, which started in 1992, continued into 1993 bringing the total killed into the thousands. Gross human rights abuses were also committed by the armed opposition, including hundreds of deliberate and arbitrary killings. By January 1993 outright civil war had resumed. Hostilities began in late 1992 after the Uniao Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA), National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, led by Jonas Savimbi, rejected the results of Angola's first multi-party elections, redeployed its army and began occupying territory and killing government supporters. The conflict intensified after the government, alleging that UNITA was planning a coup, launched an attack on UNITA offices and homes in Luanda in late October 1992, killing and imprisoning thousands (see Amnesty International Report 1993). By late 1993 the United Nations Angola Verification Mission (UNAVEM II), which monitored the 1991 peace agreement, estimated that well over 100,000 people had died as a direct or indirect result of the fighting. The government retained control over most of the country along the coast and several cities in the interior, to which UNITA laid siege. After a fierce nine-week battle, UNITA gained control of Huambo, Angola's second city, in March. Cuito, east of Huambo, and other cities remained under siege at the end of the year. In September, when UNITA declared a unilateral cease-fire, the intensity of fighting reduced, allowing aid agencies to deliver food and medicines by air to the cities besieged by UNITA as well as to UNITA-controlled areas. Attempts to end the fighting included several rounds of talks organized by the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Angola. Various member states of the Organization of African Unity and prominent individuals also made diplomatic efforts to promote peace. UN-brokered talks failed in February and again in May. In September the UN Security Council declared that the situation in Angola constituted a threat to international peace and security and imposed arms and fuel sanctions against UNITA. Another round of talks in Zambia had not concluded by the end of the year. The government reintroduced conscription in March for men aged between 20 and 45 years. Each side accused the other of using mercenaries. Both shelled towns and residential areas, killing civilians. Each tried to prevent deliveries of food aid to areas occupied by the other. The UN, the International Committee of the Red Cross and local church representatives repeatedly condemned violations of humanitarian law by both sides. Eleven of the 70 UNITA members who had been elected to the 220-seat National Assembly in the 1992 elections took their seats in February. They had been arrested when fighting broke out in Luanda in October 1992 and held in what the government termed "protective custody". Gradually they were given some freedom of movement but reportedly continued to be monitored by security agents. Two were refused permission to travel and two others went into exile while travelling abroad. A parliamentary human rights commission was set up. It inspected prisons in Luanda in June and protested at the poor conditions but it apparently undertook no investigations into reports of politically motivated human rights violations. Arrests of suspected UNITA supporters, which had begun in October 1992, continued in 1993. Those detained included UNITA officials, soldiers and supporters. Many of those held were prisoners of conscience: they had not taken up arms and were arrested either because they had revealed themselves during the year's cease-fire to be UNITA supporters or because they were members of the Ovimbundu ethnic group, from which UNITA draws wide support. They were held without charge or trial in prisons, military barracks and police stations. Over 100 were released in mid-January. They included Godfrey Nangonya, a leading member of the Angolan Civic Association, who, although a UNITA supporter, had denounced deliberate killings and other abuses committed by UNITA. In August a government representative said that no suspected UNITA supporters remained in government custody. Most of those held in military installations were reportedly released but many who could not return to their homes because of the fighting were lodged in what was called a "transit camp" outside Luanda. UNITA, however, maintained that hundreds of its supporters remained in government custody. Hundreds of UNITA supporters were detained in January when government soldiers and police and government-armed civilians attempted to expel UNITA from over a dozen towns in the south and west including Benguela, Lubango, Menongue and Namibe. Some 500 arrested in the southwest, including women and children, were reportedly held in Bentiaba prison camp in Namibe province. In the following months, as the war intensified, dozens more UNITA members or supporters were said to have been detained but few details were available and corroboration was difficult. Those held reportedly included Maria F tima Ruth, who was detained in January in Cuando Cubango province, and Ruth Chavanga, detained in Huila province in July. Maria F tima Ruth was subsequently released but Ruth Chavanga was believed to be among those still held without charge or trial at the end of the year. Some of those detained reportedly "disappeared", including Linda Calufele and her husband, Carlos Calufele, following their detention in Lobito by police in January. Hundreds of people were reported to have been extrajudicially executed in January when government forces tried to expel UNITA supporters from towns under government control. As in Luanda in November 1992, after a first wave of killings had taken place the authorities publicly urged restraint but took no effective action to halt the killings or bring those responsible to justice. Those killed in Benguela city included at least two lawyers, Belchior Rodrigues and Manuel Elemina, and at least two members of the Evangelical Congregational Church, Agostinho Canjila, a minister, and Constantino Chitwe, a lay member, who were reportedly dragged out of their houses and shot. In Lubango, when government soldiers shelled UNITA's main office two young men emerged with their hands raised: they were thrown to the ground and sprayed with machine-gun bullets. On 22 January dozens of members of the Bakongo ethnic group were killed by armed civilians in open-air markets in Luanda: police reportedly did nothing to stop the violence. Police said they had recorded about 20 deaths but unofficial sources said that scores were killed, many others were injured and women were raped. The killings occurred after UNITA, allegedly with assistance from the neighbouring Republic of Zaire, occupied Soyo in northwestern Angola. The Bakongo ethnic group spans both countries and Bakongo people are often referred to in Angola as "Zairians". The National Assembly called for an inquiry but none was reported to have been carried out. Several people were reportedly arrested in connection with the attacks but released uncharged within a few weeks. Details continued to emerge about extrajudicial executions carried out in November and December 1992 indicating that killings which the government had said were retaliation by angry civilians for earlier killings by UNITA had actually been committed with the involvement of the security forces, who had recruited civilians to help them. This was consistent with reports of people being taken out of prisons at night, of mass executions and of mass graves. Thousands were said to have been executed in Luanda alone, including Anast CIO Franco Dungue, a teacher, who was reportedly shot dead by police and civilians in Cazenga suburb in November 1992, and Kanjundo Pinheiro, an aircraft mechanic who was killed in Sambo suburb in December 1992. Many other people were executed in Viana, a town near Luanda, including Madalena Georgina Kapamba, a member of the Roman Catholic women's movement. UNITA was responsible for gross human rights abuses, including widespread deliberate and arbitrary killings. UNITA also held a number of prisoners, including some who should have been released before the 1992 elections, as required by the 1991 peace agreement (see Amnesty International Report, 1993), and scores of others detained in 1993. Those arrested in Huambo in March after UNITA took control of the city included Joaquim Tavares, a judge, and Valdemar Peres da Silva, a Portuguese national, who was reportedly tortured in custody. There were frequent reports of civilians being captured and forced to be soldiers or porters for UNITA's army. People fleeing from UNITA-controlled areas gave graphic accounts of ill-treatment of civilians and summary executions but it was impossible to verify the accuracy of most of these reports. Nevertheless, a pattern emerged of systematic deliberate and arbitrary killings of young men of military age and traditional leaders in areas where support for the government was strong. In May UNITA troops in Huila province ambushed a train which they said was carrying soldiers and then bayoneted some of the survivors, including women and children. In July UNITA reportedly murdered seven people in Cabuta, Kwanza Sul province: a survivor said that the dead included four men who were beheaded, two women who were raped and a child. In October after government soldiers recaptured Balombo in Huila province, they said they found the bodies of 30 government soldiers and police who had been executed. In May, when UN-sponsored peace negotiations between the government and UNITA were taking place in Côte d'Ivoire, Amnesty International wrote to the UN Secretary-General to urge that increased protection for human rights be included in the agreement which was then being prepared. It proposed mechanisms to ensure that abuses were independently investigated and properly remedied, so that the cycle of impunity for those responsible for killing and torture could be stopped. In August Amnesty International published a report, Angola: Assault on the right to life, which described the political killings which had taken place since October 1992. The organization appealed for the release of prisoners of conscience and sought information about the cases of dozens of individuals who were detained, or who were reported to have "disappeared" or been killed in custody by both sides.

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