Rebels Shoot Down U.N. Plane Over Angola

Rebel forces Saturday shot down a U.N.-chartered cargo plane, the second United Nations plane apparently attacked in Angola’s central highland war zone in eight days, U.N. officials said.

The C-130 aircraft, with eight people aboard, including one American, was hit by antiaircraft fire 20 minutes after it took off from the city of Huambo, about 325 miles southeast of Luanda, the capital, U.N. spokesman Hamadoun Toure said.

The plane was also carrying four Angolans, two Filipinos and a Namibian, Toure said. Four of those aboard were crew members, three were from the U.N., and another was working for the World Food Program. Toure refused to give their names or further information about them and said it wasn’t known if there were any survivors.

The plane, chartered from the TransAfric company, was headed to Luanda. After it was hit, it tried to return to the airport in Huambo but crashed about 50 miles outside the city in an area held by the rebel group UNITA, Toure said.

UNITA officials were not available for comment.

Another U.N.-chartered plane, which carried 14 people, including eight U.N. peacekeepers, crashed in the same region Dec. 26 while flying over an area of fighting between the government army and rebels. On Saturday, U.N. officials said that plane also was apparently shot down.

The plane that crashed Saturday was carrying U.N. equipment out of Huambo. Last week, the United Nations evacuated dozens of staff members from the city after it was briefly shelled by the advancing rebels. More than 100 U.N. personnel remain in Huambo.

Toure said the United Nations has suspended all flights in the country through Monday and is waiting for more information from UNITA before sending a rescue team to the area.

The U.N. mission in Angola already wanted to ask UNITA leaders about government claims that the movement is holding survivors from the first crash. A rebel leader said earlier Saturday that government claims of survivors are a ploy.

“It went down in flames. I can’t believe there are any survivors,” UNITA Secretary-General Paulo Lukamba Gato said. “They know [the passengers] died, but they want to get some political advantage out of making UNITA look bad.”

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.

On Saturday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan reiterated a plea for the government and rebels to assist in rescue efforts.

“All threats to U.N. personnel--in the air and on the ground--must cease immediately,” Annan said in a statement, urging both sides to observe an immediate cease-fire.

UNITA, a Portuguese acronym for the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, stymied implementation of a 1994 peace pact by refusing to relinquish control of its central highland strongholds and by keeping a 30,000-member army hidden in the bush.