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Monday, July 22, 2002 - Web posted at 2:56:01 pm GMT

LUANDA, July 22 (AFP) - The complete integration of 5,000 Angolan former rebels and 30 of their officers into the country's military has been delayed by 10 days until July 30, a senior army officer said Monday.

The operation, begun in April, to disband the UNITA rebel forces after more than a quarter of a century of civil war has taken on a sense of urgency because of inadequate conditions at demobilisation camps.

Paulo Lukamba, head of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), said last week that 500 people were known to have died at the camps since an April 4 ceasefire and warned of serious repercussions for the peace process.

Angola's deputy army chief of staff General Geraldo Sachipengo told reporters merely that the demobilisation operation faced "timetable problems", without elaborating.

The government and UNITA signed the ceasefire less than two months after the death in action of hardline rebel leader Jonas Savimbi.

Since then, some 85,000 UNITA troops have been grouped in 35 camps across the country, together with about 300,000 of their family members, many subsisting in appalling conditions without adequate food and medicines.

Officials fear the former rebels could turn to banditry to survive, but have reported a slight improvement in recent weeks with the arrival of international humanitarian aid.

After the truce, the aim of leaders on both sides has been to integrate 5,000 former rebel fighters mainly into the army, while measures would be taken to help the 80,000 others get back into civilian life.

This would be followed by a joint military-UNITA declaration declaring that the armed wing of UNITA, the Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FALA), has been dissolved.

Many ordinary Angolan civilians are also struggling to survive in dreadful circumstances, long cut off from food and medical aid in a country where the fighting has displaced an estimated four million people and killed at least half a million.

The war between government forces and UNITA raged almost incessantly after independence from Portugal in 1975. - Nampa-AFP

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