1 With the United Nations set to vote on a major peacekeeping operation for Angola, rebel leader Jonas Savimbi has unexpectedly challenged the treaty halting the southern African nation's civil war.
2 Savimbi, commander of an estimated 50,000 well-armed UNITA guerrillas, told a mass meeting of rebel loyalists in the central Angolan bush he had 'grave doubts' about the Nov. 20 treaty that ended the nation's 20-year-civil war.
3 'If the real state of the Angolan people is not considered, then there is no treaty,' the 60-year-old rebel leader said. Parts of Savimbi's address were transmitted Wednesday by Portuguese TSF radio.
4 'No-one should guess if we will accept it or not.'
5 Savimbi's threat to abandon the treaty came as the United Nations was scheduled to vote Wednesday on a nearly dlrs 400 million package for the first year of a 7,000-strong Angolan peacekeeping operation for the war-devastated southern African nation.
6 His words also challenged U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who has warned he would not recommend sending peacekeepers to Angola unless both sides showed a 'sincere dedication to peace.'
7 Savimbi accused the government and the United Nations of forcing the rebels to accept peace on terms that were unfair, especially to members of Savimbi's Ovimbundu ethnic group.
8 But in a nearly three-hour speech, Savimbi never specified what changes he wanted made, other than repeating that 'UNITA fighters will not be humiliated.'
9 A previous treaty signed in 1990 between Savimbi's National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the government collapsed 18 months later when Savimbi lost presidential elections and called his forces back to arms.
10 The government in a statement Tuesday also said it believed the rebels were secretly training and re-arming several battalions in the deep southeast for a renewed offensive.
11 But diplomats in the Angolan capital believed this time Savimbi's speech was intended merely to flex his muscle in a bid for a greater share of power in a government of national reconciliation.
12 More than 1,000 rebel loyalists attending the four-day meeting in the central Angolan town of Bailundo are to debate the provisions of the treaty and vote by Friday whether to accept it, UNITA spokesman Isais Samakuva told reporters in the Angolan capital, Luanda.
13 Savimbi first marshalled his followers for war 30 years ago against Portuguese colonists. After Angola won independence in 1975, UNITA then turned against the rival guerrilla movement that had seized power.
14 More than 500,000 Angolans have been killed in a civil war reckoned as Africa's longest and bloodiest.

Savimbi ' s threat to abandon the treaty came as the United Nations was scheduled to vote Wednesday on a nearly dlrs 400 million package for the first year of a 7 , 000 - strong Angolan peacekeeping operation for the war - devastated southern African nation .
nearly dlrs 400 million package
What would that money be used for exactly?