With pace of peace process slow, meeting goals of Lusaka Protocol will determine UNAVEM's continuation.

• Position: The UN Angola Verification Mission

The UN Angola Verification Mission (UNAVEM III) has been extended by the Security Council until 11 July 1996. The Council, concerned with repeated delays in the implementation of successive timetables agreed to by the parties and with the "overall slow pace" of the peace process, declared that it would place "special emphasis" on headway made in considering the Mission's future mandate. Particular concern was expressed with regard to the slow pace in quartering troops of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and in completing talks regarding the integration of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA).

Under resolution 1055 (1996), adopted unanimously on 8 May, the Council also urged the Angolan Government and UNITA to abide strictly by the obligations they had undertaken in 1994 on signing the Lusaka Protocol, as well as with commitments made by Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi on 1 March in Libreville, Gabon.

At that meeting, the two leaders had pledged to adopt a series of measures to accelerate the Protocol's implementation, including forming the unified FAA by June and a Government of National Unity and Reconciliation between June and July. In the new Government, Mr. dos Santos would continue as President. Mr. Savimbi was invited to serve as one of two Vice-Presidents.

Under the resolution, the Council also welcomed the proclamation by the Angolan National Assembly of amnesty arrangements, as agreed on in Libreville, and progress made in quartering of the Government's rapid reaction police.

Progress `slow'

"Progress in implementing the Lusaka Protocol has been disappointingly slow and many of the tasks which the parties themselves agreed to carry out in April remained unfulfilled", Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said in his 30 April report (S/1996/328) on UNAVEM III.

While the Government-UNITA dialogue had been maintained, the military situation had been stable and progress had been achieved with the partial barracking of the FM and the rapid reaction police, "the overall achievements fall well short of what the Security Council had been led to expect", the Secretary-General reported. The quartering of UNITA troops was "virtually stalled", although the flow had increased during the last few days of April. There were also delays in reaching agreement on incorporating UNITA troops into the FAA. As a result of the "unsatisfactory state of affairs", the Secretary-General...