Who Shot Down the UN Planes?

Two United Nations chartered aircraft crashed in Angola on 26 December 1998 and 2 January 1999. The UN asserted they were shot down by the UNITA rebels, and called it “an outrageous crime apparently intended to intimidate the United Nations and force it to curtail its operations.” A total of 15 passengers and eight crew members were killed. UNITA denied any responsibility for the incidents, which led the United Nations to limit its air operations in Angola. However, late in January 2000, doubts were raised about the credibility of testimony to the UN Security Council accusing UNITA of downing the two aircraft.

South African military affairs expert Jakkie Potgieter is blunt in his assessment of the video-taped testimony of UNITA defectors that was presented to the Security Council last week. Mr. Potgieter says their widely-publicized claims about the downing of two UN chartered aircraft are clearly a fabrication.

The chairman of the UN ANGOLA Sanctions Committee, Canadian Robert Fowler, interviewed the defectors in Angola. They say the two UN planes were brought down by shoulder-launched surface-to-air-missiles at the personal orders of UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi.

All 23 people on the two chartered cargo planes died in the separate incidents in Angola's Central Highland on December 26th, 1998 and January 2nd, 1999.

But Mr. Potgieter, an analyst on Angolan affairs and regional security issues at South Africa's respected Institute for Security Studies, says one of the aircraft was struck at an altitude (45-hundred meters) far beyond the capability of any weapons known to be in the rebels' arsenal.

He also says there are inconsistencies in the actual videotaped statements of the defectors, including conflicting references to the planes being downed by shoulder-fired missiles and by anti-aircraft guns. That inconsistency appears even in printed excerpts of the defectors' statements issued by the United Nations. At one point in these excerpts, a former rebel colonel (identified as Jose Antonio Gille) refers to both "missiles" and "the gun", prompting Ambassador Fowler to ask for clarification. The defector's answer, according to the UN transcript, is "It was portable" -- to which is appended a translator's note saying this means, "it was not a gun," but a shoulder-fired missile.

Mr. Potgieter says there are large, vehicle-mounted anti-aircraft missiles that could have brought down the UN plane – even at an altitude beyond the range of shoulder-launched weapons and conventional anti-aircraft guns.

But he says UNITA is not believed to have any such vehicle-mounted systems. The analyst says Angolan government armed forces do have this type of longer-range missile.

UNITA has denied any responsibility for the downing of the UN planes. In an interview last week, rebel foreign secretary Alcides Sakala blamed the Angolan government.

Mr. Sakala charged the downing of the aircraft was in support of a successful effort by President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos to force UN peacekeepers out of the country. He also charged the defectors were forced to say what their Angolan government captors wanted them to say.

Ambassador Fowler told reporters last week that there had been no indications that the former UNITA fighters had been coerced. In response to questions about the credibility of the defectors, Mr. Fowler said members of his sanctions panel who accompanied him to Angola had been able to corroborate their testimony.

But it is not clear whether this included the former rebels' statements about the downed UN planes. The Canadian ambassador said dealing with those incidents was not formally within his mandate -- even though he recorded their comments on the matter.

Analysts say they are shocked Ambassador Fowler does not appear to have questioned the defectors' testimony before presenting it to the Security Council and releasing it to the public. They say it is still possible that UNITA was the true culprit in the downing of the planes, but not in the way described by the former rebels. The analysts say this calls into question the credibility of other claims presented by Mr. Fowler to the United Nations. Among other statements, the Canadian envoy said international sanctions against UNITA are working and could bring the long-running civil war in Angola to an early end.