UN official backs Angola peace process

The representative of the United Nations Secretary General in Angola, Mussagy Jeichande, has said that the current state of the peace process in Angola is positive.

Mr Jeichande -- speaking to reporters in Luanda -- said that both the government and the main opposition movement, UNITA, now both respected the peace accord signed in Lusaka in 1994, although it has been effectively abandoned since then.

He said that the current international situation was now more conducive to peace.

At the same time, a leading peace activist in Angola, Rafael Marques has accused the United Nations of being -- as he put it -- trapped within the logic of war.

He accused the United Nations of concentrating its attention on the two main warring parties, rather than helping to broaden the political debate within the country.

More than 3m Angolans have been displaced by the continuing civil war in the past 10 years, and more than a million of them are dependent on food aid.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service