Rebels ‘down helicopter’

Press, 29 February 1984, Page 11

Rebels ‘down helicopter’

NZPA-Reuter Lisbon Angolan guerrillas have said they have shot down a helicopter which flew over a column of 77 foreign hostages being marched southwards, killing its Cuban crew. The Right-wing guerrillas of U.N.I.T.A. (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) said they had kidnapped the 46 Portuguese, 16 Britons and 15 Filipinos in a raid on a north-eastern diamond-min-ing area. A U.N.I.T.A. spokesman in Lisbon, announcing that the helicopter had been shot down, added that the Portuguese would be freed as soon as the Red Cross could transport them, but there would be conditions for releasing the Britons. The spokesman said there

I would have to be negotiaI tions about the Britons

through a third party and the conditions were likely to be the halting of aid in the form of geologists and engineers to the State diamond company Diamang — an important source of income for the Government. He gave no further details of the helicopter incident. U.N.1.T.A., which has been fighting to overthrow the Cuban-backed Marxist Government since Angola became independent from Portugal in 1975, warned Government forces last week not to try to free the hostages. The hostages, mainly technical advisory staff, captured in an attack on the town of Kafunfo, are in good health except for one Portuguese with diabetes, the spokesman said. Their match towards U.N.I.T.A. camps in southern Angola was proceeding normally, he said.