2000s in Angola
A Russian freighter delivered 500 tons of Ukrainian 7.62mm ammunition to Simportex, a division of the Angolan government, with the help of a shipping agent in London on 21 September 2000.
[2] Angola agreed to trade oil to Slovakia in return for arms, buying six Sukhoi Su-17 attack aircraft on 3 April 2000.
The Spanish government in the Canary Islands prevented a Ukrainian freighter from delivering 636 tons of military equipment to Angola on 24 February 2001.
According to an aid official in Ndalatando, the Angolan military prohibited media coverage of the incident, so the details of the attack are unknown.
In a letter to the bishops of Angola, Jonas Savimbi asked the Catholic church to act as an intermediary between UNITA and the government in negotiations.
At the end of May, De Beers, the international diamond mining company, suspended its operations in Angola, ostensibly on the grounds that negotiations with the national government reached an impasse.
[5] Militants of unknown affiliation fired rockets at United Nations World Food Program (UNWFP) planes on 8 June near Luena and again near Kuito a few days later.
As the first plane, a Boeing 727, approached Luena someone shot a missile at the aircraft, damaging one engine but not critically as the three-man crew landed successfully.
While he did not claim responsibility for the attack, UNITA spokesman Justino said the planes carried weapons and soldiers rather than food, making them acceptable targets.
The military commanders signed a Memorandum of Understanding as an addendum to the Lusaka Protocol in Luena on 4 April, Dos Santos and Lukambo observing.
[13][14] The United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1404 on 18 April, extending the monitoring mechanism of sanctions by six months.
[15] UNITA's new leadership declared the rebel group a political party and officially demobilized its armed forces in August 2002.
[19][20] Human Rights Watch estimates UNITA and the government employed more than 6,000 and 3,000 child soldiers respectively, some forcibly impressed, during the war.
[23] Government representatives and Bembo Bembe, a former leader of FLEC, signed a Memorandum of Understanding on 1 August 2006, in an attempt to end the 29-year-long Cabindan war.
Many FCD members considered Bembe's signing illegitimate and rejected the agreement, which only granted Cabinda autonomy, not independence.
Border officials arrested Raul Danda, Mpalabanda's spokesman, at Cabinda airport on the charge of 'instigating crimes against the security of the state', owning pro-independence literature, on 29 September.
[27] Richard Segal, an analyst for the United Bank of Africa, posited that the global financial crisis made borrowing from the Chinese government cheaper than taking loans from the West.
Nonetheless, Ricardo Gazel, a senior economist for the World Bank, predicted that Angola's initial budget for 2009, based on oil exports at $55 per barrel, would be revised with a much more modest outlook by as early as April 2009.
[28] Despite the decline in the price of oil, Angola usurped Nigeria's place as the top producer of petroleum in sub-Saharan Africa in early 2008.
Angola's oil exports were the primary contributor to the country's 25% growth rate, attracting illegal immigrants from West Africa.
