Ex-Rebel Group UNITA Is Legalized

Angola formally legalized the onetime rebel movement UNITA, taking the delayed 1994 peace accord one step closer to an April 1 deadline. The action completes the political rebirth of the former guerrilla movement, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, that already has 70 members of parliament in the capital, Luanda, and has been registered as a political party since 1992. Civil war broke out in this southwest African nation after it gained independence from Portugal in 1975. An estimated 500,000 people died in the continent’s longest civil war before the government and UNITA signed the peace accord.