Angola rebel leader dead

Savimbi led UNITA for more than 30 years

LUANDA, Angola (CNN) -- The Angolan government has confirmed that rebel leader Jonas Savimbi is dead.

Reporters were taken on Saturday to see his body, confirming that the long-time leader of the rebel National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) was dead.

The government released a statement Friday saying Savimbi had been killed in a battle between rebels and the Angolan army.

There had been no independent confirmation of the claim, but Portuguese TV broadcast video clearly showing Savimbi's bullet-riddled body.

Savimbi's death bolstered hopes of peace in the civil war-torn African nation, where UNITA has battled the ruling party government of a rival former rebel group since independence.

The civil war is believed to have killed at least 500,000 people, though there are no confirmed figures.

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About four million people -- roughly one-third of the population -- have been driven from their homes by the fighting, creating a humanitarian crisis.

The armed forces said in a statement that Savimbi died during an army attack on UNITA forces in Moxico province in south-east Angola on Friday.

The Angolan government called on UNITA rebels "to reconsider their options and reintegrate themselves into Angolan society so as to contribute to the consolidation of democracy and national reconciliation."

The ruling party of Angola, the Marxist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), emerged ahead of two other guerrilla groups -- including UNITA -- for control of the central African nation in 1976, a year after it gained independence from Portugal.

But Savimbi's UNITA has waged almost constant war against the MPLA government of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has been Angola's leader since 1979. Dos Santos and Savimbi signed a cease-fire agreement in 1989, but it collapsed soon afterwards.

After the MPLA abandoned Marxism in 1991, the two leaders signed a peace accord and both prepared for Angola's first multi-party elections.

But UNITA claimed election fraud even before the vote, and after losing to dos Santos and the MPLA, Savimbi and his fighters returned to their guerrilla tactics.

The two sides signed another peace agreement in 1994 after U.N.-sponsored talks, and U.N. peacekeepers arrived in 1995.

But in 1997, Savimbi announced he would head Angola's largest opposition party, but refused to attend the inauguration of the national unity government. A year later, UNITA said it had demobilised, and the government legalised it.

Just three months later, however, the U.N. sanctioned UNITA after it delayed handing over some Angolan regions it had held.

A series of incidents followed -- including the shooting down of a U.N. plane, a government-launched offensive against UNITA and the U.N.'s decision to pull its peacekeepers out of the country.