1 Angola's top government and rebel soldiers traded accusations of mutual cease-fire violations in a tense meeting on neutral territory in the southern African nation Thursday instead of sticking to a discussion of troop withdrawal.
2 Chief of Staff Joao de Matos accused UNITA rebels of ignoring the cease-fire and 'raiding at will', including an ambush on a food convoy which killed 29 civilians near the coastal city of Benguela, Portuguese TSF radio reported.
3 De Matos said government troops would retaliate 'devastatingly' against any further incursions by the rebels.
4 UNITA Gen. Arlindo Chenda Ben-Ben Pena responded angrily that government troops were provoking a battle by advancing in violation of a peace treaty signed last November.
5 Pena has attributed the attacks to small, isolated units often completely out of touch with the UNITA command.
6 After 19 years of civil war, Pena said, 'UNITA will not be pushed out of its own country now that peace is supposed to have come.'
7 The bitter exchange came a week before the U.N. Security Council was scheduled for a critical vote on a major peacekeeping operation to the southern African nation.
8 Although U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali drafted a plan calling for a 7,000-soldier peacekeeping force, he has warned that deployment depends on a 'true commitment to peace' by the warring sides.
9 De Matos and Pena were supposed to plot safe withdrawal of their troops from the tensest parts of the war-torn nation, including Huambo, the country's second city that was held by the rebels for nearly a year.
10 More than 200,000 government and rebel troops still divide the country in a tense standoff. Severe food shortages and military tension have triggered continuous skirmishes.
11 The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola -- UNITA -- has been fighting government forces for control of the country since Portugal granted it independence in 1975.
12 More than 500,000 Angolans have died, victims of fighting and war-related famine and disease.

Chief of Staff Joao de Matos accused UNITA rebels of ignoring the cease - fire and " raiding at will " , including an ambush on a food convoy which killed 29 civilians near the coastal city of Benguela , Portuguese TSF radio reported .
" raiding at will " ,
Why are they raiding convoys?