Military

DATE=10/17/00

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

NUMBER=2-268072

TITLE=UNHCR / UNITA REFUGEES (L-O)

BYLINE=LISA SCHLEIN

DATELINE=GENEVA

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: The U-N Refugee Agency and the Zambian government have agreed to move soldiers who once belonged to the UNITA rebel group to a new camp in the east of the country. Lisa Schlein in Geneva reports the camp is located far from the Angolan border.

TEXT: The U-N refugee sgency says the transfer of the former UNITA rebels may begin as early as this week. The new site is at Patauke, about 350-kilometers northeast of the Zambian capital Lusaka. The camp will house 275 former UNITA fighters and their families.

U-N-H-C-R spokeswoman Delphine Marie says the UNITA refugees will be separated from the civilian refugee population.

/// MARIE ACT ///

It is always dangerous to mix ex-fighters with civilians. One fact being that some civilians may be opposed to what they are doing or what they have been doing. Some may even have been victims of these fighters or some others may be seen as supporting them. In any case, their case has to be considered completely separately.

/// END ACT ///

The U-N refugee agency reports many of the former UNITA fighters are ill with malaria and respiratory problems. Ms. Marie says after the former UNITA combatants are transferred to the new site, their application for asylum will be screened on a case-by-case basis.

/// 2ND MARIE ACT ///

Some of them may have been involved in crimes, in common crime or war crimes in their country. And, in this case, the Convention, the Geneva Convention of 1951 on refugees does not apply to them. But we think they have a right to apply for asylum.

/// END ACT ///

The U-N refugee agency says a separate group, former participants in the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, also will be moved to the new site at Patauke. The men are being held now in Zambian prisons. (SIGNED)

NEB/LS/KL/RAE