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LONDON, Oct 18, 1999 -- The United Nations has appointed a Chinese oil executive to help it investigate how Angola's UNITA rebels have been evading U.N. curbs against the guerrillas, a U.N. official said on Monday.
Jinping Cheng, deputy general manager, crude oil trading at China National Chemicals Import & Export Corp (Sinochem), joins a six-member panel investigating the sources of revenue, funding and petroleum supplies that enable the African guerrilla group to wage war, the official said.
The panel is one of two panels set up by the U.N. Angola sanctions committee to probe UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) sanctions-busting and make recommendations about possible counter-measures.
Other members of the panel include experts from Zimbabwe, Namibia, France, Britain and Russia.
A second panel, comprising four experts from Botswana, the United States, Switzerland and South Africa, will investigate the sources of UNITA's military support.
The United Nations bans the import of Angolan diamonds without a government certificate of origin. The sanctions also prohibit oil and arms sales and financial support to UNITA.
UNITA has been blamed by the Security Council for the breakdown of a 1994 accord aimed at ending a civil war in the former Portuguese colony and for the resumption of fighting last December.
The conflict has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives over more than two decades and the United Nations estimates that about 1.6 million Angolans are displaced out of a population of 11 million.
Establishment of the two panels, which have a six-month mandate and will travel widely, was approved by the Security Council in a resolution in May.
Human rights workers have said UNITA buys diesel and gasoline for its tanks, trucks and armoured vehicles from a variety of African suppliers as well as from domestic sources that divert volumes from Angolan government oil facilities.
Angola is a growing international oil producer pumping about 770,000 barrels per day.