 Between the first and second meetings dos Santos offered Savimbi the position of Vice President, but Savimbi turned him down in August 1996 during the party's Third Congress.Executive Outcomes, a private military company, had 400–500 mercenaries in Angola fighting on behalf of the Angolan government until January 1996 in violation of the protocol's repatriation provision.Savimbi and dos Santos spoke on the phone in December 1997 and reached an agreement on January 9, 1998 to implement the protocol, but fighting resumed and the peace process ended.