While the UN reconsiders its mission in Angola, the SADC is rethinking its own obligations there, reports Joshua Amupadhi
THE United Nations Security Council will decide this week whether to extend its costly operation to maintain Angola’s fragile peace.
Meanwhile, fears that the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Organ on Politics, Defence and Security set up to promote peace in the region is not achieving results in Angola, have led to calls for South African President Nelson Mandela and Mozambican President Joachim Chissano to take the lead in pushing for peace in that country.
The calls, made privately to the Mail & Guardian by Western diplomats, followed the first SADC peace summit on Angola held last week in Luanda. The summit was attended by several Southern African presidents and was intended to bring together President Jos Eduardo dos Santos and Uniaco Nacional para a Independencia Total de Angola (Unita) opposition leader Jonas Savimbi. However, Savimbi failed to attend, claiming he had not been given enough notice.
The summit went ahead, however, and focused on what initiatives regional leaders should take in achieving peace in Angola.
Foreign diplomats in South Africa this week expressed confidence that Chissano has had the appropriate experience of bringing peace to Mozambique after a long civil war and because Mozambique, like Angola, was colonised by the Portugese, has empathy with the Angolan culture. They also described Mandela as having the presence and conciliatory skills to bring Savimbi and Dos Santos together.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said this week that now that South Africa was the head of the SADC Mandela will play a more “reinforced” role in Angola. However he added Mandela’s input would be made through the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security.
An official in the Department of Foreign Affairs said South Africa will “play a more active role” but did not want to be seen to supplant regional efforts. He said: “Mugabe was the chair of the Frontline States for a long time and was chosen to head the SADC organ. So Mandela is very sensitive and careful not to be seen to be steamrolling the process.”
The SADC summit last week chose three presidents – Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Chissano and Zambia’s Frederick Chiluba – to increase pressure on the ruling party, the Movimento Popular de Libertacao de Angola (MPLA) and Unita, to overcome the final hurdles to peace.
But both Unita and the MPLA have privately let it be known progress would be swifter if Mandela and Chissano rather than Mugabe were at the helm of the regional effort to halt the growing anarchy in Angola.
Southern African countries fear the United Nations’ Angola Verification Mission (Unavem) mandate may not be extended if the peace process is seen to be leading nowhere, and have sent five foreign ministers to New York this week to lobby for an extension to Unavem. It is costing the the UN R4,5-million a day for the upkeep of its forces in Angola.
An Angolan embassy representative in Pretoria, Jorge Morais, said he would be happy with Mandela and Chissano taking the lead in calling for the MPLA and Unita to sort out their differences.
`We welcome that iniative,” Morais said. “In our region we identify Mr Mandela as a respectable man who is in a good position to address the problems of Angola.We believe that Mr Mandela and Mr Chissano have the experience.”
An adviser to Savimbi in South Africa, who asked not to be named, said: “Savimbi is very keen on having Presidents Mandela and Chissano take the lead. They made miracles happen in their respective countries … If Mandela and Chissano fail, then we are doomed.”
The Angolans have implemented most points of the Lusaka Protocol, a peace agreement signed by the MPLA and Unita in 1994, which specified among other things that both parties participate in a government of national unity and reconciliation, and that they demobilise their troops and create a unified army.
According to the Lusaka Protocol, Unita would fill four Cabinet posts, and Savimbi would become vice-president to Dos Santos.
Savimbi later reversed his decision and went back on the agreement to become vice- president.
But now Savimbi is reportedly reconsidering accepting the position of vice-president as pressure mounts from the UN, which has threatened sanctions against either or both of the Angolan parties if they impede the progress of the protocol.
Lack of trust between the two parties remains the major obstacle to peace. Although Unita has said it has demobilised its 62 000 forces in quartering areas monitored by the UN, a Unita insider said this week that about 10 000 of Unita’s top soldiers are elsewhere in Angola, on alert in case the peace flounders. Unita has also accused MPLA forces of moving into positions vacated by its forces instead of going into military barracks.
Unita has, however, recently sent some of its generals to Luanda to be integrated into the Forcas Armadas Angolanas, the unified Angolan army.
Savimbi remains in his headquarters at Bailundo and his advisers say lack of trust is still the central and most deep-seated problem affecting progress towards multi- party government in Angola.
But there are growing fears in the region that progress is so slow, and the peace so shallow, that war could once again break out.
@ Broeders don’t rule, OK
THE disclosure last weekend that some prominent members of the black community are planning to launch an “Africanbond” – seemingly a reincarnation of the Broederbond, but with different entrance requirements – gives cause for concern. But before jumping to criticise the initiative, it should be said that there are grounds for some sympathy with those behind the scheme.
There is something distasteful about secret societies. But one of our readers, Vuso Shabalala, makes the point forcefully (see Letters, PAGE 27) that there is a degree of hypocrisy about whites taking a holier-than- though position when their interests – or at least those of their elite – are protected by “old boy networks” which tend to be even more powerful than formal societies because of their insidious nature.
If there are black business leaders who believe their struggle for economic empowerment is best served by a secret society (and, despite the denials of those associated with the “Africanbond”, there can be little doubt that they intend their activities to be secretive) we have no objection to it. If they wish to identify one another by secret handshakes, like the Masons, or bond with one another by swearing blood-
curdling oaths, as did the Broeders, we can only wish them good luck while stifling a chuckle.
But they should, at the same time, recognise that membership of a secret society tends to disqualify them from public office. Advocate Kgomotso Moroka, who has been identified as one of the figures behind the “Africanbond”, should be among the first to appreciate that principle: as a member of the Judicial Service Commission, she has heard the question routinely put to candidates for judicial appointment, “Do you belong to a secret society?”
It is right that this should be a disqualification, whether it is as a member of the Judicial Service Commission, as chairman of the Human Rights Commission, as managing director of Transnet, as head of the SABC, as chairman of Telkom … all of whom have reportedly been invited to join the “Africanbond”. They have been appointed to represent the public interest. If they were to be secretly championing a sectarian interest, it would be a betrayal of trust. And that has nothing to do with racism.