Chris Gordon
WITH two weeks to go before the United Nations slaps crippling sanctions on Jonas Savimbi’s Unita movement, UN peace monitors, Savimbi and the Angolan government are openly warning the country should prepare for war.
Diplomats in Luanda said in the last week that the peace process is on the edge and war is probably inevitable, while UN representative David Wimhurst and peace monitors are calling the current situation a crisis.
The UN Security Council has ordered Savimbi to stand his troops down and comply with the terms of the Lusaka Peace Accord – the deal cut in 1994 that ended the country’s bloody 19-year civil war. If he fails to comply by August 15, when the council is due to review its role in Angola, sanctions, including a freeze on Unita’s lucrative diamond dealing and its bank accounts, will follow.
President Eduardo Dos Santos believes that Unita has unilaterally suspended the Lusaka Accord. He told President Sam Njoma of Namibia last week in Luanda that military conflict is likely to break out soon.
Savimbi, meanwhile, told journalists from Bailundo, his headquarters, that he believes the government is preparing for war against Unita. He warned that such a war could last for years.
At issue is Savimbi’s failure to surrender Unita-held territory back to state control, as agreed in the 1994 accord. The process should have speeded up following the swearing in of the Government of National Unity, which includes Unita political representatives, four months ago.
Savimbi, however, has halted the process – partly because the diamond-rich territory provides Unita with a key source of income.
Low-level fighting is already under way, with tension building both in the diamond-rich Lundas and Unita’s centre-south heartlands. The UN Joint Commission, which oversees the peace process, has criticised Unita for attacking and recapturing the towns of Muaquesse and Caxinagagi in Lunda Norte, in the north east of the country. The joint commission said Unita had also planted landmines in two areas in Malange province.
Attacks on the towns have forced 6 000 people to flee to the small diamond town of Nzaji, with a further 500 fleeing to Suarimo, capital of Lunda Sul. Unita troops detained seven UN observers in Lunda Norte.
The UN Security Council last week described such acts as “destabilising”, and laid out its demands to Savimbi and the August 15 deadline.
The council also rejected as “neither complete nor credible” Unita’s submission that it had just 4 500 men under arms, made up of mining police and Savimbi’s “Presidential Guard”. Estimates of Unita’s troops put the figure at 20 000.