Tangeni Amupadhi
The civil war in Angola could resume as early as this month despite recent concessions by the rebel Unita movement to the terms of the Lusaka peace accord, a report by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) says.
According to the ISS, a rift has emerged within Unita between those opposed to war and hardliners refusing to trust the Angolan government’s peace-making efforts. The report also talks of continued South African involvement in gun-running to Unita, despite United Nations sanctions against the rebels.
“The movement appears to have split for all intents and purposes,” says the ISS in its latest assessment of the Angolan situation, “with those now in Luanda resigned to making the best of a bad deal.”
Last week Unita president Jonas Savimbi sent a senior delegation headed by his deputy, Antonio Dembo, to the Angolan capital to reinforce the movement as the main opposition party. This dispatch of Dembo to Luanda from Unita’s central highland headquarters of Bailundo is seen, however, as a disguised attempt to keep Unita together, rather than as proof of the movement’s commitment to the peace process.
Savimbi is said to be worried that Unita parliamentarians in Luanda will break away and forge ahead with peace if he continues to delay.
Unita MPs abstained in a budget vote recently, in defiance of Savimbi’s instructions to oppose it. This has been described as the clearest sign yet that a faction is willing to move on with peace regardless of Savimbi’s stand.
According to the oft-delayed and renegotiated Lusaka Accord – the United Nations-endorsed peace agreement of 1994 – the entire leadership should have relocated to Luanda last month and transferred rebel-held territory to the government.
Savimbi has not shown any intention of moving to Luanda despite the MPLA government’s approval of personal security provisions which Savimbi had demanded.
Unita made its latest concession last week – taking off-air its partisan Voice of the Black Cockerel (Vorgan) radio, which for years has been broadcasting anti-government propaganda. Other than that there is little to suggest Savimbi will change.
Says the ISS: “Unita is not complying with the terms of the Lusaka Accord and seems unlikely to commit itself unreservedly…”
The ISS foresees the chance of resumption of war if sporadic clashes between Unita and government forces escalate. Pockets of fighting have been reported as late as last month when about 10 people were killed.
Unita, which has yet to demobilise all its troops, has adopted a defensive posture, and “seems to be reactivating its [bush war era] military headquarters at Jamba”.
“The most likely time for a resumption of larger-scale military operations on the part of FAA [Angolan Armed Forces] is at the end of the rainy season in April,” says the report. The current mandate of the UN observer mission in Angola, which monitors compliance with the Lusaka Accord, also expires at the end of this month.
Last month the Angolan ambassador to the UN, Franca van Dunem, accused Unita of preparing for war.
Despite the sanctions, the ISS says the movement continues to “restock and resupply”.
If war resumes, in all probability the conflict will be a protracted one, says the ISS, which believes Unita hardliners are ready to launch a guerrilla campaign.
“To a great degree the sanctions introduced on October 1 1997 have proved ineffective if they were intended to cut off the supply of war material to Unita.”
The rebel movement has an intricate web of logistics routes, brokering agents and transport companies in South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. There are said to be indivuals connected to the South African arms industries who are using their contacts on the international arms market to broker deals for Unita.
The ISS says there is little the South African authorities can do to clamp down on those involved in the deals because the “dealing and supply” takes place outside South Africa.
Unless the Angolan government finds effective means to stop Unita’s supply routes, says the ISS, the war option remains alive.
An adviser to Savimbi in South Africa, who asked not to be named, claims war is more distant now: “The situation remains dangerous in Angola, but not as dangerous as it was a year ago.”
He lambasts the UN’s peace efforts as cosmetic. “The core issue is not reconciliation, but formal compliance [with the Lusaka Accord]. The international community is trying to reduce the cost of its peacekeeping operation without looking at genuine reconciliation.”
Jakkie Potgieter of the ISS is more emphatic in his criticism of the global community. “The international community just wants them to stop fighting so they can get the diamonds and oil. What Angola really needs is a Marshall Plan for development, infrastructural restoration and to address socio-economic problems.”
Meanwhile, Unita began an arduous process of transferring territory to the MPLA government this week, but the same adviser concedes Savimbi’s opponents dismiss this as one of the Unita leader’s temporising tricks.
“An early indicator that the peace process may be moving on would be another meeting between Savimbi and [Angolan President Jos Eduardo] dos Santos, particularly if it were held in Luanda,” says the ISS report. “Another venue would fail to have too much impact given the theatrics of the past.”