strength stuns MPLA
Unita’s improved military strength is of growing concern to Angola and its neighbours, write Chris Gordon and Howard Barrell
Unita military pressure on the government has escalated dangerously over the past week, prompting deep concern among neighbouring governments.
A powerful Unita offensive, including tanks and heavy artillery, on forces at Kuito and Huambo in the central highlands of Angola has exacted heavy government casualties over the past week.
The Angolan government and regional security experts have been astonished at the recent improvement in Unita’s conventional warfare capacity, particularly evident in the rebels’ attack on Kuito.
These experts attribute this to help for Unita from former middle-ranking South African military officers hired for the purpose on individual contracts, but they decline to provide details.
A senior South African government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said this week that South Africa viewed the situation in Angola “very seriously”.
On Wednesday, Angolan President Jos Eduardo dos Santos met Mozambican President Joachim Chissano, Namibian President Sam Nujoma and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in Luanda to discuss the further deterioration of the security situation in the interlinked conflicts in Angola and its northern neighbour, the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, told the Security Council early this week: “There is war in Angola.”
The fate of Kuito was unclear on Thursday (December 17), although the usually well-informed United States embassy in Luanda, citing both independent and Unita sources, said late on Wednesday that the town was still in government hands.
This contradicted earlier reports that the strategically important town had fallen to Unita on Monday or Tuesday. However, regional security analysts said that the fall of both Kuito and Huambo was possible within days.
The fighting around Kuito and Huambo has been so fierce that a UN refugee agency in Luanda reported 60 000 new refugees fleeing in the space of just five days.
The UN told the Mail & Guardian that it has pulled its personnel from those towns, and from Luena, a strategic town in the north-west controlled by the government which cuts Unita’s route to its camps near the Zambian border.
The UN must now to decide whether it will pull out of Angola after four years of trying to broker peace.
The Angolan government says the world body no longer has a role in Angola, in view of its signal failure to demilitarise Unita and also the failure of UN sanctions to prevent Unita rebuilding its military capacity.
Unita is evidently now well prepared for a major land battle, no longer just for a guerrilla war. Angolan government forces encountered Unita troops in heavy concentrations in the central highlands, backed up with tanks, ground attack vehicles and heavy artillery.
Unita has made an oblique offer of talks to the Angolan government. On Wednesday, agencies quoted General Paulo Lukamba Gato, Unita’s secretary general, as saying Unita might consider returning to the negotiating table.
But he indicated this might have to be preceded by a withdrawal of some government forces from the current positions in the central highlands.
Regional security analysts see this as posturing which indicates a new level of confidence within Unita.
Any rise in oil prices as a result of the latest US-Iraqi confrontation is not expected to improve the cash- strapped Angolan government’s ability to re-arm itself.
Angola has already mortgaged a substantial portion of its future oil production, including that from big new offshore finds.
The serious security situation is forcing the Angolan government to cut back on its troop deployment to prop up President Laurent Kabila in Congo. Several elite units have already been withdrawn back to Angola.
Mugabe is likely soon to face growing domestic pressures also to reduce his military support for Kabila. Over the past two weeks, Zimbabwean forces have taken substantial casualties in clashes with anti-Kabila rebels around the town of Kabalo in east-central Congo. News of these losses appear to have been largely covered up so far in Zimbabwe.
These pressures on the Angolan and Zimbabwean governments may impact on attempts to bring about direct negotiations between Kabila and the rebels in Congo.
Kabila was expected at a two-day Organisation of African Unity meeting in Burkina Faso which began on Thursday and which was due to discuss several African conflicts including that in Congo.
But Kabila’s position on the eve of the talks was still that he would not hold face-to-face talks with the rebels – though he would agree to proximity talks.
Unita, which also operates from bases in southern Congo which adjoin Angolan territory, has been building up its war capacity over a long period. Since late October, quantities of cheaper Angolan diamonds have hit the open market in Antwerp. Unita seems to have increased its smuggling and is thought to have sold part of its diamond stockpile to buy ground attack vehicles and heavy weapons.
The UN Sanctions Committee does not, according to a UN representative, have any power or budget to investigate who is supplying Unita or who is buying Unita’s diamonds.
The M&G was told it was the responsibility of member states to prevent such infractions of international law and to supply any information to the UN.
British-based human rights group Global Witness this week attacked the diamond industry, particularly De Beers, for failing to take on the questions raised by Unita’s smuggling of diamonds to fund its war.
De Beers has stated that it is no longer buying any smuggled diamonds originating in Angola, following the UN embargo.