Angolan civil war tragedy sees no end in sight

By V. Anjaiah

JAKARTA (JP): By signing a peace accord to end their 19-year- old civil war, the warring factions once again raised hope among the Angolan people on one side and made laughing stocks of the peace brokers by breaking it before the ink was dry on the other.

The whole drama began when the Angolan ruling party, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) -- a former Marxist group and protege of the former Soviet Union -- and the rebel group National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) inked with much fanfare a truce agreement on Oct. 31 in Zambian capital of Lusaka to pave the way for the present accord.

But poor Alioune Blondin Beye, the United Nations special representative to Angola and the key architect of the 1994 Lusaka accord, and his friends didn't know what the word "truce" meant in the context of Angolan civil war.

Prior to the scheduled Nov. 15th modus vivendi, both the warring groups started attacking each other with allegations and counter allegations. In the media on one side and with guns and bombs in the field on the other. As a result, peace parleys seemed to be on the verge of collapse.

Thanks to Alioune Beye's maneuvers and appeals from disappointed African celebrities like Nelson Mandela and Robert Mugabe and others, who came all the way to Lusaka to witness the so-called peace ceremony, both the groups agreed to postpone the ceremony to Nov.20th but repeated the allegations of war.

Not surprisingly, the UNITA chief Jonas Savimbi chose not to come to Lusaka. In spite of assurances from the government for safe passage from his base and an appeal from American President Bill Clinton, the substance of the accord was diluted as it was signed by lower officials like the Angolan Foreign Minister Venancio de Moura and UNITA Secretary General Eugenio Manuvakola.

Not to loose face, the UN envoy Beye praised both the parties for signing the agreement which could have become an oasis of peace if implemented.

Though many experts on African affairs, both domestic and foreign, commonly agree that the Lusaka accord contains all the aspects that are needed to extinguish the Angolan conflict, such as giving a major share in government as well armed forces, but it is not free from lacunas.

In fact it is nothing but an attempt to appease UNITA -- a former darling of American CIA and an illegitimate child of the Pretoria's apartheid regime -- which lost the country's first 1992 free and fair elections and returned to the war field.

The UNITA has no legitimacy in the eyes of many Angolans, whose country has for the last 19 years suffered massive deaths and destruction resulting from foreign intervention (Cuban and South African forces were there until recently) and civil war. Angolans found themselves caught in cross-fire between those who perpetrated genocide and those who have done the same in the name of protecting them.

The UN, which is deeply involved in many peacekeeping operations throughout the world, may not be able to undertake a massive peacekeeping operation to oversee a cease-fire in Angola, where prospects of success seem very slim.

Two of the three nations which are going to oversee the peace accord, Russia and Portugal, are still struggling with their domestic affairs and may not be able to participate actively.

As far as the world's lonely superpower is concerned, after its bitter experience in Somalia, the U.S. may not be willing to meddle in Angolan affairs, which could become another Vietnam.

In the words of one diplomat based in Luanda, "Haiti is fashionable. Angola has been out for sometime."

But cynics say even if the accord is implemented in totality, there is no guarantee that the much-waited peace will return to Angola where more than half a dozen peace accords, including the Lisbon accord which was perhaps the best, didn't end the war.

The Lisbon accord led to free and fair multi-party elections in September 1992 in which the MPLA won with 55 percent of the vote while the UNITA received 38 percent.

But power-thirsty UNITA leader Savimbi, in spite of the UN's declaration that the elections were free and fair, rejected the election results, alleging that his rival party rigged the election, and resumed the genocide.

However the Angolan conflict, which took many twists with the changing times, may now be in its last stage where it has lost its ideological and ethnic planks which not only invited foreign powers but has also shown the 10-million Angolans what the man- made hell was which forced the dos Santos regime to spend nearly 20 percent of its Gross Domestic Product earnings on military expenditure annually.

Given the above complexities, many experts from the UN opine that a compromise government consisting of both groups would be the best hope for peace in Angola.

Since the Lusaka accord, which was mostly based on the above proposal, is on the verge of collapse as both the groups have since resumed the fighting, perhaps the Cambodian model might be suitable to settle the Angolan imbroglio. Cambodia has two prime ministers representing two rival groups.

Meanwhile the Angolan people continue to die in the war and look towards the world community for help in ending their 19-year -old suffering.

In this regard, Indonesia, as chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement and which showed the path of peace to the warring Cambodians, could help, along with the UN and the African Frontline states, the unfortunate Angolan brothers.

With the resumption of war, it remains to be seen whether the Angolan tragedy will be ended by violence or negotiations.

The writer is a postgraduate from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India and is presently learning Indonesian at the University of Indonesia.