ANGOLA

WAR AGAIN!

The war in Angola has resumed in full-scale. Hundred thousands are already refugees and internally displaced, fleeing from fighting zones. Both sides have recruited children for the war. Meanwhile the international community is unable to create pressure on the Angolan rivals to put an end to this bloody war.

Marzia Cruz/New People fs 1,398 words

The resumption of Angolan civil war is a demonstration that the international community presence and strength is questionable when it comes to internal dispute over power. Since mid-November 1998, President Jos Eduardo dos Santos and Dr. Jonas Savimbi have been defying the 1994 Lusaka Peace Accord and plunging civilians into a desperate situation.

The same old scenes and situations - refugees, internally displaced, famine,violence and destruction - are happening once again.

For the Angolans, war is just a repetition; they are trapped between the promises, lies and accusations from both sides.

While the MPLA - Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola - attacks the strongholds of UNITA - National Union for the Total Liberation of Angola - saying the rebels are not committed to the full implementation of the Lusaka peace accord, Dr. Savimbi and his army are bombing the cities controlled by the government. Caught in the crossfire are innocent people.

They are the ones who have been used as live shields and justification for the continuation of the battles between the two Angolan leaders.

In order to keep the war going, both armies capture young men from the villages and turn them into soldiers. Unfortunately, there is no alternative for these young men.

If they do not join one of the two armies, they will become easy prey to the desperation that prowls around the majority of Angolan cities. If they do not die fighting a war they neither started nor wanted, they will die of starvation.

Meanwhile, big business continues as usual. The companies dealing in natural resources such as diamond and oil keep operating. In order to function without any threat, these companies hire Angolans body-guards and patrols and end up having hundreds of armed men inside their plants and compounds.

These contradictions in the Angolan war have been there from the very beginning. However, they started calling the attention of the international community only when UN workers or foreigners became victims of war.

Incidents such as the death of Alioune Blondin Beye, the UN special envoy in a plane crash in June 1998, and the shooting down of two UN aircraft, near Huambo, cooled down the organization desire for action. We re not here to send people to die, said Hamadoun Toure, the UN spokesman in a press conference in Luanda

The future of UN mission

At the beginning of the year, the new UN special envoy, Issa Diallo, questioned the mission s future in Angola. Commenting on the shooting down of the organization s two aircraft and the loss of workers lives, he said that the increasing conflict and disintegration of the country s 1994 Lusaka Peace Accord brought doubts on the United Nation s peace mission.

I think that the Security Council and the Secretary General have been thinking about this for some time, and we are coming to the point when a decision will be taken. I think it will be very soon, Diallo said. The UN has 1,000 observers in Angola, but a few of them are in areas where the fighting is raging.

Another incident involving foreigners happened at the beginning of January. The victims were workers from a diamond mine.

According to the company s statement, the British mining manager and the Brazilian civil engineer were killed in an ambush on their vehicle by an armed band believed to be Unita rebels. Two Angolan security guards were also killed.

The mine, which is owned and operated by Sociedade de Desenvolvimento Mineiro de Angola, employed a heavily-armed private security force of 500 men.

Civilians to suffer

If the international community is not able to create pressure and force the Angolan rivals to put an end to this prolonged war, the civilians will continue to suffer.

The coming months will be crucial for the already thousands of refugees and internally displaced. Starvation and death are the only certainty for the civilians, even for those who were able to escape from the crossfire.

The United Nations decision to suspend its flights to parts of the country and to continue evacuating its 1,000 staff from war zones to the capital, Luanda, is a clear sign that it s giving up on Angola.

Apparently, hope is fading not only among Angolans. Issa Diallo, the permanent UN special representative, said that the organization is considering the eventuality either to withdraw its Observer Mission from the country or to extend its mandate on the condition of being authorized to use their weapons.

On the other hand, there are doubts among some of the 34 nations that contributed troops to the Angolan mission. After a UN Security Council meeting, held at the beginning of January, several delegations questioned the wisdom and necessity of keeping peacekeepers in Angola when there was clearly no peace to keep.

The mandate of the Observer Mission is expiring on February 26.Some African leaders, like Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, demonstrated some kind of impatience with the endless conflict in the vast southwestern African nation.

In a speech in honour of President Bakili Muluzi of Malawi, who was visiting Tanzania, he described Dr. Jonas Savimbi as intransigent and urged the UNITA leader to commit himself to the full implementation of the 1994 Lusaka peace accord.

According to President Mkapa, the international community, especially the UN Security Council, should come down really hard on him (Dr. Jonas Savimbi) and his followers.

Recalling the negotiations for the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, the Tanzanian head of state said: The resolve with which problems in the former Yugoslavia are handled should likewise be applied in Angola in respect to Savimbi.

Corruption

The real problem with the Angolan situation is that blaming only one side does not help. Both sides - MPLA and UNITA - and their leaders have to account before the world for thousands of lives.

They also would have to account for the billions of dollars from the oil and diamond industries that are either mismanaged or used to buy weapons and keep the war going.

While international relief organizations denounce the horrors of the vicious circle of the Angolan war, mismanagement and corruption are stuffing army generals, rebel leaders and government allies.

The country s wealth based on its oil and diamond mines moves through a shadow economy. If the Angolans revenue were accounted for, the Government would be able to meet most of the population s basic needs.

However, since corruption has spread its tentacles, it has been necessary to maintain the vicious circle of war. It justifies the non-existence of government budgets. On the other hand, it allows rebels to administer - without any supervision- the lucrative industry of diamonds.

According to international analysts, corruption in Angola has become systematic. In the end, the victims are always the same; the ordinary people.

The civil war that restarted mid-November last year is just a continuation of a conflict, which began right after independence from Portugal in 1975.

Angolans fought 14 years to become an independent nation but as soon as the colonizer left, a fratricidal war between the then Marxist MPLA and UNITA, began.

In 1992, after a short period of peace, elections were held. The leader of UNITA, Dr. Savimbi, not happy with the results of the ballots, went back to war.

Two years later a new peace treaty, the Lusaka Peace Accord, was signed between the two rivals. After four years of relative peace, Angolans are facing another nightmare.

The only thing civilians want right now is a definite end to this nonsensical war. Who is going to win does not matter I really do not care who is the winner here. I just want the war to stop, says Rita Anita, a young refugee.

Anita, 26 years old, cannot explain the reasons why there is war in her country. I do not know because the war was on when I was born.