by David Gonzalez
Angolans are poised to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of independence on 11 November with their fingers crossed. People hold their breath. Hoping that peace – and, with it, development – might finally consolidate.
Reputedly a very peaceful people. Angolans nevertheless staged a long military conflict and signed countless ceasefires – with little success. This repeated failure was blamed on most negotiations and agreements being imposed from outside (as war has also been, to a certain extent), whereas not all Angolans were ready to go along with them.
But now Angolans begin to look forward, cautiously, to peace. An impressive reconstruction programme, presented to a donors’ conference in Brussels in September, should upgrade production capacities in rural areas and improve the standards of living of the rural and urban poor. The government hopes to inject US$280 million into agriculture, fisheries, cattle raising and small and medium enterprises. Another 178 million will be assigned to education, primary health care and the vast requirements of social integration — a vital area to avoid instability and conflict.
Twenty years ago, as the first government of the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola
(MPLA) was sworn in. the inhabitants of Luanda could hear the awesome sounds of nearby battles. Heavily armed columns of the Front for the National Liberation of Angola (FNLA), reinforced by Zairean troops, closed in from the north, while South African units, accompanying soldiers of the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Units), advanced from the South.
Portuguese colonialism bequeathed few examples of democratic behaviour to Angolans — in fact, it was Portugal’s intransigence that pushed Angolans to take up arms as the only alternative to achieve independence. Three separate political-military movements emerged in the 1960s – the MPLA, the FNLA and Unita– but antagonism brewed between them, even after the military coup of April 1974 in Portugal paved the way for a quick independence.
A transitional coalition government – involving Portugal, the MPLA, the FLNA and Unita — set up by the Alvor Agreements of January 1975 to steer the country towards elections and independence, was virtually defunct by mid-year. The agreements collapsed amidst increasing hostilitie, and Angola was destined to a troubled birth as an independent nation.
Daily life continued to be as dramatic for Angolans ever since. Through the Bicesse Agreements, signed by the government and Unita in 1991, the civil war was expected to end. But as soon as it lost the September 1992 elections – declared free and fair by the United Nations – Unita plunged the country back into war.
However, by 1994, severe military defeats again pushed Unita to the negotiating table – on this occasion, to sign the Lusaka Protocol. There was hope that, being internally motivated this time, peace had a better chance. Confidence was reinforced after the May 1995 meeting between the Angolan Presiden, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, and Unita leader, Jonas Savimbi, when the latter made unprecedented statements that acknowledged the farmer’s legitimacy as Head of State, and vowed never to return to war.
After that meeting, despite occasional hiccups, the gradual implementation of the agreements gives reason to rejoice at what now seems an irreversible peace process. When President Dos Santos and Savimbi jointly addressed the donors’ conference in Brussels, participating states and organizations pledged over US$990 million — thereby raising hopes of important peace dividends.
The European Union’s Development Commissioner. Joao de Deus Pinheiro, said he could not recall any similar conference “that has yielded such success, or such an amount of aid.”
Those figures give an idea of the size of financial needs for reconstruction. The outbreak of war since late 1992 forced down the nation’s GDP by 25 percent in 1993, as agriculture, industrial production and construction dropped dramatically, and war absorbed a sizeable portion of national income. The national debt increased from US$2.8 billion in 1986 to $11.2 billion in late 1994.
But even if the Angolan government has estimated material destruction to be considerably higher than the figure pledged in Brussels, this major financial commitment opens the way for reconstruction, and will certainly attract more capital to the country. With Angola’s vast potential, a recovery of the economy – and of money invested in reconstruction – can be achieved quicker than elsewhere.
Another important aspect of the Brussels meeting was that it appeared to mark, at last, total reconciliation -· not only between the Angolan government and its former internal enemy, but also with some of its external ideological adversaries of the past.
For a variety of reasons, many experts agreed that, in 1975, the MPLA was poised to win free and fair elections. Aware of this fact, the FLNA placed its bets on a quick military victory with Zairean military support, igniting the pre-independence war that made elections impossible. The conflict was further internationalized when South African forces supporting Unita also invaded the country.
Military contingents from Cuba, with logistical assistance from the Soviet Union, allowed the MPLA to resist and to counter-attack, repelling the invaders beyond Angolan borders by early 1976.
Progressively, the MPLA government achieved international recognition, except by one country –the United States of America.
Although US companies continued to make profit from Angola’s oil, successive administrations in Washington viewed the MPLA government as a “communist” adversary, and actively joined South Africa’s support of Unita. The world increasingly disagreed with that interpretation of the nature of both the Angolan government and the Cuban presence.
Even inside the US, Andrew Young, Washington’s representative to the United Nations at the time, praised Cuban military presence as a stabilizing factor.”
A majority of Africans and Afro-Americans saw the defense of Angola’s independent government as a part of the struggle against repeated attempts by apartheid South Africa to dominate its neighbours.
That is why the Heads of State of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), meeting in Johannesburg in August of this year, awarded the “Seretse Khama” Order to Angola’s late first President, Agostinho Neto, “for his contribution to the cause of regional liberation.” ·
This also explains why, at a recent Cuba-Southern Africa Solidarity Conference in Johannesburg, official delegations from most governments of the region commended Cuba’s contribution to the preservation of the sovereignty of Angola, the independence of Namibia and the eradication of apartheid.
Opening the conference, South African President, Nelson Mandela, paid tribute to Cuba’s sharing ‘”the same trenches with us in the struggle against colonialism, underdevelopment and apartheid.” He rejected calls by “some powerful countries” to isolate Cuba, because, in his words, “to renounce the Cuban people now would be the greatest insult.”
When replying to those “powerful countries”, Mandela added, ‘”we have reminded them that they have a very short memory. That, when we were fighting against apartheid, against racial oppression, the same countries were supporting the apartheid regime.”
Ideological confrontation with Angola survived the Cold War. Well after Cuban troops withdrew from that country, as provided for in the Agreements on South Western Africa signed in late 1988, Washington ref used to recognize the Angolan government When the MPLA renounced its Marxist ideology in 1990 – arguing that the circumstances of 1975 had forced the party to deviate from its original programme – the US still continued to withhold official recognition.
Angola had been evolving in the direction of a market economy since the late 1980s, and towards closer relationships with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Most recently, the government agreed with the IMF on a structural adjustment programme aimed at reducing inflation from 970 percent in 1994 to 80 percent by 1996, and public expenditure from 60 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (ODP) to 10.5 percent by 1996.
Nevertheless, the US government continued to drag its feel even after the 1992 elections confirmed what many knew since 1975 — that the MPLA commanded a majority support among Angolans.
Now, with Washington’s association to a firm commitment to support peaceful reconstruction, the legacy of ideological antagonism obstructing Angola’s recovery seems to be ebbing at last.
Angola is already showing signs of recovery. In early 1995, one third of Angolans were depending on humanitarian assistance to survive. But the situation was already much better than a few months before, when continued conflict and the threat of landmines kept roads insecure and prevented food relief from getting through.
Regardless of occasional skirmishes, or landmine related incidents such as the one that killed over 50 people in early November in Lunda Norte province, peace extends steadily throughout Angola. Even in the tiny but oil-rich province of Cabinda — where a splinter group from the Front for the Liberation of Cabinda (FLEC) is still up in arms – the levels of conflict have decreased.
Because of its secessionist nature, FLEC was not invited to the pre-independence negotiations that resulted in the Alvor Agreements of 1975, nor to any of the peace talks that were held ever since. Lately, however, the government promised to grant the province a greater degree of autonomy — and a larger share of the incomes from the oil that it produces.
As the destruction of war put a stop to most economic activities, oil production became the only source of hard currency for the nation. With peace and investment, Angola will be able to put to profit its vast natural and human potential in various sectors of the economy.
Angola’s recovery will hinge, to a large extent, on the success of social integration — the resettlement of millions of refugees and displaced persons, and the return of tens of thousands of demobilized soldiers to peaceful civilian occupations through which they can meet their essential human needs.
Peace will also require reconciliation. Savimbi insists that concrete functions be assigned to the vice presidency of the Republic that the government agreed to grant him. Although he joined hands with President Dos Santos in Brussels, he has not travelled to Luanda since 1992, allegedly “for security reasons.” Furthermore, there have been recent reports that some Unita troops have been infiltrated into Cabinda, hoping to get a foothold in the strategically rich but still unpacified province, in order to escape the demobilization exercise pursued in the rest of the country.
Savimbi’s strategic wait for the result of elections in Portugal last month was rewarded with the return to power of his long-time supporters in the Socialist Party of former President Mario Soares.
Angolans have, however, reason for some optimism. The donors’ meeting in Brussels provided the nation with an excellent present for its twentieth birthday, as it seemed to confirm that they are, at last, firmly on the road to peace and development.
(David Gonzalez, Deputy Director of the Centre for Studies on Africa and the Middle East -CEAMO– in Cuba, and currently South-South Fellow at SARDC)
