Author	Bram Posthumus
Publication	Searching for Peace in Africa
Year	2000

Summary

Large-scale bloodletting has been a feature of the wars that have raged in Angola throughout history. The bloodshed began with the slave raids that prompted the wars between the peoples of the interior and the coast. It continued apace in the many uprisings against the Portuguese colonisers, most famously those of Queen Nzinga in the seventeenth century and Mutu-ya-Kevela in the nineteenth century. The sheer brutality the colonisers used to suppress African nationalist aspirations can only be explained by the fact of Portugal's increasing economic reliance upon the vast natural resources of its Angolan colony. In 1961, one of the first major actions against the emergent Angolan nationalist movement by the Portuguese army cost an estimated 20,000 people their lives.
The term 'nationalist movement', however, can be misleading in the Angolan context, disguising the fact that in Angola there has never been a single powerful organisation fighting for independence. Factionalism has existed right from the beginning of the independence struggle in the early 1960s and spilled into civil war when independence was secured in 1975. The three major parties in existence at the time of independence were later reduced to two. The original three were:

• The People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which was headed by Agostinho Neto, who is generally perceived to be the founding father of independent Angola.
• The National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), which went into decline in the 1970s but was in charge of a government in exile in Leopoldsville (Kinshasa) in the 1960s.
• The National Union for the Total Liberation of Angola (UNITA), created by the former FNLA shadow Foreign Minister, Jonas Savimbi.

Ethnic and ideological considerations have played a definite, although frequently exaggerated, role in the conflict. The factions recruited fighters from all major peoples in Angola, with the possible exception of the FNLA, which was a mostly BaKongo affair. UNITA was based in the Angolan Central Highlands, home of the Umbundu people, of whom Savimbi is one. The MPLA was mostly urban and counted whites, people of mixed race, Kimbundu and (after the incorporation of the remains of the FNLA) BaKongo people among its ranks, although the relationship between the MPLA and the BaKongo has been shaky at times, due to deep-seated political distrust endemic within the MPLA.
It would, however, be wrong to characterise the two main parties in the wars in terms of the ethnic origins of their supporters. Although Savimbi has attempted to portray UNITA as a true 'African' movement, he has in the past countered his own anti-white and anti-'mestiço' (mixed race) rhetoric by pointing out that he has non-Africans among his high ranking officials. So too, UNITA has support beyond the Umbundu, while the MPLA can count Umbundu people among its followers.
The ideological stances of the various factions were primarily born out of a combination of conviction and pragmatism. The MPLA started as a Marxist party, which in style and rhetoric moved towards hard-line Stalinism, especially after an attempted coup which was crushed amidst much bloodshed in 1977. UNITA was originally a Maoist movement but developed a pro-Western anti-communist rhetoric when it started receiving massive aid from the United States. Both parties contain in their ranks a complex mix of true ideologues, pragmatists, sycophants and opportunists and both have proved adept at speaking the language of whoever is prepared to provide them with - mostly military - assistance.
In the course of the 1970s, the two main antagonistic clusters took shape: the MPLA/Soviet Union/Cuba on the one side and UNITA (/FNLA)/United States/apartheid-South Africa on the other. Angola had become a Cold War battleground.
Ethnicity and ideology have subsequently taken a backseat. When the Cold War ended, the conflict became more localised, and when the Cubans and South Africans pulled out this process intensified. The war has been transformed into a battle for control of Angola's abundant resources, fought by two totalitarian movements whose leaders continue to cash in on the sale of Angola's considerable assets on the global market in return for military equipment and services. In this equation, the people are relevant if they can be used as cannon fodder or voting cattle.
In the important oil province of Cabinda, a separate but related group, FLEC - Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda - has carried out attacks since the early 1960s but since they have failed to make a significant impact on the chain of events in mainland Angola, they will not be mentioned elsewhere in this survey.

Conflict Dynamics

November 11, 1975 saw the birth of two Angola's: the MPLA in Luanda announced the birth of the People's Republic of Angola while roughly 500 kilometres to the south-east in Huambo, UNITA and the FNLA announced that of the Popular Democratic Republic of Angola. There had already been fighting in various parts of the country during the months leading up to independence. South African forces had invaded Angola with the approval of the United States and were heading for the capital city, which the MPLA only managed to hold with Cuban military aid.
For much of the 1970s and 1980s, there was a low-intensity bush war. Major turning points occurred towards the end of the 1980s. Most significant of these was the battle for Cuito Canavale, a town in the south of Angola. This, the largest conventional battle ever fought in southern Africa, raged in the first six months of 1988 and put an end to South African military superiority. At the same time, Communist rule began to crumble in Moscow, diminishing Soviet enthusiasm for involvement in a distant war. Only the US remained constant in its support for UNITA, both overt and covert. (This only changed when Bill Clinton became president in 1992.)
Peace negotiations began under the guidance of the so-called 'troika', consisting of the US, the Soviet Union and Portugal. A series of talks in Lisbon and various African capitals, involving MPLA and UNITA, resulted in the historic handshake of Savimbi and the Angolan president Eduardo dos Santos, in Gbadolite, Zaire, June 22, 1989. Two years later, the Bicesse Peace Accord was signed. Some of the key planks in that accord were: an end to the presence of all foreign troops in the country, mutual troop withdrawals by the government and UNITA, and presidential and parliamentary elections.
However the accord failed to take into account the high level of distrust that had built up between the MPLA and UNITA in eighteen years of civil war. This became apparent during the elections, which were held on September 29 and 30, 1992. The results gave the MPLA a parliamentary majority and tied the presidential outcome between Dos Santos and Savimbi, making a second round necessary. But before that round could be held, Savimbi called the elections fraudulent and left Luanda. MPLA forces then shelled the UNITA party headquarters in the capital. The war had resumed.
UNITA made massive gains at the beginning of this second civil war. Two theories have been propounded to explain this initial success: 1) UNITA had failed to disband troops while the government forces had begun returning to their quarters; 2) UNITA had been able to continue stockpiling arms by smuggling them in through Zaire while the government had been unable to circumvent the ban on arms imports. At any rate there was no shortage of arms and Angola was to live through its second, and most savage civil war.
Among others, the cities of Huambo, Kuito, Malanje, N'Dalantando were besieged and strafed by either side, with heavy civilian casualties. Most of the provincial capitals were either severely damaged or totally destroyed. In 1993, the UN's special representative in Angola stated that with over 1,000 people dying every day this was the bloodiest conflict in the world. A new peace process had to be started. Agonisingly slow negotiations took place in Lusaka, Zambia, which finally resulted in the Lusaka Protocol, which again covered (among other issues) mutual troop withdrawal and quartering, making the country safe for ordinary citizens, and reconciliation. Again it was frequently alleged that UNITA was intent on stalling the peace process, withholding troops, stockpiling arms and keeping Savimbi in its capital, Bailundo. UNITA incurred the wrath of the UN because of its continued procrastination and sanctions were imposed in October 1997.
Meanwhile the MPLA-dominated government went on a - now legalised - arms buying spree, mortgaging its future oil revenues to pay its arms suppliers and seriously compromising Angola's future development. Cease-fire violations continued throughout.
Between 1996 and late 1998, the continuous unravelling of the peace process reached its inevitable conclusion. The government attempted to isolate UNITA militarily, politically and diplomatically by building a 'cordon sanitaire' around Angola consisting of Congo-Brazzaville, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, in the hope that UNITA would no longer be able to solicit help from neighbours. (UNITA continued to sell its diamonds and buy mostly Eastern European arms in the world's illicit arms bazaars. By late 1997, it had all it needed to continue the war.)
The government also moved to have Savimbi's special status inside Angola taken away from him and the UNITA leader was sidelined diplomatically when a SADC conference declared him a war criminal, placing him outside the peace process.
On the other side of the fence, it became rapidly clear that UNITA had been lying about its compliance with the terms of the Lusaka Protocol when it announced, in March 1998, that it had demobilised, as stipulated by the Protocol. Even the UN was forced to admit that UNITA had in fact a standing force of some 30,000 men and very large arms caches in the various parts of Angola's interior still under its control.
It is widely assumed that the death, on June 26, 1998 in a plane crash near Abidjan, of the UN special envoy Maître Alioune Blondin Beye provided the final nail in the coffin of the peace process. The inspiringly optimistic special UN representative for Angola was at times criticised for his leniency towards both the warring parties, but his efforts towards moving the peace process forward, were widely regarded as impressive. He was briefly replaced by an Algerian diplomat before the Guinean UN official, Issa Diallo, took over as the new special representative but like Anstee before him he could do little more than oversee Angola's slide back into yet another war.
At the time of Beye's death, fighting had already seriously intensified in several provinces, including Lunda Norte and Lunda Sul, Malanje, Moxico and Kwanza Norte, displacing tens of thousands of people. Violent recruitment by both parties resurfaced, sending thousands more across Angola's borders. UNITA re-captured territory it had returned to the government and the Angolan army launched a number of heavy attacks on UNITA positions. Roads and other areas were re-mined. On December 4 1998, one day before a major MPLA congress in Luanda, the Angolan army launched a major offensive in the centre of the country, marking the beginning of the third civil war. Since then the war has moved from a series of all-out conventional battles to another bushwar-like situation.
Early 1999, UNITA laid siege to several provincial centres including Huambo, Kuito, Malanje and Luena and briefly occupied and reportedly looted the northern town of Mbanza Congo. In the first half of that year, the rebels conducted a rural depopulation campaign, committing terrible atrocities against what they themselves consider 'their own people' in Central Angola. An estimated one million were forcibly removed. They fled to the cities, turning them into death traps as a result of food shortages, disease and UNITA shelling. On June 22 1999, UNITA lobbed grenades onto a market in Malanje, killing more than thirty people. Reports were rife about a possible UNITA attack on Luanda and rebels were spotted on the perimeter of the city.
The second half of 1999 saw a turnaround, fuelled by yet another massive arms buying spree by the government, this time also roundly supported by its new-found allies Great Britain and the United States. UNITA's initial gains were reversed and in October, the government took the rebel central highlands strongholds of Andulo and Bailundo. UNITA's last dispatch from Bauilundo was dated October 28 and read 'We have lost neither men nor materials. Our will and determination are undiminished as usual.' In reality UNITA has been in considerable disarray ever since but the government's initial euphoria died a certain death during 2000 when it once again became clear that in spite of having lost its de facto capital, UNITA can continue to wreak havoc just about where it pleases. In July, rebels overran an orphanage in Huambo and abducted many of the children staying there. This area was supposedly 'safe' as per government declaration.
Angola has also started to export its war to its neighbours. Areas inside the DRC (former Zaire) had always been one more Angolan war theatre but Zambia and Namibia had previously remained relatively unaffected, save for tens of thousands of civilian refugees. But early 2000, it became clear that the north of Namibia had been turned into a war zone. The Namibian government has allowed Angolan government forces to operate from its territory, prompting the entirely predictable UNITA response that it now considered supposed Namibian collaborators as legitimate targets. Human rights groups in Namibia have documented more than one hundred cases of murder, robbery, rape, assault and theft, committed by either side. But the subject is a virtual taboo in Namibia itself and the rest of the world only took notice when in January 2000 three French tourist were killed in the region.
Since the fall of Andulo/Bailundo, the war rumbles on in pretty much the same fashion as in the 1970s and 90s. The government offensive is stalling and UNITA has gone back to its familiar guerrilla hit-and-tun style. UNITA did, however, announce a major shake-up of its military top structure, signalling that Savimbi was still very much in command but that all was not well within the organisation as a whole. Some highly tentative overtures have been made towards Savimbi, who himself indicated he wanted to open a dialogue with president Dos Santos. It was political posturing as usual. The population, meanwhile, remains caught in a violent conflict that neither side can win and the humanitarian catastrophe continues unabated.

Official Conflict Management

Of the three United Nations Verification Missions to Angola, the second and the third, UNAVEM II and III, were the most important. The first, UNAVEM I, simply verified the departure of Cuban troops from Angola between 1989 and 1991. The main causes of the failure of the 1991-1994 UNAVEM II mission were located in its mandate and resources. The mandate effectively sidelined UN personnel, only allowing them to watch what was going on without enabling them to intervene. In terms of personnel, it had at best 350 military observers, 90 police observers and 400 election observers in a country the size of France, Spain and Great Britain put together, with a virtually non-existent infrastructure and two large armies that were eyeing each other with utmost suspicion.
The UN's special representative at the time, Margaret Anstee, in a reference to Security Council Resolution number 747 which created UNAVEM II, once likened her mission to 'flying a Boeing 747 with only enough fuel for a DC 3.' UNAVEM II was bound to fail in three key areas: quartering all combat troops, collecting arms, and verifying whether arms embargoes and other sanctions were effectively carried out. It also suffered from an unrealistic time-frame. When the hostilities spiralled out of control in late 1992, the Secretary-General advised the reduction and then withdrawal of all UN personnel.
The UNAVEM III mission (February 1995 until June 1997) did prove to some extent that lessons had been learned from earlier mistakes and from a similar mission to Mozambique. It had a clearer and larger mandate; at its peak it had over 7,000 personnel at its disposal and cost well over US$ one million a day. Large numbers of African troops from countries that had a standby arrangement with the UN and were acceptable to both parties, particularly UNITA, were made available.
Confidence was boosted by the face-to-face meetings of president Dos Santos and UNITA leader Savimbi, personally mediated by the new UN special representative, Blondin Beye. A further incentive was given by the EU which in late 1995 pledged close to US$ 1 billion, if the peace process would turn out to be irreversible. Finally, the old 'troika', now Consisting of the US, Russia and Portugal and the UN actively maintained the pressure upon UNITA to honour its promises. With hindsight, it can be argued that the pressure on UNITA was not matched by hard sanctions, allowing the rebels to re-arm. It can also be argued that the UN time frame, although more realistic than before, was stretched beyond its limits by UNITA procrastination and government intransigence, compounded - some might say encouraged - by UN leniency towards both sides.
In June 1997, the UN went back to a UNAVEM II-style operation, called MONUA, the UN Observer Mission to Angola. It had a greatly reduced observer force of some 1,500 troops, who worked with the remaining police and military observers. The start of MONUA coincided with a serious deterioration in the military situation in the country. MONUA was supposed to have ended its mission in November 1997 but had its life extended to March 1999, during which it could do little more than oversee another slide into civil war.
Beye's successor, Issa Diallo, was banned by the Angolan government from seeing Savimbi and went on long regional trips to garner African support for his efforts. MONUA became a political football played by both the government and UNITA. Both made it clear that as far as they were concerned, the peacekeepers could leave altogether. The downing of two MONUA planes by UNITA in December 1998 and January 1999 was the final straw. A gloomy Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced the withdrawal of the mission on February 26, 1999. Diallo left Angola on March 15 and the mission was officially ended five days later. Diallo briefly returned to Luanda in June for talks but no progress has been reported. The UN maintains a huge humanitarian aid presence in the country.
On the 15 of October 1999, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1268, creating the United nations Office in Angola (UNOA). Its brief would be to explore ways to restore peace and it would report on its progress every three months. In April, the Angolan government announced its willingness to work once again with the UN, accepting the existence of and pledging support to UNOA. On August 4, 2000 Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed the Mozambican Mussagy Jeichande as his new Special Representative and head of UNOA. The UN has, specifically in the course of the year 2000, taken active steps to halt the flow of so-called conflict diamonds out of - among others - Angola. a damning report, written by Canada's UN representative Robert Fowler singled out Burkina Faso as one of the main conduits for UNITA diamonds, a charge hotly denied. In July 2000 the UN made a statement claiming that according to its information the diamond sanctions were really biting UNITA.
Heads of individual states (Kenya, Zambia, Nigeria) have made various attempts at mediation. So too the heads of those African states with friends on either side of the war encouraged the two sides to sign the Lusaka Protocol. A remarkable absentee from these efforts has been the southern African Development Community (SADC) or its predecessor SADCC, which appears to have done little to stop the carnage in its largest member state. Only in the most recent phase has there been some diplomatic action from SADC, directed against UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi.
By far the most important regional player in this war was South Africa. The arrival of white soldiers in body bags after the battle of Cuito Canavale and later the momentous political changes that brought Nelson Mandela to power have did more to reduce the violence in the run up to the Lusaka Protocol than any amount of pan-African argument and persuasion. As one commentator put it: 'Civil wars are rarely settled by negotiation'.
In the process that eventually led to the Lusaka Protocol, it was the members of the 'troika', the two superpowers plus former colonial power Portugal, who helped the negotiations along, together with Maître Alioune Blondin Beye, who succeeded in resolving many points of deadlock.

Multi Track Diplomacy

Domestic
FONGA is the umbrella organisation of Angolan NGOs. In March 1997, FONGA co-operated with the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organisation, in a training workshop aimed at community workers representing about thirty NGOs. The workshop revolved around non-violent means of conflict resolution at community level and was held in Luanda. Nevertheless, people from Lubango, Huilla, and Kwanza Sul were able to attend. This is one of the very few grassroots peace building initiatives to have taken place (the official churches may in the future use their structures to set up similar initiatives among their rank and file membership). The political atmosphere existing in government-controlled Angola leaves little scope for such initiatives to truly flourish while the situation of intolerance in UNITA-controlled territory is even worse. Nevertheless, FONGA manages to maintain a presence across the UNITA-MPLA divide and continues to attempt to keep local peace-building efforts operating, in spite of the huge difficulties and dangers surrounding this work.
Among the other local NGOs, ADRA (Action for Rural Development and the Environment) has since its inception in 1990 tried to organise local communities around development projects, while at the same time raising their political awareness and self-reliance. Since the second civil war ADRA has had to forego its objectives, in order to concentrate instead on providing emergency aid. ADRA is one of the few local NGOs with a visible presence in many parts of the country that are government-controlled. Like most other national and international NGOs, it has no access to UNITA-controlled areas.
Another NGO involved in peace and human rights work is the Mosaiko Cultural Centre, which conducts seminars and publishes material on human rights. There is a small but significant momentum building up towards formulating alternatives to the government-induced war-psychosis. This frequently takes the way of exploring the formulation of possible alternatives. For example, many of the local NGOs and church organisations got together in a workshop convened by another local grassroots NGO called Development Workshop in the Luanda suburb of Cacuaco to discuss ways forwards towards peace. Another conference, this time church-sponsored, was held min Luanda in July 2000 and marked the beginning of a daring move by the churches: a campaign for peace and national reconciliation.
An early indication of this new movement was the launch, in Luanda, on June 15, 1999, of a Peace Manifesto, by journalists, intellectuals, churches and others. There is no fixed group backing the Manifesto but the initiators now claim that already thousands of people inside Angola have signed up to it. The Manifesto states that there is no military solution to the conflict and that both UNITA and the government should stop passing the humanitarian cost of their conflict on to the international community. It calls for immediate dialogue and states that this war is not between two conflicting sides but in fact jointly committed mass murder of the Angolan people. The initiative has also been taken up internationally. There is no information about its reception in the UNITA-controlled territory although the rebel leadership has acknowledged the existence of the Manifesto.
Out of this came another small group, modestly named GARP, Grupo Angolano de Refleixao para a Paz (Angolan Think Group for Peace). Again, any attempt to formulate an alternative to violence is met with a government crackdown so many of these smaller groups are violently dispersed, like the first demonstration against a 1600% rise in fuel prices early March 2000. (The second demonstration was left alone by the police.)
One of the problems faced by what could be loosely termed Angolan civil society is the fact that outside MPLA and UNITA no viable alternative political force has been able to manifest itself. But in May 2000, some 17 opposition parties got together and set up what they termed the Front For Change. Highest priorities: peace and political freedom, basically the agenda held by the Angolan NGO community.
Independent Media:There are at present three publications on the streets of Luanda - Commercio Actualidade, Folha 8 and Agora (Now) - which are produced by independent journalists, often at great risk to themselves. They expose arms purchases, diamond-smuggling rackets committed by the army and human rights violation by the security forces. Their contributions to a future post-war Angola by helping to create an atmosphere of transparency and government accountability, are probably incalculable. No such efforts at transparency are known to exist in the UNITA-controlled territories. Giving an indication of the very limited government tolerance of the independent media, there has been a serious crackdown on the media ever since the army reversed UNITA's military fortunes. Scores of journalists have been imprisoned, hauled before courts and convicted. One of them, Rafael Marques, is a member of George Soros' Open Society Institute and his arrest prompted a condemnation from the OSI, which they issued on March 22, 2000.

International
The National Society for Human Rights in Namibia has consistently supported human rights activists in Angola and has earned itself the ire of the Namibian government by exposing the human rights violations going on in Northern Namibia. The NSHR has been termed - among others - 'CIA agents' and calls for the assassination of the organisation's director, Phil ya Nangoloh were aired on Namibian radio. Its pro-human rights line is as stridently consistent as its anti-MPLA stance.
Among the many de-mining groups still working in Angola are the Halo Trust, Norwegian People's Aid, Cap Anamur, and the Mines Advisory Group. The UN helped set up a de-mining school, in which former Angolan soldiers are trained as de-miners. Various countries, including the Netherlands, the Nordic countries, the US and UK contribute to de-mining initiatives. Great significance should be attached to the very successful International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), which in 1997 won the Nobel Peace Price.
Saferworld conducts research and publishes its findings and recommendations for the betterment of new peacekeeping efforts. It has conducted an extensive study on Angola and its recommendations contain a list which is as familiar as it is necessary: demobilisation, the return of refugees and displaced persons, de-mining and arms control, community rehabilitation, economic recovery, better governance and the development of a civil society.
Search for Common Ground has set up a Centre in Luanda and organised a high profile peace concert in 1997, which was attended by all the Luandan glitterati (according to one reporter). A peace song, written by Angolan artists, was performed at the event. The organisation wants to help build civil society, promote dialogue among government and UNITA supporters on the ground and prepare media productions.

Prospects

A former Cold War battlefield and inheritor of a series of internal power struggles, Angola is deeply divided. It remains to be seen whether it can actually be considered a political unit, having been split for so long into two geographical parts controlled by two different politico-military organisations. Confidence is a very rare commodity and perhaps in even shorter supply now than at any time in the succession of wars that has ravaged the country for nearly forty years. Angola badly needs wholesale demilitarisation, with the priority being given to the demilitarisation of the conduct of politics. It needs demobilisation rather than forced recruitment. It needs jobs for ex-soldiers and soldiers-to-be. It needs to massively reduce the presence of arms and a massive influx of funds to start rebuilding the entire country and restore peoples' lives to some normality. In the current situation this seems a very remote prospect. Instead, the war is likely to drag on with no apparent benefit to anyone, except a few on either side of the divide. Perhaps the most striking example of this is the mortgaging of oil by the government in order to secure loans to buy arms. Estimates suggest that the next 6 to 15 years worth of oil revenue have already been lost in this way and since this was done at a time when the oil price was at an historic low, no-one in Angola profits from the surge in oil prices that took pace in the year 2000.
Outside the glare of the world media, the humanitarian disaster continues unabated. With regular intervals the UN World Food Program reports another emergency and the response to its appeals have been lukewarm at best. Once again, Angola has ceased to matter. Given the historical responsibilities of the international community in the country, this indifference has taken the cynicism that habitually envelops this country to new levels. A former commander of the UN forces in Angola, Zimbabwean General Sibanda, told the Mail & Guardian in April 1999 that given the right amount of resources, the UN could probably have succeeded in Angola, just as it did in Mozambique. He may be right, but General Sibanda will be realistic enough to realise that while the world is prepared to throw an estimated US$ 25 billion worth of bombs on a small corner of south eastern Europe in a matter of three months, it considers a four year peace-keeping operation in a vast corner of south west Africa at 7.5 per cent of that amount too expensive. Having said that, John Stewart comment on this paper also holds true: no amount of peace enforcement or strong-arm diplomacy will help, as long as the protagonists in the conflict are not prepared to see eye to eye. Stewart, for one, believes that there is a long way to go. Meanwhile, as The Economist wrote, Angolans will continue to do what they have done for decades: suffer, starve and die before they are old.

Recommendations

Numerous recommendations were have been made by the likes of Human Rights Watch, Saferworld, independent observers and research institutions, particularly pertaining to the United Nations peace-keeping operations in Angola. The most pertinent among them relate to the mandates, resources and time-frames of UNAVEM II and UNAVEM III. These constructive criticisms are now of historical value only, since the UN is no longer there to keep the peace and Angola has returned to full-scale war. Relevant comments have found their way into other parts of this survey. As things stand today, no-one has a clear idea of what to do with Angola and the preferred option appears to be to let the war run its course once more.
UN representatives stress the need to return to dialogue once more. For the time being, this is impossible. President Dos Santos has made it absolutely clear that he will never again negotiate with Savimbi, while the rebel leader, Africa's most battle-hardened survivor, is sitting safely somewhere in Angola's vast interior. It is highly unlikely that any dialogue between these two will take place in the near future.
There is one course of action that is now recommended to be taken up more vigorously: getting serious about stopping the war by making sure commodities can no longer that easily be sold in exchange for weapons. The UN moves in enforcing sanctions against UNITA, especially in the field of its single largest source of revenue, diamonds, is part of this effort. European NGOs, including the London-based Global Witness are also calling for more accountability in the oil transactions by the Angolan government.

Service Information

NEWSLETTER AND PERIODICALS:	Angola Peace Monitor (see website).
REPORTS AND PERIODICALS:	Catholic Institute for International Relations: Angola - Peace Postponed. London, September 1998; Global Witness: A Rough Trade, the role of companies and governments in the Angolan conflict. London, 1999; A Crude Awakening, the role of the oil and banking industries in Angola's civil war and the plunder of state assets. London, 2000; Human Rights Watch: Angola - Arms trade and violations of the laws of war since the 1992 elections. London, 1994; Angola Unravels - The rise and fall of the Lusaka Peace Process, by Alex Vines. London, 1999; National Society for Human Rights: Ending the Angolan Conflict - Our time has come to be heard, Windhoek, July 3, 2000; Netherlands Institute for Southern Africa: Angolan reflection on Peace Building, a conference report. Amsterdam, 2000; http://www.niza.nl; Saferworld: Angola - Conflict Resolution and Peace-building. London, 1994; World Vision: Angola; a Tangled Web. July 2000; http://www.worldvision.org.uk/world_issues/peace_building/angola.htm.
OTHER PUBLICATIONS:	Wars in the Third World, by Guy Arnold. 1995; Angola - Promises and Lies, by Karl Maier. William Waterman, 1996; The Destruction of a Nation - United States Policy Towards Angola, by Richard Wright. Pluto Press, 1997; Analyse des crisis et pistes pour une prévention - Conflits en Afrique. Dossiers du GRIP, Brussels, 1997 (with case-study on Angola).
SELECTED INTERNET SITES:	http://www.anc.org.za/angola (Angola Peace Monitor: produced every month by ACTSA - Action for southern Africa - the successor organisation to the British Anti-Apartheid Movement. It is intended to support the work of the Angola Emergency Campaign, which seeks to highlight the need for international action in support of peace and democracy in Angola; http://www.riia.org/baf (the site of the British Angola Forum, a group which attempts to bring together as many stakeholders in the conflict as possible in search for a durable solution to the war) http://www.angola.org/news/mission/index.html (Angolan Permanent Mission to the UN); http://www.saferworld.co.uk (Saferworld); http://www.oneworldorg/globalwitness (access to the entire output of the organisation, including reports and press releases); http://mg.co.za/mg (Electronic Mail & Guardian, covers Angola extensively); http://www.ebonet.net (offers access to Angolan magazines and Portuguese newspapers); http://www.kwacha.com (UNITA, site no longer operates out of Angola); http://www.snafu.de/~usp/iaadheng.htm (for text Manifesto).
RESOURCE CONTACTS:	Fransisco Tunga Alberto - FONGA; Alex Vines - Human Rights Watch. Email hrwatchuk@gn.apc.org; John Stewart - Cath. Justice and Peace Commission, Harare. Email AFSC@mango.zw; Laila Maji - Search for Common Ground Washington Office; Fernando Pacheco - ADRA; Fr. Jose Sebastiao Manuel (Zeca) - Mosaiko.
ORGANIZATIONS	Additional addresses: ADRA, Acção para o Desenvolvimento Rural e Ambiente, Praceta Farinha Lenão, #27, Luanda, Angola, Tel/fax +244 2 396 683; Centro Cultural Mosaiko, Bairro da Estalagem Km 12, Viana, C.P. 6954 C - Luanda, Angola, tel/fax: +244 2 33 26 14; National Society for Human Rights, 57 Bahnhofstrasse, P.O. Box 23591, Windhoek, Namibia, tel: +264 61 236183, fax: +264 61 234286, email: nhsr@iafrica.com.na; American Friends Service Committee (Quakers), Tel +263 4 722 168/703 122, Email: AFSC@mango.zw; Saferworld, 46 Grosvenor Gardens, London SW1W 0EB, Tel. +44 20 7881 9290, Fax +44 20 7881 9291, Email general@saferworld.demon.co.uk.

About the author

Bram Posthumus has worked as a freelance journalist since 1990. Before that he was a teacher of English language and literature in Nyanga, Zimbabwe. His work in journalism concentrates mainly on West and southern Africa and on the themes of conflict and post-conflict situations and migration. He has travelled extensively in both regions, visiting among others Angola, Mozambique, Liberia, Zambia and Guinea, with Mali, Senegal and Chad planned for the near future. He publishes in a variety of international magazines (African Business, New African, EU-ACP Courier) and other monthlies and weeklies in the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK and South Africa.