ANGOLA-POLITICS: Twenty Years of Independence, Two Decades of War

By Mario Dujisin Reprint | | Print |

Mario Dujisin

LISBON, Nov 9 1995 (IPS) - Misery, fear, insecurity, widespread corruption, wrecked economic infrastructures, galloping inflation and a precarious state of health have marked the two decades since Angola became independent on Nov. 11, 1975.

War, first anti-colonial (1961-74), then civil (1975-94), has converted this vast former Portuguese “overseas province” into one of the world’s most devastated countries and, according to the United Nations, the theatre of the most cruel armed conflict in the entire history of Africa.

The United Nations sets the cost of the two wars at 1.1 million dead, 3.5 million displaced from their traditional districts, 200,000 children orphaned and 300,000 refugees in neighbouring countries.

Analysts of the Angolan peace process agree that the goodwill of the leaders is not sufficient to ensure the start of a real national reconstruction effort in what was once one of the potentially richest countries on the face of the globe.

On the political and social fronts, the deep wounds left by 19 years of civil war will have to be healed so that the country’s economic reconstruction can finally get under way — by no means an easy task.

According to Planning Minister Jose’ Pedro de Morais, only by the year 2008 “and with a total commitment from the international community” will Angola be able to return to the economic level it had reached two decades ago, when 300,000 Portuguese left the country.

For two decades, UNITA’s heavy artillery and the government’s fighter-bombers have been vying with each other to destroy the whole productive tissue and the natural wealth of a country rich in petroleum, water, diamonds, fish, agriculture, handicrafts and livestock.

The mission of its leaders now is to implement the peace protocol signed on Nov. 20, 1994 between the government of Luanda and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), mediated by the United Nations and endorsed by the United States, Portugal and Russia, the three guarantors of the accord.

However, only the future meetings between President Jose’ Eduardo dos Santos and the leader of UNITA, Jonas Savimbi, can confirm whether what occurred in Lusaka was in fact a long step towards definitively overcoming the effects of two decades of war.

During the meeting of donor counntries organised by the European Union (EU) and the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) last month in Brussels, Savimbi recognised Dos Santos as “the President of all the Angolans”, adding that it was for this reason that “I place myself at his entire disposition for the reconstruction of our country”.

Dos Santos replied by declaring that Savimbi “has a very important role to play in the future of our country, and starting right now, I immediately invite him to Luanda, making myself personally responsible for his security”. The statement was sealed by a warm public embrace between the two leaders.

The burying of the hatchet in such declarations of goodwill, however, has been overshadowed by an excessive delay in putting into practice the demobilisation of their respective armies.

There has also been undue delay in restoring the free circulation of citizens and merchandise throughout the country, in cleaning up the public service and in implementing badly needed emergency plans in the field of health.

Today, the survival of almost all of Angola’s 11.1 million people depends on international humanitarian aid. What is most important for a villager living in the interior of the country is to know that some non-governmental organisation (NGO) is taking, or is going to take action which can save him and his fellow citizens from dying of hunger or from epidemics.

The figures released by the Portuguese NGO ‘International Medical Action’ (AMI) to coincide with the 20th independence anniversary are higher than those issued by the United Nations. AMI claims that the dead may have actually reached 1.4 million, to which must be added 70,000 mutilated persons.

AMI has also charged that even today almost the entire export earnings of Angola are still being committed to buying weapons, while Portuguese analyst Fernando da Costa has deplored the fact that, between 1991 and 1993, national budget appropriations for health fell from 8.2 to 3.3 percent, and for education from 17 to 5.8 percent.

In the meantime, the scourges of hunger, malaria, cholera, sleeping sickness and typhus are daily killing an average of 94 children under five. No reliable figures exist on the total number of victims among the general population.

Hunger, according to Da Costa, is the principal reason for the alarming increase in delinquency and crime.

The capital, Luanda, was considered even during the war as one of the safest places in Angola. Today it is a high-risk city where hunger, fear and disease are the main causes of the spread of crime and corruption.

The average monthly wage is sufficient only to buy one meal a day. Whole families survive on a glass of sweetened water and a plate of seasoned rice a day. As usual in all wars, say NGOs working in Angola, children are the main victims.

Child prostitution is encouraged by many fathers, who send their 10 or 12 year-old children out onto the streets of Luanda to offer themselves for a dish of rice. “And as though this were not enough, they are regularly being raped, tortured and often killed by the police or soldiers,” says Da Costa.

U.N. studies indicate that Angola is the country where children suffer the most in the world.

According to Jose’ Luis Mendonca, a UNICEF (U.N. Children’s Fund) official in Luanda, 60 percent of the children have seen persons tortured and killed.

He adds that 40 percent have been subjected to beatings, prison, abuses, rape and kidnappings, 30 percent have been wounded by shell splinters, 24 percent are invalids or partially or totally mutilated, and 95 percent have been exposed to sniper fire, bombardment and fires.

In an interview with the Lisbon morning paper ‘Publico’, Mendonca said the children “suffer from profound psychological disturbances, anxiety, fear that the war will return, insomnia, depression, headaches and stomach aches, panic, disorientation, intolerance, sadness and disinterest in life”.

The children of Angola, according to Da Costa, have been marked forever by the Dantesque scenes which marked their everyday lives during the civil war. Their drawings depict bombs exploding, blood flowing copiously from wounds, babies crying, bodies dismembered and mothers hanged.