Africa, Headlines

ANGOLA: Can The Call For Peace Be Stronger Than Diamonds And Oil?

Mercedes Sayagues

LUANDA, Sep 24 1999 (IPS) - A Peace Forum to be convened in the Angolan capital of Luanda on Sep. 29-30, will call for an immediate cease- fire in the civil war to allow delivery of humanitarian aid to starving people countrywide.

One million internally displaced Angolans in six besieged provincial capitals under government control are totally dependent on food aid flown in by relief agencies.

An estimated three million people in the 70 percent of territory controlled by rebels of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) are inaccessible to aid workers.

“If food aid stops, in one month we have a Somalia-style famine, because people have no reserves,” says Jean-Marie Falzone, assistance coordinator for the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The Forum is organised by the Angolan Group for Peace Reflection (GARP from its Portuguese acronym). The coalition, headed by a respected theologian, Daniel Ntoni-Nzinga, includes church people, trade unionists, human rights activists, journalists, academics and students. More than 500 people have signed its manifesto since July.

Ntoni-Nzinga is adamant that a cease-fire must precede the opening of humanitarian corridors.

“Otherwise, humanitarian aid will sustain the war,” he says. “It is not possible to allow delivery of aid while creating more victims.”

The Forum will select a committee of eminent persons to start negotiations with both warring sides.

This week, GARP is meeting with the Catholic bishops of Angola and other religious leaders to join forces in a home-grown peace movement.

Recently, the Catholic church has been bolder than usual, criticising the war and calling for negotiations. Not one week passes without a bishop in a provincial capital speaking out against war and for dialogue. This contradicts the government’s position that it will not negotiate with UNITA.

“War is destroying this country, its infrastructure and its people,” says the bishop of Malange, Luis Maria Perez de Onraita. “And the war is fuelled by a collection of personal and group interests.”

Onraita is echoing a pastoral letter issued by the Catholic bishops in July. They bluntly condemned “those who make a profitable business out of war” by stashing away money in foreign bank accounts.

This was a direct allusion to the generals and top party officials who earn substantial commissions out of weapons sales and other shady deals.

The pastoral letter apportioned blame for this third phase of Angola’s civil war on both sides. This signals a change in the hitherto comfortable relationship the Catholic church has enjoyed with the ruling Movement for the Popular Liberation of Angola (MPLA) government.

Later in the year, GARP plans a national peace convention. Activists point out that civil society was excluded in previous peace agreements brokered by the United Nations in 1991 and 1994. This omission must be righted and the convention should be all- inclusive.

“UNITA must sit at the table and explain their demands,” says Ntoni-Nzinga.

The convention would debate the basis for a new Angolan state. This includes decentralisation, a stop to the politics of exclusion and marginalisation of minorities, and new directions in economic policy.

“The economy should serve the people and not the other way round,” says Ntoni-Nzinga.

In its manifesto, GARP analyses the culture of greed and profiteering that has gripped Angola after 20 years of war. Angola, a potentially wealthy country, endowed with oil, diamonds and fertile land, ranks among the world’s poorest 15 nations, with the world’s highest infant mortality and highest ratio of amputees due to landmines.

“War has become a way of life and of doing business in Angola,” says GARP member Ana da Conceicao Pedro Garcia. She is secretary-general of both the independent trade union umbrella group and of the trade union of building materials.

“In the Lundas, the generals exploit diamonds as much as UNITA does. By extension, every citizen tries to make a profit at any opportunity. We must change this culture and this mentality fostered by 25 years of war,” she says.

It is a tall order where generals trade in diamonds and take commissions on huge weapons sales. ‘Angolense’, a pro-MPLA newsweekly, reported on 200 million U.S. Dollars paid in commissions to senior army officials. The Defense Minister, Kundi Payhama, admitted in Parliament that the army is ill equipped in spite of all the arms purchases.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimates that Angolan government military expenditure was 840 million U.S. Dollars in 1998.

The government has mortgaged oil production revenues for several years. Its latest cash windfall this year was to pay for arms purchases with 870 million dollars from bonus signature payments for oil exploration and concession rights on new, rich off-shore finds.

UNITA, in turn, has made more than 1.7 billion dollars in diamond revenue since 1994, according to Human Rights Watch. In 1996/97, when UNITA controlled the rich diamond fields of the northern Cuango valley, diamond experts estimate that UNITA accounted for two-thirds of Angola’s total diamond production, with a peak value of 730 million dollars in 1996, and 500 million dollars in 1997.

Once the superficial alluvial diamonds were exhausted, UNITA abandoned the Cuango valley in 1998.

Diamond industry sources estimate that in 1998 UNITA raised 200 million dollars from diamond sales, partly due to the collapse of world prices, and partly due to the exhaustion of its more lucrative fields. Diamond giant de Beers estimates sales will be roughly the same in 1999.

The government also deals in illegal diamonds. “A number of senior government officials have played a significant role in unofficial diamond production in Angola,” says researcher Alex Vines in ‘Angola unravels’, a Human Rights Watch report released last week.

Earlier this year, the head of the parastatal Endiama, Paulino Neto, was sacked, allegedly for diverting diamond revenue and diamonds. He was replaced by general Agostinho Dias Gaspar.

A number of Angolan generals exploit concessions in the diamond- rich Lundas and are believed to smuggle diamonds out of Angola just like UNITA.

Says the GARP manifesto: “Our precious resources, oil and diamonds, are given away in exchange for oil and arms. The economics of war have created a culture of robbery which enables both political and military leaders to misappropriate national — especially mineral — resources under the pretext of private entrepreneurial initiatives.”

Political observers wonder whether the call for peace can be stronger than the appeal of oil and diamonds.

 
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