By Moyiga Nduru
JOHANNESBURG, Nov 21 2003 (IPS)

Angola is a country in transition. “Refugees are moving, the displaced are moving and so are ex-combatants,” says Kallu Kalumiya of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

“Everybody seems to be on the move in that country,” Kalumiya, regional coordinator for the agency’s Angolan repatriation programme, told a news conference in Johannesburg this week.

In June this year, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) began one of its biggest repatriation exercises, to bring home nearly half a million Angolans scattered throughout neighbouring countries.

To date 67,000 refugees have returned home from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zambia and Namibia.

The UNHCR says it expects to boost the pace of repatriation next year, and help some 160,000 Angolans to go home.

Returnees have been assisted with food, blankets, plastic sheeting and other items – and they are also transported to areas declared open for return.

The Angolan voluntary repatriation operation recently received a major boost with the contribution of an additional 1.8 million dollars from the government of Japan. This brings to 23 million dollars the amount of money that has been pledged this year by donors, which also include the United States, Germany, the European Union and Canada. The UNHCR is seeking to raise an additional three million dollars for the operation, for which 28 million dollars was originally requested.

However, Angola’s repatriation and reintegration programme is also beset with challenges and constraints. Foremost amongst these is the problem of landmines, which hamper efforts to ensure that refugees “return in safety and dignity”.

Angola has one of the highest concentrations of landmines in the world – an estimated 11 million mines, or roughly the same number as the population. As a result, the repatriation process is taking place in a phased approach, according to the UNHCR.

The refugees are returning to a country where nearly three decades of civil war between the governing MPLA and rebel forces have taken a severe toll. Angola has suffered massive infrastructural damage: 85 percent of basic infrastructure was destroyed during the war. Electricity and plumbing need to be restored, while roads, bridges and airports also need to be rebuilt.

Almost half of Angola’s children are out of school, 45 percent suffer chronic malnutrition and a quarter of all children die before their fifth birthday, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

The end of the Angolan war did not come on a silver plate. Over the years there have been many international attempts at brokering peace, such as the accords of Bicese, Lusaka and Lisbon. But in April last year – two months after the death of rebel leader Jonas Savimbi – a lasting peace protocol was finally signed in Angola between the warring parties.

“Since then there have been no violations of the ceasefire agreement, with the exception of low level conflict in Cabinda province,” Kalumiya said.

Separatists in this oil-rich enclave have been battling government troops since independence from Portugal in 1975, when it became part of Angola. The territory has a population of 200,000 people, and it borders on the DRC. Cabinda has lost about 30,000 people to the war.

The region’s oil resources account for nearly two-thirds of Angola’s oil production. Although the enclave enjoys a degree of autonomy, rebels within the territory are demanding a separate state.

However, it is unlikely that the international community will back Cabinda’s bid for independence, given Washington’s interest in its vast oil reserves. Angola, along with the enclave, produces nearly one million barrels of oil a day, 70 percent of which is exported to the U.S. This makes Angola the ninth-largest supplier of oil to the U.S. It is also sub-Saharan Africa’s second-largest oil producer after Nigeria.

The U.S, which is facing political uncertainty in the oil-rich Middle East, imports around 16 percent of its oil requirements from sub-Saharan Africa. This figure is expected to rise to 25 percent in 2015, according to a report by the U.S. National Security Committee.

Angola also has substantial diamond deposits.

According to Kalumiya, “The peace process in Angola is probably the most robust in Africa since the conclusion of the peace accord in that country last year.”

More than 100,000 former UNITA combatants have been settled in camps, disarmed and demobilized – and a further 5,000 have been absorbed into the Angolan army.

For peace to prevail, the government and private business must provide jobs. At present, sixty percent of Angolans live in poverty. Oil, widely regarded as a solution to this problem, represents around 90 percent of the country’s annual budget – which is thought to range between three and five billion dollars.

An International Monetary Fund (IMF) internal report last year claimed that around one billion dollars had vanished from Angolan government coffers in 2001. But, officials have denied the claim.

Foreign investment may go some way towards addressing the job shortage. Earlier this month, Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visited Angola. Brazil’s Minister of Trade and Development, Luis Fernando, has also announced plans to invest some 100 million dollars to get Angola’s sugar cane industry up and running again.

Resettlement efforts are also plagued by human rights abuses, which are especially rife in rural areas. This is something that Maria Makendo (not her real name) found out recently, to her cost.

Makendo refused to go out with a police officer, and ended up in a hospital in Luanda, the capital of Angola, after being savagely beaten up by the official.

“We airlifted her to Luanda to receive medical treatment,” Kalumiya recalled. “We then alerted the authorities about the incident.”

The policeman was detained but later died in prison, apparently because of torture at the hands of his colleagues.

“We didn’t achieve anything,” Kalumiya said, referring to the death of the policeman. “But it sent a strong message to others."

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