Angolan voters opt for lesser evil
ANGOLA early elections before accepting the ceasefire and the schedule leading up to the elections followed from this. The elections were thus largely a matter of UNITA gaining a democratic seal on the favourable relationship of forces it had established by spring 1991 in the eyes of the outside world. Furthermore, the means for verifying the elections results
ANGOLA has seen a renewal of hostilities after the holding of legislative and presidential elections which handed José Eduardo dos Santos and his ruling MPLA (People's Liberation Movement of Angola) a victory over Jonas Savimbi's UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola).
UNITA forces have recently taken the city of Uige, 300 kilometres north-east of the capital Luanda, adding it to the list of regions now under their control.
On December 2, after weeks of unfrutiful talks with UNITA, the new MPLA prime minister, Marcolino Moco, released a proposal for a new government which would give five ministerial posts to
UNITA, including the defence portfolio. UNITA has also been offered two posts in the Military High Command.
Nevertheless, having chosen the path of armed confrontation,
UNITA seems unlikely to respond favorably to the MPLA's proposals.
In this issue we print the second and final part of an interview with Christine Messiant, a specialist on Angola, from where she has recently returned.*
AVE there been forces
H operating independently of the Angolan regime in recent years?
There have been workers' actions, which were rather diffuse and have petered out. In sectors such as health and education there were united and repeated mobilizations, but these were suppressed. However, there has been virtually no political organization independent of the two big parties apart from tiny elitebased groups representing nothing but the individuals who form them.
UNITA prohibited any form of dissent in the areas it controlled. The MPLA regime used threats, abuse and force against its critics, and even in recent years placed innumerable obstacles in the way of any group wanting recognition. Thus the first autonomous organization, the Angolan Civic Association was only recognized in mid-1991, 18 months after its formation, months in which it was constantly denounced as subversive. The repression produced a self-fulfilling prophecy; there was no third force and what there was represen-
The Catholic church has grown in strength over recent years owing to its repeated calls for peace and criticisms of the regime's violence — while the protestant churches, politically lined up behind the MPLA and UNITA, have been silent. The Catholic church has thus objectively fallen into the vacuum where the third force should be. However, it has not attempted to function as a political alternative and is now enjoying the benefits of the MPLA's new course. Furthermore, during and after the elections, its hierarchy has itself suffered the effects of the UNITA/MPLA polariza-
In these conditions, political struggle has largely involved former dissidents and oppositionists from the MPLA and UNITA. Their orientation has been one of forming parties for the elections and making deals without any programmatic basis. Former divisions have not been overcome and groups with their origins in UNITA have been unable to work with those coming out of the MPLA
The small formations got some ten seats out of the 220 and have since aligned themselves with one or the other of the two big parties. The failure of a third force ready to challenge the arbitrary rule of the regime and fight for peace and social and democratic rights to emerge also means a failure to open up politics. The situation remains stuck in the rut established by the violent polarization of the MPLA
This outcome is in part the product of the agreements which laid the basis for the elections. UNITA had demanded themselves were wholly inadequate. The pre-election ceasefire was more or less respected, but this was simply a temporary freezing of the balance of forces on the ground, rather than a step towards peace. Many of the conditions had not been met by the time the elections arrived. For example, UNITA did not release all its prisoners, and held onto areas designated in the agreement as belonging to the government, the armies did not withdraw their armies while UNITA did not demobilize, the single army was not formed, hostile propaganda did not cease, and so on. Despite all this, it was made clear by UNITA and the USA that the elections must take place in the time span allotted
Despite the violations, the international bodies supposed to be overseeing the implementation of the agreement remained neutral and just before the voting a solemn - and untrue — statement was made that the two armies were no more. In fact, UNITA kept its military positions and its captive electorate, while the government drafted former soldiers into its police force and security services.
By the end of September, the conditions did not exist either for elections in which the Angolan people could freely express their will, or for the loser to accept the outcome. In these conditions, the massive and peaceful vote by Angolans which resulted in a victory for the
MPLA represented a decision along the lines "between the UNITA which kills and the MPLA which steals, we preter the latter". Thee is no serious evidence to back up UNITA's claims of "systematic and generalized fraud".
• The fact that UNITA has refused to accept the results of the elections says much about that organization.
However the new battle of Luanda is strangely reminiscent of what happened in 1975 after the MPLA and UNITA had been in a coalition government.
This is not the same situation. In 1975
UNITA lacked the military means to take the initiative in the confrontation.
Now, after 16 years of war, it saw the
* Christine Messiant works at the Centre d'Etudes
Africaines of the Ecole de Hautes Etudes en
So Ne Sor 18. The First insaliment apeared in 5 Sciences Sociales in Paris. The interview took place
International Viewpoint 240, December 7, 1992.
agreement as a way of consolidating and favourable than ever" was in no mood to extending its battlefield gains. Savimbi's objective is power in Luanda, not over An impasse was thus reached as just a part of Angola. Even at the time of UNITA advanced on the ground and its the agreements, some in UNITA wanted radio began to pose the problem of the to continue the war "until Luanda" fea- regime in terms of the "north" versus the ring that the ceasefire would rob them of "south", demanding the participation of imminent victory. Thus a secession will be a prelude to a further war in pursuit
International Viewpoint # 241 • December 21, 1992
ANGOLA / IRELAND accept any of UNITA's conditions.
all ethnic groups in power.
While the government denounced of central power (or perhaps a desperate
UNITA's moves — and the international observers deplored it - it colluded in it
Savimbi has often explained that "you by not convoking the elected parliament have to win, since once you have won, where UNITA was strongly represented, you can write history to justify your vicand by not appointing a prime minister tory, while history never pardons the and government of national union as had loser". Thus the UNITA leadership canbeen agreed before the elections. Press not accept defeat in the elections, despite statements about "waging the war that hypocritical statements to the contrary
UNITA has already started" and appeals from Savimbi. In any case, UNITA is to "generalized popular mobilization"
more than Savimbi. It is now a 20 year poured out, demobilized troops were history of organization and military actibeing remobilized and arms were being vity involving a large number of cadres.
It is this essentially military history which makes it impossible for UNITA to turn itself into a political movement.
After the elections, the UNITA generals rapidly pulled out of the united army and UNITA began to occupy positions and encircle towns in the hope of preventing the publication of the election results. When the results had been announced and the elections pronounced
"globally free and fair" by the international observers, who urged UNITA to accept the organization of the second round, UNITA began to regroup and strengthen its military forces and occupy territory to the accompaniment of incredible verbal violence. It talked of its ability to "turn Angola into another Somalia" and reduce it to dust even without the support of its former allies, who it accused of having sold themselves for oil and diamonds.
This was both a preparation for the resumption of war and an attempt to change the balance of forces in negotiations before the second round. Now
UNITA demanded what it had itself refused at the time of the Estoril agreement in return for its re-entry into the single army and acceptance of the agreement's military terms: the formation of a coalition government to oversee the transition. Its presence in this would be supplemented by its integration into every level of the administration, control over the means of communication, the dissolution of the riot police, a reconsideration of the organization of the elections and increased international surveillance of the voting.
Besides giving expression to UNITA's claims of fraud, these demands break both the spirit and the letter of the agreements. In any case, the government, feeling strengthened by its election victory
- and a "diplomatic situation that is more distributed in Luanda.
The first effort was to decapitate
UNITA in the capital and head off any altempt by the latter to take power by force — by no means an imaginary scenario. At the same time, UNITA was to be deprived of any possibility of negotiating conditions for the run-up to the second round and thus of, in effect, robbing the government of its victory.
response to "restore the authority of the state" certainly affected Savimbi's ability to influence the second round. But the same aim could have been achieved by convoking parliament and forcing
UNITA to choose whether it wanted to be inside or outside the democratic framework and by the appointment of a prime minister and the formation of a government of national unity. Now, after the fighting, such measures have lost much of their meaning.
Since Savimbi is even less likely to win in the second round, UNITA may well decide to initiate all-out war. The outcome of such a war and the international alliances it will produce cannot be predicted. But what is certain is that it will be a mortal blow to this already devastated country and would lead to many of Angola's people fleeing
But, even if international pressure compels Savimbi to accept the government's conditions for the second round, it is unthinkable that the whole of UNITA will accept continued MPLA rule; they will probably plunge the country into a chronic state of war, which will foster banditry fed by the worsening social and economic crisis, and which will be met by a reinforced repressive apparatus on the other side. The future for Angola is not bright. * swing to
Labour