UNITA brings offensive close to Luanda

An attack last week by UNITA rebels on the town of Catete, just 60 km from Luanda, has served as a warning to residents of the Angolan capital that the outskirts of their city could be the next target, analysts said. When IRIN on Sunday visited Catete, the birthplace of the country's first president Agostinho Neto, it was virtually deserted. The remaining residents said they feared another attack by UNITA who on 20 July had emerged from the bush to raid the police headquarters, torch the army commander's house, and loot shops and homes in a four-hour operation. UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi celebrates his birthday on 3 August. "I wouldn't be surprised if UNITA is not planning something special as a birthday present, to put Luanda under pressure and demonstrate the government's incapacity to control the situation," one analyst said. But in the central highlands, the traditional stronghold of UNITA, the talk is of the government's long-delayed 'Cacimbo' (cold season) offensive. Sources close to the military told IRIN that lessons have been learnt from the disastrous attempt in December to take Savimbi's Andulo headquarters, which saw the army beaten back by well-equipped UNITA forces. This time, the sources said, re-armed government troops in the central highlands would strike out from the besieged city of Huambo to link up with equally stranded forces in Kuito and be joined by a column approaching from Menongue to the south. The objective of the August offensive would again be Andulo, Savimbi's hometown, UNITA's airstrip at nearby Bailundo, and the diamond mines around N'harea. But analysts and diplomats in Luanda are far from upbeat over the government's chances of success. They point out that Huambo, Angola's second city, is regularly shelled and infiltrated by UNITA despite government claims of extending its security cordon. In neighbouring Bie province, the government controls just four out of nine municipalities with its grip on the city of Kuito repeatedly tested by UNITA mortar fire. Two key bridges between Kuito and Menongue have also been destroyed by the rebels. Even if the government managed to defeat UNITA's conventional forces before the rains arrive in September in the highlands, the rebels could still resort to the guerrilla tactics they have successfully employed in two decades of conflict, the analysts said. "There is a division between the politicians and the military in Luanda," one diplomat told IRIN. "The politicians want an offensive to allow them to negotiate from a position of strength. The military know it would be very difficult to destroy UNITA's military capability. They would prefer to stabilise the perimeter of Huambo and Kuito rather than trying to take Andulo and Bailundo." An envoy from a southern African country in Luanda said they have tried to impress on the government that even if it were possible, the capture of Andulo and Bailundo would merely be symbolic. "There is no military solution to the war," he told IRIN. He stressed the only way forward was a political settlement along the lines of the Democratic Republic of Congo accord. With Luanda controlling little more than the country's provincial capitals, "the government does not want to negotiate from a position of weakness," the envoy said. But through the weight of regional diplomatic pressure, "if they agreed to talk, we would ensure they would not be disadvantaged," he added.