'Concrete steps' needed for peace - Reverend

"Goodwill is not enough for changes to take place in Angola. Everyone acknowledges that no-one will be able to govern Angola through the barrel of a gun," prominent Angolan clergyman, Reverend Daniel Ntoni-Nzinga, said in Johannesburg on Wednesday.

However, he told IRIN, this acknowledgment had not yet led to the country's warring parties taking serious action to end the devastating, 26-year-old civil war. "We would like to see concrete steps (towards a ceasefire and peace discussions)," the executive secretary of the Inter-Ecclesial Committee for Peace in Angola (COIEPA), which spearheads a cross-section of civic organisations campaigning for peace, said. He spoke to IRIN after addressing a seminar at the Institute for Global Dialogue seminar on civil society's role in building peace.

Angola's civil war, the longest-running in Africa, has intensified in past months. Rebel leader Jonas Savimbi's UNITA, reverting to guerrilla tactics, has escalated its attacks on government military positions and on civilian targets - even within territory held by government forces. President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and government military forces, believing they have Savimbi hobbled and on the run, have launched a massive offensive to finish off UNITA.

In the meantime, civic society, organised into about 35 organisations so far, has been mobilising itself into a force for peace. In June, thousands of children marched through Luanda demanding respect for their rights. They called, in particular, for an end to the use of children in Angola's conflict. In August, the church declared a month of prayer for a ceasefire. In September, the Peace Network - which it is hoped will eventually co-ordinate civic organisations campaigning for peace - was launched. It coincided with the launch of a countrywide campaign for a ceasefire between the country's warring parties.

Just over a week ago, the Catholic church and the Open Society Foundation launched another campaign to end the war. As part of the campaign an "informal referendum" was launched in the capital Luanda, in which people were asked to vote for peace or war. The aim, Ntoni-Nzinga, said, was to exert pressure on the warring parties to end the war. He distinguished however, between Angola's civil war and its conflict. While the end of fighting would signal an end to the war, only dialogue would bring a real resolution of the conflict, he explained.

However, none of the warring parties have accepted all the provisions of the 1994 Lusaka Protocol - a United Nations brokered agreement between UNITA and the MPLA government which it was hoped would bring about lasting peace. This and great distrust among Angolans have hindered COIEPA's efforts to get UNITA, the government and civic society around the table. "It is a long process. It is taking some, more than we would like or expected. But three years ago, it was not possible (to even think about talks-about-talks)," Ntoni-Nzinga said. Right now the focus was on forging a "unity of thinking", he added.