Ready to play larger security role in Africa

Angola, recently emerged from decades of civil war, is now turning its attention to playing a larger peace and security role in Africa, an analyst told IRIN. The country may see its ambitions boosted by assistance from former coloniser Portugal, which has indicated a willingness to help Angola establish a peacekeeping capacity within its large and relatively well-equipped armed forces. According to the Portuguese news agency LUSA, Portuguese Defence Minister Luis Amado said Lisbon was keen to offer assistance to the Angolan military, with which it has an existing training programm. Amado began a two day visit to Angola on Monday. Festus Aboagya, head of the peace missions programme at the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa, told IRIN that Angola's willingness to be involved in peacekeeping missions was crucial to the country's regional and continental ambitions. "It is a contestant to regional leadership in Southern Africa, by extension you can say it would want to position itself favourably within Africa as a key player in Africa's efforts to maintain and restore peace and security," he said. Although the Angolan army lacked a peacekeeping background, it was "never too late for any member state to make a contribution in that regard [particularly] as Africa is in search of many more peacekeeping contributor states", Aboagya added. However, Aboagya noted that there was more to being involved in peacekeeping operations than simply the ability to provide troops. "One shortcoming would be not whether Angola has expertise or not, but it would be in terms of language. Within the continent you basically talking about Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea Bissau ... that are Lusaphone. "Yet many post conflict environments are likely to be Francophone or Anglophone and, whether or not the country is Francophone, the language of peacekeeping tends to be English. They [Angolans] would then have to include in their structures interpreters ... and it has all sorts of implications for operational efficiency," Aboagya noted. He added, however, that despite the lack of experience in peacekeeping and possible language barriers, there was a need for more peacekeeping countries in Africa with an "in-built capacity to deploy peacekeeping capabilities without necessarily demanding immediate funding from the African Union or United Nations". At present, only South Africa and Nigeria were able to deploy first and be reimbursed later. According to the CIA factbook, Angola spent 10.6 percent of its GDP, or $183.58 million, on its military in 2004. Over the last few years Angola's oil-rich economy has begun to boom. However, another possible hurdle to Angola's participation in peacekeeping operations was its "questionable democratic credentials". Aboagya said peacekeeping often occurred in the aftermath of complex emergencies, with humanitarian crises characterised by a lack of respect for human rights and international norms. "So when you deploy peacekeeping forces they have to be multi-dimensional, they must be able to contribute to post-conflict peace building and reconstruction ... you need peacekeepers that come with a culture of peace, democracy, good governance and respect for the rule of law," he noted. Rights groups continue to warn of alleged abuses by the military in the Cabinda enclave, where separatists have fought a low-intensity struggle for independence. Recently, the army was criticised for its handling of the mass repatriation of Congolese involved in the diamond trade in Angola.