Refugees wary about their return

Ernesto, 18, wants to finish school while Tashera, 20, hopes to find his family. The young friends, Angolan refugees who fled the country’s civil war for safety in neighbouring Zambia, have finally come home after years in exile.

The boys are among the more than 370,000 Angolans who have returned home from refugee camps spread across neighbouring Zambia and other African countries after a 2002 ceasefire agreement ended three decades of war that killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions and destroyed Angola’s infrastructure.

The death of UNITA rebel leader Jonas Savimbi in February, 2002, during a skirmish with government troops opened the door to negotiations that have brought a lasting peace and stability to Angola for the first time since it gained independence from Portugal in 1975.

An airlift operation run by the Geneva-based International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has transported thousands of Angolans home from Zambia. The programme, one of the most expensive in IOM’s history, is expected to wrap up when Angolans lose their refugee status at the end of this year, though this could be delayed until early next year.

Tashera and Ernesto, although both stern-faced and jittery about returning to a country they last remember as violent, bloody and chaotic, expressed a strong desire to carry on with their lives as best as possible.

"I saw a group of soldiers killing everyone and I didn’t know what to do, so I ran away with a group of people who were also running," said Tashera, who arrived in Zambia in 2001. "I didn’t know anybody in Zambia, but I made friends there. Now I want to find my family in Angola and have a normal life, a good life."

At a large welcoming camp on the outskirts of Huambo, Angola’s second-biggest city, the IOM works with the returning refugees to help them pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. The refugees each receive three-months’ food in the form of maize or sorghum, a stack of blankets, farm equipment and a variety of basic household supplies.

They are also given condoms – 20 for a married couple and 10 for a single man – as well as mandatory IOM-led lessons on the dangers of HIV/AIDS. The World Bank has provided US$340 million to help reintegrate thousands of ex-combatants, who receive animals, tools, farming and livestock training – skills many lost after years away from their land.

The Angolan government is also getting involved in the process of repatriating its citizens, pumping in about $5 million this year to provide food, water and security at the welcoming camps.

But not everyone is willing to come home. Thousands more refugees remain in Zambia, some of whom have never even seen Angola, or were too young to remember anything of it when they fled.

"Rumours persist in Zambia that there is still shooting, that the war isn’t really over, that babies are being killed or that property is being confiscated," said Rui Oliveira Reis, the head of the IOM in Huambo. "Some refugees return from Zambia and then head back over the border again to tell friends or family things are safe here. About five percent of refugees actually get transported here twice."

Although the fighting has ended, the refugees have a right to be wary about returning home. Huambo, Angola's second city is a shattered place, its streets peppered with potholes, its buildings scarred by gunfire. Many roads in the country remain out of bounds because of mines and farmers are given special instructions on how to identify and avoid mines when they are planting or gathering food.

Angola's economy is built on oil and diamonds, but the majority of the country's 16 million people remain poor. A swift return to democracy after several false starts – the last attempt at a vote was held in 1992 - is still more a hope than a certainty.

Many Angolans refusing voluntary repatriation say they will not return home until the government allows a free and fair vote, although analysts say this is unlikely to happen until 2008 at the earliest. Analysts said the government and opposition leaders are both comfortable to wait until then at least because neither is ready to fight a prolonged campaign.

"Voter registration begins on 15 November of this year and will last until next 15 June, with a one-month interruption," said Isabel Emerson of the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a non-profit group working to expand democracy worldwide. "The president most likely wants to make certain voter registration goes well before committing to any election date. I think there might be delays but it would be increasingly difficult to justify not holding elections sometime in 2008," she said.

But before registration has even begun, problems with the electoral process are already threatening to mar a fair vote.

Many returning refugees – some of them former members of the UNITA – are afraid to register for identification cards, fearing they will be targeted by government soldiers. Without ID cards, the returning refugees won’t be allowed to vote.

"To put the problem into perspective, about 45 percent of the people hired in Benguela city to register people for the election do not have ID cards themselves," said Emerson. "If in a city where people with a higher degree of education do not have a card, the likelihood of people having one in a remote area is very low."

Despite the difficulties in reintegrating after being driven from their homes, most returning refugees display an almost uncanny sense of optimism.

After three days in the Huambo camp, the refugees are trucked back to the farms and homes they left behind, or to plots of land to begin new lives – refugees no longer.

"I want to help my friends and brothers," said 32-year-old Tomas Alexandre Chipi Lika, a former refugee trained by the IOM to speak to newly-arrived returnees about HIV and AIDS. "One day I would like to be a teacher and help make Angola a better place like I know it can be."

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