Inching towards peace talks

Encouraging signs are beginning to emerge that the Angolan government and UNITA rebels are inching towards dialogue to end nearly three decades of civil war, analysts and politicians told IRIN.

“One or two years back the reaction from the government to the idea of peace through dialogue was very aggressive,” said John Rocha of the reconciliation lobby group Angola-2000. “Today it has changed dramatically. The government has realised that a military victory is impossible, especially as UNITA has reverted to guerrilla warfare.”

In the last few weeks there has been a positive exchange of public messages between UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi and President Jose Eduardo dos Santos on the possibility of negotiations. The next step, involving concrete proposals, is awaited. But, insisted Rocha, “they must not be simple bilateral negotiations between (the ruling) MPLA and UNITA. They must be transparent and involve civic groups.”

According to influential UNITA politician Abel Chivukuvuku, Angola is maturing. With a more vocal civil society - in which the church has played an active role - the MPLA and UNITA can no longer monopolise and dictate the country’s political agenda. The government has seen its policies “discredited”, he told IRIN.

The toll of the “war to end war” campaign has alienated Angolans, as has the unrelenting poverty and the limited democracy that has seen vocal members of the private media hounded.
“Two months ago, I would say, the MPLA shifted. They are now in a process of re-evaluation.” Part of that strategy, Chivukuvuku said, was aimed at winning the confidence of civil society, to “out manoeuvre” the government’s urban-based critics. But while the government has begun to reach out and address some of the concerns of their detractors, “UNITA has problems to recycle from a military force to a political organisation, especially because of its leadership,” the former rebel commander said.

“If UNITA wants to be part of the process, they need to respond positively and open the door to the possibility of establishing a provisional ceasefire, and extending a hand to civil society,” said Chivukuvuku. The problem is that “nobody has a clear vision of the way forward, and the international community has lost track of what to do with Angola.”

Chivukuvuku - who has enigmatically distanced himself from both Savimbi and a government-backed UNITA-Renovada splinter group in Luanda - said that any peace proposal must address Angola’s tendency towards ethnic-based politics, the role of the military and the political future of Savimbi and dos Santos.

Angola’s political stability depended on some form of mild autonomy for the provinces, he said. A unified military would need to be transformed into a vast peace time skills training institution before a gradual demobilisation. In addition, Savimbi needed guarantees that would leave him secure in a UN-monitored enclave while UNITA set about remodelling itself as a modern political party. Dos Santos, on the other hand, would require constitutional assurances of immunity from prosecution.

Chivukuvuku, a UNITA national assembly deputy, rejected the possibility of elections next year, as the government has insisted. He stressed that the constitutional requirements of the free movement of people, and a new national census, could not be met under the current civil war conditions. He proposed instead that contacts be made with Savimbi and UNITA forces in the bush with a view to reaching a political settlement in 2002. In 2003 a new constitution could be prepared, the process of military and political restructuring begun, and by 2004 elections held.

“The UN has been discredited (in the past) but is indispensable to the peace process. For UNITA to play a positive role, the UN must change its policies as far as sanctions are concerned,” the UNITA deputy said. “It must strengthen military sanctions to win the confidence of the government, but lift the travel ban as a signal to UNITA that it is time for negotiations.”