Donors prepared to assist "sensitive" demobilisation process

The Angolan government is flagging as a success its demobilisation programme, but diplomatic sources told IRIN on Wednesday there are concerns over Luanda's ability to keep UNITA troops and their families fed in the quartering areas, and the risk that could pose to the peace process.

Angola's Joint Military Commission, set up under the 4 April ceasefire to oversee the demilitarisation of an estimated 55,000 UNITA soldiers, said this week that more than 30,000 former rebels had already been quartered. Some 42,000 family members out of an estimated 300,000 had also been received.

"These numbers are an indication of the serious work for the consolidation of peace," the Portuguese news agency Lusa quoted Angolan army spokesman General Francisco Furtado as saying. The general said UNITA troops were being quartered in 31 out of 35 cantonment areas established by the government, and more were heading for the remaining four sites which had not yet received military personnel.

But a US Agency for International Development (USAID) report on Tuesday described conditions in some of the quartering areas as an "emerging humanitarian crisis". Diplomatic sources told IRIN there had been unconfirmed reports of UNITA soldiers arriving in poorly provisioned cantonment sites and returning to the bush with their weapons.

"Though the demobilisation and reintegration have been underway for only one month, logistical constraints and limited capacities within the QFAs [quartering and pre-quartering areas] have prevented the delivery of adequate food, water, sanitation, or health services," the USAID report said.

The Angolan government has made "sporadic food deliveries to the QFAs and there is evidence that additional commodities have been ordered. However, the QFAs remain without basic supplies as the health and nutritional status of their residents deteriorate", the report noted.

US embassy spokeswoman in Luanda, Shirley Martin, said demobilisation "got off to a comparatively slow start", with the government encountering serious logistical problems in supplying the cantonment areas spread across the country. But "the situation seems to be slowly improving".

However, Swedish ambassador Roger Gartoft told IRIN that "the risk is that if they [UNITA] face conditions that are inferior to what they expected, they could return to the bush".

"We have to sort this out very quickly because although the situation is currently under control, it could get out of hand," he warned.

"The international community is concerned and the international community is prepared to offer support, but we need to know in detail what we are supposed to do in cooperation with the Angolan government, and what the Angolan government is supposed to do," Gartoft added.

"As a result of the emerging humanitarian crisis, the international community has developed several contingency plans to provide immediate humanitarian assistance to those in the QFAs, in order not only to save lives, but also to support the peace process," the USAID report said.

It added: "USAID/OFDA [Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance] has deployed a Demobilisation and Reintegration Planning Liaison Officer to assess the humanitarian situation within the QFA's, identify opportunities for the USAID/OFDA to assist family members, recommend areas where the [US government] can play a role in a successful demobilisation and reintegration effort, and liase with other donors, the UN, World Bank, and other assessment teams working on demobilisation and reintegration issues."