Government’s position on peace talks “evolving”

A call by the Angolan government for veteran rebel leader Jonas Savimbi to join reconciliation talks has been dismissed as “nothing new” by a senior UNITA member of parliament.

Abel Chivukuvuku told IRIN on Wednesday that the government’s proposal was prefaced by the usual conditions - including a unilateral UNITA ceasefire - that Savimbi would never accept. Instead, what was needed was “a mechanism that enables the two sides to accept a ceasefire”, he said.

On Tuesday, in the wake of the launch of a parliamentary commission to jumpstart reconciliation, Interior Minister Fernando da Piedade Nando told parliament that “we are in the process of giving Jonas Savimbi an opportunity to participate in the peace process”. He added that Savimbi, whom the government has for several years branded a war criminal who could not be trusted as an interlocutor, was “an Angolan citizen who has never been excluded from dialogue”.

Chivukuvuku, regarded as independent of both Savimbi and the government-backed Luanda-based faction UNITA-Renovada, acknowledged that the government’s position was “evolving” away from a hardline approach of “peace through war”. However, “we think that continued pressure from civil society and the churches can force the government to change its position further,” he said.

The popular former UNITA commander pointed to the formation of the parliamentary commission on reconciliation as a step forward. “We need to do more, such as the opposition and civil society starting discreet contacts with Savimbi to serve as an ice-breaking mechanism with which we could push the government further.”

He added that the government “doesn’t want to be seen as a stumbling block to peace”. But he hoped the authorities understood that the capture of UNITA’s military strongholds in the central highlands in 1999 was the best that could be achieved militarily, and that the government was now locked in an un-winnable guerrilla-style conflict. “From now on UNITA is recuperating. The government will not have the opportunity to reverse this and eventually the position of the government will worsen. It would be better if the government realised this and changed course now.”

Angola’s 26-year civil war has ravaged the country, displacing 457,000 people during 2000 alone. Social services in the oil-rich country have all but collapsed, and UNITA forces have rendered much of the countryside inaccessible to humanitarian organisations. Last year, civil society groups led by the church began to more forcefully agitate for a general ceasefire, all-inclusive peace talks, and national reconciliation, in a bid to end the cycle of violence.