Angola: Waiting for Savimbi

I went to Luanda again in May 1998, where senior officials of the former rebel movement UNITA were soon expected to move into a new headquarters building in the Angolan capital. But UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi was not expected to be on hand for the formal building takeover ceremonies. As I reported, Mr. Savimbi's major concern was his personal security.

UNITA's senior representative to the Joint Commission overseeing implementation of Angola's 1994 peace agreement acknowledges UNITA has national political ambitions. These are ambitions which the UNITA official, Isaias Samakuva, says cannot be guided indefinitely from the opposition party's current headquarters in the country's Central Highlands.

But Mr. Samakuva says the safety of UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi still cannot be guaranteed in the capital even though the peace process is near an end. In an interview, he says a key reason is that the government of President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos has done little to disarm the civilian population of Luanda, especially militias armed over the years by the ruling MPLA party.

“It is a concern for us because if we are talking about peace, then we don't need to have those arms with civilians. If they are still with civilians, it means that someone has other intentions or a second agenda.”

Mr. Samakuva says UNITA has good reason to be suspicious about the government's agenda. He pulls out a freshly-compiled list of alleged murders, arrests and other mistreatment of UNITA leaders, members, and supporters around the country. It contends that during the past six months, 63 have been killed and 118 jailed or mistreated by government security authorities.

The UNITA representative complains that what he calls this targetting of UNITA personnel has been accompanied by what he characterizes a concerted government effort to demonize UNITA through state-controlled news media -- blaming UNITA for insecurity around the country. He says some of the incidents cited by the government did in fact occur but involved bandits, not UNITA members. He charges other incidents simply never occurred.

Still others, he claims, were carried out by the government but attributed to UNITA, including a recent incident at Ngove, near the central city of Huambo. As many as 400 men were involved in looting the town and robbing the UN offices there. UNITA was blamed but Mr. Samakuva claims the government carried out the attack.

Despite repeated requests, government officials were not available for comment on UNITA’s charges. But foreign monitors close to the Angolan peace process say they too believe there is a conscious government effort under way to eliminate UNITA as a force both politically and militarily.