In Angola, Even the Dead Know No Peace

The death in October 1998 of Angolan General Arlindo Chenda Pena, a former UNITA rebel commander, triggered an ugly and very political fight over his body -- a dispute characteristic of the rivalries that plagued Angola at the time. I was drawn to the case and decided to write about it.

They say of the dead: "Rest in peace."

But in Angola, a country that itself knows no peace even after the official end of its long and bloody civil war, rest does not come easy for dead men like General Arlindo Chenda Pena.

The former UNITA rebel commander, popularly known as General Ben-Ben, died in a Pretoria hospital, apparently from complications resulting from malaria. His death triggered an exchange of recriminations over who was responsible. It has also precipitated what one South African government official described as a "tug of war" over the disposition of his body.

General Ben-Ben, a nephew of UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi, moved to the Angolan capital, Luanda, in 1995 under the terms of the country's peace agreement. He was integrated into a new, combined armed forces made up of government troops and former UNITA fighters, becoming its deputy commander.

There are grave doubts as to just how much responsibility he was really given in his new post. But when he fell ill this month, the government claimed he defied normal army procedures and sought treatment from a UNITA doctor at a private clinic. The government and its allies in a recently-formed UNITA splinter group claim that is why General Ben-Ben died.

For its part, UNITA claimed the General was poisoned because he refused to read out a declaration backed by the splinter rebel group. The declaration called on UNITA loyalists to lay down their weapons.

In any event, General Ben-Ben was airlifted to South Africa for emergency medical treatment. But the evacuation came too late. A spokeswoman for the hospital says the official cause of death was septicemia, or blood-poisoning.

It was at this point that things turned really nasty. The Angolan government claimed the General's body, saying it wanted to hold a state funeral for him in Luanda because of his senior position in the armed forces.

UNITA also claimed the body, saying the General's parents, who live in UNITA-held territory, wanted it returned there for burial.

But the fight over the body did not stop there. South African officials said General Ben-Ben's wife, who travelled to South Africa, wanted it flown to Abidjan, in the Ivory Coast, where sources say he had other family ties. She has sought a court injunction in Pretoria to gain possession of the body.

South African officials have been mortified by the ugliness of the dispute and have sought to depoliticize it. Their position is that it is a family matter and that the family should decide.

These officials agree that it has been a dispute characteristic of all that has gone wrong in Angola -- and a good example of the kind of rivalries that persist to this day, blocking the successful implementation of the country's 1994 peace agreement.

It is a country where UNITA and the government seem to be at odds over almost everything -- even a body -- and a country where the people, like the relatives of General Ben-Ben, seem to suffer as a result.