March 2001: Can The End Be Far Off? Savimbi Breaks His Silence, Calls for Dialogue

Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi has broken an 18-month silence to call for dialogue between his UNITA movement and the government of President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos. I reported on an exclusive telephone interview with Mr. Savimbi.

Mr. Savimbi says Angolan government troops still want to capture him and crush the UNITA rebel movement. But the rebel leader says that despite military setbacks during the past two years, he has never been in danger. He also maintains UNITA has regrouped as a fighting force.

Now, though, Mr. Savimbi says he wants to re-open a dialogue with the government to bring about peace and national reconciliation in Angola after a quarter century of civil war.

Mr. Savimbi was speaking by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location inside Angola.

His comments came just three weeks after Angolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos privately told US officials he is perplexed that there have been no peace feelers from the rebels.

That led one American diplomat to suggest in a confidential memorandum that President Dos Santos might be open to an initiative from Mr. Savimbi.

The US Ambassador to Angola, Joseph Sullivan, has meanwhile said the United States recently made contact with what he describes as "various people linked to UNITA." Mr. Sullivan says the contacts were were aimed at encouraging the rebels to give up their arms and to rejoin the peaceful political process.

In his interview, rebel leader Savimbi appears to be aware of the US contacts. He says the Angolan government should take advantage of what he terms the international support for a new peace dialogue.

He specifically mentions American authorities who he says are beginning to realize the solution to the Angolan conflict is through dialogue. He says there is what he calls a monumental difference between the Bush and Clinton administrations in this regard.

He says the Clinton administration approved of Angolan government's efforts to crush UNITA militarily to achieve peace.

Despite Mr. Savimbi's call for new talks, US officials say privately they do not hold out much hope for any new movement towards peace. These officials say that for the Luanda government, the only purpose of any new peace dialogue would appear to be arranging the surrender or exile of UNITA leader Savimbi. They say the rebel leader is not likely to agree to either option.

These US officials also say that notwithstanding Mr. Savimbi's statements, UNITA's fortunes remain on a steady decline. They say the total number of active rebel fighters is now believed to be about 10-thousand and these, they say, are under-equipped andunder-supplied.

Previous efforts to bring about peace in Angola collapsed in late 1998 when the government launched a military offensive against UNITA. The government charged the rebels had failed to demilitarize as promised under the terms of a United Nations brokered peace deal.

Since then, the government has refused to negotiate with UNITA. The continued fighting has driven nearly four-million Angolans from their homes, creating a humanitarian crisis through the oil and diamond rich country.