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Angola: HRW Report
Angola: HRW Report
Date distributed (ymd): 990926
Document reposted by APIC
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Southern Africa
Issue Areas: +political/rights+ +security/peace+
+US policy focus+
Summary Contents:
This posting contains the summary from a new report released
by Human Rights Watch, entitled Angola Unravels: The Rise and
Fall of the Lusaka Peace Process. The report cites human
rights violations by both UNITA and the Angolan government.
It also identifies the UN and U.S. policy of "see no evil,
speak no evil" -- failing to speak out against violations of
the peace accord and failing to make a serious effort to
enforce the sanctions against UNITA for its failure to disarm
-- as a principal factor responsible for lack of respect for
the process and the return to war. In other words, despite
abundant evidence that this was happening, the international
community repeated precisely the same error that led to the
breakdown of the previous Angolan peace process in 1991-1992.
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Angola Unravels
Human Rights Watch
350 Fifth Ave., 34th Fl.
New York, NY 10118-3299
Tel: (212) 290-4799
Fax: (212) 736-1300
E-mail: hrwnyc@hrw.org
Full report available at:
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/angola
SUMMARY
Angola returned to all-out war in December 1998, the fourth
period of open warfare in living memory. The human cost since
fighting resumed is impossible to determine with precision,
but the United Nations estimates that nearly one million
people have become internally displaced persons because of the
renewed conflict, 10 percent of Angola's population. This
return to war also represented the end of the uneasy peace
process that began with the Lusaka Protocol in Zambia in
November 1994. It was a peace process overseen by two U.N.
peacekeeping missions, UNAVEM III, and its successor, MONUA,
at a total cost to the international community of U.S.$ 1.5
billion.
The Lusaka Protocol was signed at a moment when the National
Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) rebels were
in a weakened position and wanted to stop its territorial
loses to the government. The Lusaka Protocol provided for a
cease-fire, the integration of UNITA generals into the
government's armed forces (which were to become nonpartisan
and civilian controlled), demobilization (later amended to
demilitarization) under U.N. supervision, the repatriation of
mercenaries, the incorporation of UNITA troops into the
Angolan National Police under the Interior Ministry, and the
prohibition of any other police or surveillance organization.
As a backdrop to the protocol, a Security Council embargo on
arms and oil transfers to UNITA had been in place since 1993,
while both the government and UNITA had agreed to halt new
arms acquisitions as part of the accords. But the embargo on
UNITA was not enforced, and both sides openly continued major
arms purchases throughout the process.
The major political issues covered in the Lusaka Protocol were
the U.N.'s mandate (verification and monitoring of the Lusaka
Protocol), the role of peacekeepers (supervision), the
completion of the electoral process, and national
reconciliation. Under the provisions for reconciliation
between the parties, UNITA's leadership would receive private
residences, political offices in each province and one central
headquarters. UNITA would also hold a series of post as
ministers, deputy ministers, ambassadors, provincial governors
and deputy governors, municipal administrators and deputy
administrators, and commune administrators. The government
would retain all other positions of patronage.
Human rights issues were kept as a subtext in the Lusaka
Protocol, mentioned only as a commitment to general principles
of human rights in the protocol's annexes on national
reconciliation and on the U.N.'s mandate. On amnesty both the
Angolan government and UNITA's position was crystal clear: the
Lusaka Protocol would provide that "the competent institutions
shall grant an amnesty...for the illegal acts committed by
anyone in the context of the current conflict."
A joint commission, comprised of the U.N., government and
UNITA representatives, with the U.S., Portugal and Russia as
observers (known as the Troika), oversaw the implementation of
the Lusaka Protocol. Any accord violation verified by the U.N.
or reported by one of the parties would be discussed in the
Joint Commission. In practice the commission became a
depositary for human rights and military violation reports but
there was little inclination by the U.N. to investigate or
publicize these incidents.
Although the U.N. was the largest peacekeeping operation in
the world at its peak, only in 1995 was a significant U.N.
peacekeeping operation approved by the Security Council, and
the delays in deployment resulted in its reaching full
strength only in late 1996. The delay in the U.N. peacekeeping
deployment facilitated abuse of the accords by UNITA and the
government, but the fundamental mistake was a policy of
turning a blind eye and impunity toward breaches of the
accords, as advocated by the U.N. Special Representative
Blondin Beye. A U.N. official told Human Rights Watch in 1995
that "the situation is too sensitive for serious human rights
monitoring. Making public what we know could undermine the
peace process and put us back to war."
Human rights violations were a key factor in undermining the
Lusaka peace accords. With better human rights monitoring-and
reporting-of rights abuses the ease with which both UNITA and
the government could abuse Angolan's rights could have been
reduced and attempts made to make those responsible
accountable. The impunity with which rights were abused eroded
confidence in the peace process and created a vicious cycle of
rights abuse that steadily worsened. With the peace process
disintegrating Beye ordered a change of strategy shortly
before his death in May 1998 and his depleted U.N. mission
became for the first time more robust at investigating human
rights violations. This was too late to save the peace. The
U.N.'s practice of ignoring the two parties deceptions and
depredations and its own lack of transparency had encouraged
both parties to regard the peace process with contempt, and
both the Angolan government and UNITA had determined that war
was their preferred option.
The U.N.'s human rights division which had done little during
much of the Lusaka peace process improved in 1998, helped by
the hiring of a human rights professional to head it. However,
the return to war in December curtailed its activities
dramatically and for the first seven months of 1999 the Human
Rights Division was unable to play the role it envisaged,
spending much of its energy on trying to carve out a future
and could perform little serious investigative work on rights
abuses; it produced no publication. The division had also
discouraged journalists from talking to it. It remains
questionable what can be achieved unlessthe Human Rights
Division can obtain a clear-cut mandate which includes
investigative work and the dissemination of its findings.
The Angolan government has been responsible for widespread
human rights violations during the Lusaka peace process,
especially in 1998. These abuses undermined UNITA's confidence
in the Lusaka peace process and included:
- torture, "disappearance," and summary execution,
particularly of UNITA supporters in areas where government
control was newly established in 1998;
- the indiscriminate killing of civilians and pillaging during
military operations;
- arbitrary recruitment into the military;
- forced displacement of the civilian population;
- use of indiscriminate weapons, such as antipersonnel
landmines in 1998 and 1999;
- harassment and censorship of the media;
- harassment of the loyal political opposition.
UNITA has also committed systematic and horrendous human
rights abuses during the Lusaka peace process and in the new
war, including:
- indiscriminate shelling of besieged cities;
- summary execution;
- torture;
- mutilation of the dead and living;
- abduction of civilians, including women and children, and
sometimes treating them like slaves;
- recruitment of child soldiers and other arbitrary
recruitment, and denying unaccompanied minors the opportunity
to be voluntarily reunited with their families;
- taking foreign nationals hostage;
- restriction of the movements of civilians in areas it
occupies, confiscating food from them, and forcing them to do
unpaid labor;
- cruel and inhuman prison conditions.
UNITA has since December 1998 laid siege to a number of cities
and towns, most notably Malanje and Kuito. UNITA rained many
shells per day on Kuito in late December 1998 resulting in
over 150 civilian casualties. Shelling of Malanje started in
January 1999 and has continued ever since, resulting in at
least 600 civilians killed. UNITA's siege of Malanje is
causing increasing starvation amongthe civilian population and
humanitarian relief flights to the city have had to be
suspended from time to time.
Mine warfare has intensified since hostilities resumed, with
the fresh laying of antipersonnel landmines by the government
around besieged cities in mine belts and along roads to
obstruct UNITA access. This is doubly deplorable because the
Angolan government signed the Convention on the Prohibition of
the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of
Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (Ottawa Treaty)
in Canada in December 1997. UNITA has also been laying new
mines, on roads, in fields, and as minefields to slow down the
government's military offensives. The mines laid by both the
government and UNITA have resulted in civilian victims.
UNITA used the Lusaka peace to shield itself from further
territorial losses and rebuild its military. In 1996 and 1997
UNITA procured large amounts of weapons and fuel, while at the
same time slowly fulfilling a number of its Lusaka Protocol
obligations. For the second time in the decade UNITA failed to
fulfill its pledge to demobilize, handing over a fraction of
its weapons to the U.N. and failing to quarter many of its
elite troops. UNITA also failed to transfer to government
control all the territory it was meant to under the provisions
of the Lusaka Protocol. In reality UNITA fulfilled only the
obligations that it felt were not strategically essential to
its security, and which would not preclude a return to war. It
dragged out even its minimal concessions to buy time. By
mid-1998 the government had lost its patience with UNITA and
serious preparations were underway to return to war.
The renewed conflict, and accompanying human rights abuses and
violations of laws of war, were fueled by new flows of arms
into the country, despite the U.N. arms embargo on UNITA in
place since 1993. UNITA purchased large amounts of weaponry
from foreign sources. Human Rights Watch believes that some of
these weapons originated from private sources in Albania and
Bulgaria. UNITA was effective in "sanctions-busting" through
neighboring countries, especially South Africa, Congo, Zambia,
Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), and also Togo
and Burkina Faso. Zaire was the most important
sanctions-busting gateway into Angola until the overthrow of
President Mobutu in mid-1997, the locus then shifting to
Congo-Brazzaville until late 1997, when the Angolan government
assisted in the overthrow of the democratically elected
government of Pascal Lissouba. By 1998 the frequency of
sanctions-busting flights to UNITA declined, partly due to
tighter restrictions regionally, but also due to UNITA's
return of the diamond-rich Cuango valley to government
control. Much of UNITA's sanctions-busting in 1998 was for
logistical supplies, mining equipment, and the fuel whichis
essential for UNITA's war effort. UNITA's siege of the city of
Kuito ended in January 1999 because its forces ran out of fuel
and had to withdraw.
The U.N. was ineffective in dealing with UNITA's
sanctions-busting efforts in 1995 and 1996, and largely turned
a blind eye to their violation of a 1993 U.N. oil and weapons
embargo. Its bona fide interdiction efforts were made more
difficult by the slow deployment of the peacekeepers pledged
as part of the Lusaka Accord. In October 1997 the U.N. imposed
an additional package of restrictions on UNITA, blocking
foreign travel by their officials and closing their offices
abroad. Surprisingly, only in June 1998 did the U.N. target
the direct and indirect export of diamonds from UNITA areas
and freeze UNITA bank accounts, despite these being the prime
source of revenue for UNITA's purchases of fuel and weapons.
UNITA financed the rebuilding of its military through its
control of Angola's diamond wealth. Most of the diamonds were
smuggled to Europe via Zaire (DRC) and Congo Brazzaville,
although South Africa, Namibia, Rwanda, and Zambia have also
been conduits. UNITA's export of diamonds during the Lusaka
process netted the rebels some U.S.$1.72 billion. Money from
the diamond trade had by 1993 replaced the assistance UNITA
previously received from the United States and South Africa.
U.S. covert aid to UNITA reportedly totaled about U.S.$250
million between 1986 and 1991.
There were also arms shipments to the government throughout
the Lusaka process. This was not illegal, but undermined the
spirit of the Lusaka Protocol and contributed in undermining
confidence in the peace process. The weapons were purchased
from a range of countries including, Belarus, Brazil,
Bulgaria, China, and South Africa. Russia, a Troika member
(one of the three governments serving as an official
observer/mediator in the peace process) undermined its
official position by selling large amounts of weapons to the
government, resulting in a number of shipments to Angola.
Portugal, also a Troika member, entered into military
agreements during the peace process. The government's
procurement of weapons reached record levels again in 1999,
matching the high levels of purchasing in 1994; Russia again
features as the prime source of arms to Angola. During the
Lusaka peace process no country submitted details of their
weapons transfers to Angola to the U.N. Register on
Conventional Weapons.
The government has paid for its arms purchases through bank
loans, oil profit remittances, and mining and other
concessions. With the decline of international oil prices, the
government is short of cash and has used some U.S.$870 million
of funds generated from signature bonus payments on oil
exploration and concession blocks thirty-one, thirty-two, and
thirty-three to pay for its weapons purchases. The
multinational oil companies BP-Amoco, Exxon, and Elf play a
dominant role in these blocks.
The failure of the Lusaka Peace Process was not only due to
the bad faith of UNITA. The U.N.'s strategy of refraining from
disclosure of public action against violations of the accords,
its lack of transparency, and its failure to implement U.N.
embargos undermined any respect that UNITA or the government
had to observe the Lusaka Protocol. With the collapse of the
Lusaka peace process this strategy of see no evil, speak no
evil appears to have backfired badly. Twice this strategy has
been used and twice the peace accords have collapsed and the
country has returned to war. This could have been avoided if
the U.N. had deployed its peacekeepers promptly and empowered
them to undertake "sensitive" monitoring and reporting of
cease-fire and embargo violations and gross human rights
violations. There also needed to have been an initial arms
embargo placed on both sides and an embargo placed on UNITA's
use of diamonds once it became evident that the rebels were
using this resource to rearm. There is also an urgent need for
a clean break with the past, by making Angola's leaders
accountable for their actions and cognizant of the potential
penalties they face if they knowingly endorse abuses of human
rights.
The United States supported a number of human rights
initiatives during the Lusaka peace process, although by 1998
it had increasingly lost any political influence it had over
the Angolan government because it was blamed for having been
one of the primary architects of the peace process. Sweden
played an especially important part in supporting a number of
human rights programs and played a leadership role in raising
them at the U.N. during its tenure on the Security Council
(1997-1998). Other European Union countries were surprisingly
quiet on rights issues, limiting the bulk of their efforts to
drafting strong words for presidential statements.
This material is being reposted for wider distribution by the
Africa Policy Information Center (APIC). APIC's primary
objective is to widen the policy debate in the United States
around African issues and the U.S. role in Africa, by
concentrating on providing accessible policy-relevant
information and analysis usable by a wide range of groups and
individuals.
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