Africa Watch
Central Africa on the boil

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By Richard Cornwell Africa Early Worning Programme, Institute for Security Studies

Published in African Security Review Vol 8 No 1, 1999

As Angola lurched back into full-scale war, there were some interesting developments on the political scene that will certainly impact both on the conduct of hostilities and on eventual attempts to redesign a peace accord.

The Congress of the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA) began on 5 December 1998, and in a secret ballot held on 9 December, the party’s Secretary-General, Lopo do Nascimento, former Prime Minister Marcolino Moco and the current Prime Minister Fernando Franco van Dunem were removed from the Central Committee, despite it having been expanded from 158 to 251 members. The provincial governors of Lunda Sul and Uíge also lost their party positions. On 12 December, the party elected João Lourenço as Secretary-General. He was previously the party’s information secretary and leader of the parliamentary caucus, and has a reputation as a mediator of intraparty differences. He is mentioned as a possible successor to the presidency and, for this reason, was spared the onerous and dangerously exposed post of prime minister.

The changes to the Central Committee and Politburo seemed to signal an organisational strengthening of Dos Santos’s hold over the party, and the marginalisation of his principal critics. The ousting of Marcolino Moco and Franco van Dunem also suggested the president’s eagerness to distance himself from administrations with poor records, an interpretation supported by his closing remarks to the Congress. Although Dos Santos has emerged better from this Congress than one might have anticipated a few months ago, partly by playing the war card at the crucial moment, there are indications that delegates are becoming more outspoken and critical. Should the war gambit fail, therefore, Dos Santos’s position might become more vulnerable within the party, unless he is able to shift the burden of responsibility onto the military command. General Pedro Sebastião, who had been Minister of Defence since June 1996, has been earmarked as ambassador to South Africa. He will be replaced by Kundi Paihama, who has been governor of Huila since 1992. Paihama is an unusual figure in the MPLA hierarchy, hailing from Cunene in the south of the country. He is a charismatic person and a fine orator, speaking several of the country’s indigenous languages. Though he is known as the MPLA’s ‘Jonas Savimbi’, there is no love lost between the two men. His appointment will confirm the ascendancy of the hardliners around the presidential palace, and extends their influence firmly into the conduct of the war. Whether this will make inroads on the strategic management of the campaign by the Chief of Staff, General João de Matos, remains to be seen.

The new government will be drastically reduced in size from the eighty ministerial positions at the time of the government of national unity. The reorganisation of the government was being handled in great secrecy by the presidential team.

Dos Santos is concerned about a possible riposte from Lopo do Nascimento following his removal from the Central Committee in a vote that was rigged in all probability. Do Nascimento is said to be extremely upset at the way he was treated, even though it may eventually spare him association with what may well prove a disastrous policy line towards the União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA) and leave him space to make a political comeback when a more nuanced approach becomes necessary. There are some who speculate that, in the medium term, Do Nascimento might be able to find common cause with UNITA politicians such as Abel Chivukuvuku to construct a government of national unity on a far firmer basis.

Financially, Luanda remains in considerable difficulty. The oil price seems set to stay low for the foreseeable future, and although Angola is looking to increase its oil production in 1999 from 770 00O barrels a day (b/d) to some 850 000 b/d as Chevron’s Kuíto field comes on stream, depressed oil prices will dissuade the oil majors from too energetic a development of the rich offshore fields for the time being. Credit lines are now very tight, with Sonangol’s production no longer accepted as collateral, and some indications that the government may have to resort to the use of future royalties as guarantees.

The government’s refusal to allow transparency in accounting for the proceeds of the oil sector will continue to obstruct the conclusion of any agreements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This, and the intensification of the civil war, will effectively restrict foreign investor interest on any significant scale, exacerbating the problems of launching any post-war economic recovery and construction.

In his end-of-year message, President dos Santos admitted that the country’s economic position had deteriorated in 1998 and that further decline could be expected in 1999. In particular, he foresaw a steep rise in inflation and severe budgetary pressures, leading to reductions in state expenditure.

He also appeared to close the door on any future negotiation with Savimbi, whose "… sickening craving for power" was identified as the origin of the present situation. He welcomed the fact that other Southern African heads of state had declared Savimbi a common war criminal, and said that the Savimbi-led UNITA group had shown themselves incapable of accepting different views in a peaceful and democratic order.

In an attempt to keep the fiction of the Lusaka Accord alive, the government has assiduously been promoting the idea of negotiating with UNITA-Renovado, a group of Luanda-based UNITA figures closely associated with negotiating the 1994 agreements, which resulted in them increasingly being marginalised in UNITA’s leadership. The Luanda government now only recognises UNITA-R as a negotiating partner, a stance that is unlikely to yield significant results while Savimbi’s UNITA is in the field. Though the other members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) endorsed the Luanda position, the summit of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in December in Ouagadougou, expressed reservations about UNITA-R as a significant player.

On 29 December, UNITA-R announced that it was suspending a number of UNITA deputies from membership of the party: Abel Chivukuvuku; Isaias Samakuva; Daniel José Domingos and Celestino Capapelo. UNITA-R accused the four of adhering to the warmongering stance of Jonas Savimbi. That UNITA-R might also fall prey to the factionalism that bedevils so much of party politics, was indicated at its Congress, held in Luanda from 11 January. On 14 January, delegates elected Eugenio Manuvakulo as party president. Manuvakulo received 495 votes to 270 for Jorge Valentim. The latter expressed some initial unease at the outcome, but apparently accepted the result.

In its end-of-year message, UNITA accused the government of being unable to make peace, blaming it for violations in deed and spirit of the Lusaka Accord.

Isaias Samakuva, currently in Paris, and Paulo Lukamba ‘Gato’, the UNITA Secretary-General, both said that UNITA was ready to negotiate as soon as Luanda admitted that there was no military solution to the conflict. Samakuva also said that the Lusaka protocol had been overtaken by events and by the government’s attempts to use the agreement as a screen, behind which to try and destroy UNITA. UNITA’s approach throughout 1998 was to prepare itself for a government offensive, to show Luanda that it could not be destroyed militarily. This would open the way for new negotiations on a level playing field, in which UNITA would not be negotiating from a position of weakness, unlike 1994. According to some leading figures in UNITA, Savimbi has now reconciled himself to the fact that he will never be president, but he refuses to leave his people at the mercy of the government.

The inner circle of the MPLA, however, also realise the risks of a future electoral struggle in which Savimbi might use his considerable populist skills, including the playing of the race card against the mestiços, whites and assimilados he sees as dominating the MPLA.

On 3 December, the United Nations Security Council met to extend the United Nations Monitoring Group’s (MONUA) mandate to 26 February. Intervention by the United States prevented the identification of Savimbi as the major obstacle to peace. Instead, a diluted resolution identified the failure of the UNITA leadership in Bailundo to comply with its obligations as a primary cause of the breakdown in the Accord. Also significant was the Security Council’s insistence that its Special Representative maintains contact with all elements of UNITA in Luanda to revive the stalled peace process and encourage the transformation of UNITA into a genuine political party. This constituted an explicit rejection of the Angolan government’s insistence that UNITA-Renovado alone be considered a legitimate negotiating partner. It also seemed to acknowledge a role for the UNITA parliamentary caucus led by Abel Chivukuvuku.

Although the military and political situation was clearly deteriorating by the beginning of January, the Secretary-General thought that the UN should remain engaged to dissuade the two parties from a return to full-scale war. Following the piecemeal withdrawal of UN observers from the battle zones of Angola, an operation that saw the loss of two aircraft near Huambo, it was expected that the UN would choose to reduce the likelihood of further losses to its personnel.

In a 26-page report on the Angolan situation, circulated on 18 January, Kofi Annan recommended the shutting down of the UN peacekeeping operation. "The events of the last few months have clearly demonstrated that, for all intents and purposes, the Angolan peace process has collapsed and the country is now in a state of war." He expected almost all of the UN personnel to leave Angola by 20 March. Some 200 infantry would continue to protect UN property for another four to six months until the withdrawal of MONUA was complete.

In a surprising development, the US and Russian delegations to the UN Security Council called upon the Secretary-General to reconsider the decision to extract the whole UN presence from Luanda. They reminded the Security Council of its responsibility to the people of Angola and called for a small UN team to remain in place in the Angolan capital. This seemed to support an earlier appeal by the UN Special Representative, Issa Diallo, that peace remains feasible in the long run and that the UN still has a role to play in attempting to secure this. Despite the deterioration of the situation, Diallo maintained that the principles embodied in the Lusaka Accord remained useful: a multiparty political system, a government of national unity, and an integrated army. He also advocated a stronger role for the international community, which had the ability to enforce the compliance of the two parties if it was willing to do so.

Diallo said that the UN would be judged by history and drew a parallel with the events in Rwanda in 1994. On 22 January, the UN affirmed the great importance of a continued UN presence in Angola and initiated consultations on substantive measures to deal with the crisis before the expiry of the mandate.

There is obviously considerable doubt in the minds of both belligerent parties about the willingness of the UN to adopt a stronger position. Sanctions against UNITA have been largely ineffective, because of the lack of any real enforcement mechanism. The government is also enraged that UNITA was able to retain, refurbish and redeploy its forces despite the provisions for an internationally monitored demilitarisation process. This last phenomenon would certainly deserve detailed examination by the UN, so obvious was the failure to co-ordinate intelligence gathering among the permanent members of the Security Council in particular, and so ineffective was the monitoring of UNITA’s activities on the ground. Without attention to the reasons for these failures, no future peace monitoring is likely to prove any more effective.

As the rebel advance across the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) slowed towards the end of the year, there was considerable speculation that political differences were responsible. There was talk of divisions and power struggles within the leadership and disagreements about how to gain the support of the populations of ‘liberated’ territories. Some insiders identified three factions vying for control and eventual office:

those who worked under Mobutu;



those who had worked for Kabila before deserting him on the eve of the August 1998 rebellion; and



a new generation of disaffected politicians.

Ernest Wamba dia Wamba is a former history professor who, though widely published on the need for a democratic dispensation in the DRC, and respected for his personal and academic integrity, has no experience as a political leader and appears reluctant or unable to move beyond analysis to firm leadership. His challengers, by contrast, are wily and determined, and no strangers to the exercise of arbitrary power. They include the formidable Lundu Bululu, a former prime minister under Mobutu, who has been accused of taking too many unilateral decisions, including the allocation of mineral concessions.

Problems in the occupied areas have been caused by the failure of the Rassemblement congolais pour la démocratie (RCD) to mobilise strong popular support or articulate its political programme coherently. This difficulty has been exacerbated by the maltreatment of some members of local populations suspected of sympathising with the Interahamwe militias. There have been disagreements about the need to broaden the 28-member assembly to representatives of the people in the ‘liberated zones’.

Despite a very public row between Wamba and Bululu over the latter’s interruption of the former’s New Year’s broadcast, Wamba said that rifts in the RCD were exaggerated. It was quite normal to experience some dissent in a movement comprising various roleplayers who might have different ideas about the methods to be used in achieving their objectives. The leaders of the movement, he said, agreed on the fundamental purposes of the struggle: to end Kabila’s dictatorship; to rebuild the country on the basis of democratic institutions; and to reorganise and recreate a national republican army, so that stable political institutions could be established.

All this went on against the background of rumours about divisions between the Rwandans and Ugandans, including suspicions in Kigali that members of the Ugandan high command were too preoccupied with their alleged business dealings with Bemba’s Mouvement de libération congolais (MCL) rebels. For their part, the Ugandans were said to be angered by the "arrogant and colonialist" attitude of the Rwandan forces, and unconvinced by the intellectual approach of the RCD leadership as epitomised by Wamba dia Wamba.

Wamba and other members of the RCD leadership subsequently attended meetings with the Ugandan and Rwandan leaders. He later claimed that the meetings in Kampala and Kigali were useful in addressing certain misunderstandings before they had serious results. He also said that he had met Bemba and hoped that a way might be found to integrate his operation into the RCD, or at least that there would be co-operation.

Subsequently, on 20 January, the rebels announced that they were restructuring their movement to bring in other anti-Kabila elements and make the rebel leadership more accountable. The RCD decision-making assembly would be expanded from 28 to 137 members to include opposition politicians and groups from across the country. This body would have parliament-like powers and would act as a check on the RCD’s executive. An eight-member political committee would provide leadership and streamline decision-making, and a 24-member executive committee would be created to handle various portfolios.

If this reorganisation proves to be a success, it will constitute a more serious and coherent political threat to Kabila’s regime, despite the apparent stalemate at the front.

Throughout December, attempts continued to flesh out the understandings claimed to have been reached in Paris at the 20th Franco-African summit. The sticking point remained Kabila’s refusal to talk with the rebels, and the latter’s demand that they should be included in any negotiations leading to agreements that they would regard as binding.

President Chiluba of Zambia organised a summit meeting in Lusaka for 14 December, but cancelled it at the last moment when it became apparent that the protagonists had not softened their positions. Further consultations preceded the OAU summit in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, where various African conflicts were to be discussed. After this meeting on 18 December, the Secretary General of the OAU, Salim Ahmed Salim, announced that peace talks were to be held in Lusaka on 27 and 28 December, with Defence and Foreign ministers to meet on the 27th, and heads of state the following day, by which time it was hoped that a cease-fire would be finalised. There was little chance that Kabila could be moved to talk directly with the rebels, but there seemed a chance of proximity talks. The OAU report made five recommendations: an immediate cease-fire, respect for the national sovereignty of states, a withdrawal of foreign forces, the need to address the security concerns of the DRC and its neighbours, and the facilitation of internal political dialogue in the DRC. Kabila was still evidently insisting that the withdrawal of foreign troops should precede a cease-fire.

The presidents of Rwanda and Uganda failed to attend the Ouagadougou meeting, sending their Foreign ministers instead. On 24 December, an announcement was made in Lusaka that talks on the DRC, planned for 28 December, had been postponed until January. No official reason was given for this, the second postponement in a month, but sources indicated that more time was needed to achieve commitment to the signing of a cease-fire.

At this stage, Muammar Gaddhafi of Libya made a significant intervention. On 26 December a delegation from the RCD led by Wamba dia Wamba met Gaddhafi in Tripoli. They evidently expressed their willingness to share power with Kabila, provided that they received the posts of vice-president, and those of the ministers of Defence and Foreign Affairs. Museveni was in Tripoli the following day and on 5 January, Gaddhafi telephoned Kabila, apparently extracting the concession from him that he would talk directly to the rebels, albeit only in Kinshasa. By now Libyan TV was describing the country’s leader, among others, as the co-ordinator of the peace process in the Great Lakes region.

Intensified talks continued between the leaders of the two sets of allies, in preparation for the delayed Lusaka summit, which would be preceded by a ministerial meeting, which convened on 15 January. The rebels failed to appear, possibly because the invitation was diverted, possibly because of anger at a bombing attack on Kisangani on 11 January.

The meeting in Lusaka ended with a positive signal from South Africa’s Foreign Minister Alfred Nzo, who said that the Foreign and Defence ministers of the region had taken the process forward and that the delegates had unanimously accepted the cease-fire accord drafted by the OAU. Two powerful committees had been set up to oversee the implementation of the agreement. The committee on the implementation of the cease-fire agreement comprises Zambia as chair, all belligerents, the UN, the OAU and SADC. On the security of the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda the chair would be Zambia and would include representatives of Botswana, Kenya and Mauritius. The meeting was marked by a high level of belligerence between Ugandan and DRC delegations, however, with the DRC delegation boycotting the meeting at one stage during the discussions on the amended draft cease-fire agreed to in Gaborone, which had been amended to accommodate rebel demands. Chiluba postponed the heads of state meeting, admitting that he had been overambitious. Not only had there been too much wrangling about which countries would monitor the truce, but ministers had attended without the authority to commit their heads of state to the agreements reached.

A meeting held the following day in Windhoek suddenly became far more significant than at first thought. Initially, it was billed as a meeting between Kabila’s allies to explore the way forward. Its purpose was evidently extended on the suggestion of Museveni, who also attended, as did Bizimungu. It seemed that Namibia and Zimbabwe were eager to find a way to regain the momentum lost in the Lusaka process, which was also seen as giving South Africa too prominent a role.

Press reports indicated that the Windhoek summit had resulted in an agreement by the representatives of the countries present — Namibia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Uganda and Rwanda — to sign a cease-fire in Lusaka at a date still to be decided. Neither Chad nor Zambia, which had been leading the OAU peace initiative, attended. President Nujoma, who chaired the meeting, said that rebels fighting the Kabila government would also sign a cease-fire, though on a separate document. One of the leaders of the RCD, Arthur Zahidi Ngoma, however, dismissed the idea without having first engaged in direct negotiations with Laurent Kabila. He rejected any thought of dealing with the war in the DRC as if it was primarily a conflict between subregional states.

Kabila was also said to be awaiting further details of the Windhoek meeting before responding to this initiative. Other commentators also adopted a wait-and-see approach, cautious lest this prove yet another in a series of premature announcements of a breakthrough. Uganda continues to insist that both Kabila and the rebels have to be included in the discussions to be held in Lusaka to follow up on what was achieved in Windhoek.

In the meantime, the Zambian press has been shaken by the sudden repetition of charges by the Angolan government accusing Lusaka of complicity in the rearming and supply of UNITA. Although Angola’s armed forces are currently too occupied with more pressing threats, the Zambian media harbours no illusions about the ability of the Zambian defence force to offer more than token resistance against any military reprisals from Angola in the future, hence the nervousness.