Global Policy Forum

By Jon Jeter

The rebels attacked before dawn, shelling an electricity substation nine miles from Luanda and plunging the capital and the president's compound into darkness.

In Angola's 26-year civil war, the Sept. 25 attack was as close as the rebels have come to Luanda, save for clashes nine years ago following their loss in disputed national elections. It was a hit-and-run operation; the rebels fled almost as soon as they had shelled the substation, and the city is hardly contested territory.

"They did this for the theatrics more than anything else," said one Western diplomat. "They've clearly lost the capacity to win this war by conventional methods, but by the same token, peace cannot happen without their consent. This attack was their way of saying to the government, the people and the international community: Hey, we're still here."

This is what an unyielding civil war has become in this southern African country nearly two years after an offensive by government forces recaptured almost all territory held by the rebels, known by their Portuguese acronym, UNITA.

With their capacity for conventional warfare largely destroyed, and outnumbered by government troops as much as 9 to 1, UNITA's estimated 10,000 rebels and their legendary commander, Jonas Savimbi, have fled to the bush but show no signs of surrendering. Instead, they have resorted to guerrilla warfare that poses little threat to the government's control but renders virtually the entire country unsafe and makes no distinction between civilian and military targets.

In recent months, UNITA has taken to terrorist assaults throughout the countryside and has inched closer to Luanda, where nearly a third of Angola's population of 13 million lives. Six weeks before the attack on the substation, rebel gunmen opened fire on a passenger train about 80 miles south of the capital, killing nearly 250 people, mostly civilians. In May, rebels killed about 80 people during a raid on the town of Caxito, 35 miles northeast of Luanda.

As churches and civic organizations strengthen their appeals for peace, diplomats, political analysts and Angolans from all walks of life have come to hope that the combination of public pressure and the government's military offensive would produce a durable peace. But President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and his authoritarian ruling party, the Popular Movement for the Liberation for Angola, or MPLA, have steadfastly refused to negotiate with Savimbi, who has used two previous cease-fire agreements brokered by Western and African nations to rebuild weakened forces.

"Peace does not appear likely soon without Savimbi's death or capture," said Hannelie de Beer, a South African military analyst. "UNITA is very active at this stage. The attacks near Luanda have shown that Angola's security boundaries have shrunk and are meant to send a clear message to dos Santos that UNITA is not going anywhere."

Angola's civil war broke out after independence from Portugal in 1975, pitting Savimbi's militia, supported by the United States, against the MPLA, which was supported by the Soviet Union and Cuba. But the MPLA abandoned Marxism when the Cold War ended more than a decade ago, and Savimbi's international supporters have fallen away, reducing what was once an ideological battle to a conflict to control Angola's abundant supplies of oil and diamonds.

An end to the conflict could be a boon for the United States, which relies on Angola for about 7 percent of its crude oil. Given the discovery of more offshore oil, that figure could easily double in a decade, industry experts said, particularly in a peaceful environment.

More important, diplomats, relief workers and international human rights organizations said, the war provides the MPLA with a convenient excuse to continue to channel the bulk of the state's resources into a war machine that provides a cadre of senior government officials with millions of dollars annually in commissions on arms deals.

Defense spending in 1999 was nearly 10 times what the MPLA budgeted for education -- less than 5 percent of the budget -- an abysmally low figure even by sub-Saharan Africa's standards.

And the nearly $3 billion a year in revenue from the government's oil concessions goes largely unaccounted for, even as international relief agencies provide Angola's refugees and peasants with food, schools, health care and other social services neglected by the government.

"The war, the war, the war," said Jose Machel, 40, a barber who earns less than $60 a week cutting hair on a corner throbbing with vendors selling baseball caps, plastic toys and cheap jewelry. "With our government it is always the war that prevents them from doing anything for the people. But they live well."

Said John Rocha, executive director of Angola 2000, a civic organization that promotes peace: "I'm afraid that in my country, there is no longer right and wrong. There is merely a war, and the ones who are hurt most by it just want it to end."

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