By Chris Gordon
August 17, 1998
Luanda - Unita's envoy returns to Luanda as the UN hints that it is willing to appease the rebels yet again -- despite ample evidence that peace is not part of Jonah Savimbi's strategy.
The United Nations has appointed a new special representative to head Angola's peace mission. Issa Diallo is to take up his post at the end of August, as the UN faces spreading conflict in central Africa. Diallo's appointment, announced at a joint commission meeting last Friday, follows the death of his predecessor, Maitre Blondin Beye, in an air crash in Cí´te d'Ivoire in June.
The UN is committed to the peace process in Angola until the Lusaka peace protocols are completed or abrogated. The need to stabilise the country has been given fresh urgency by the military rebellion in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has brought alive the possibility of a major conflagration in the region.
Algerian diplomat Lahkdar Brahimi was sent as a UN special envoy to Angola when the crisis threatened to escalate into full-blown war earlier this month. He announced last Saturday that "the danger of all-out war in the foreseeable future is not there ... There is a window of opportunity for peace."
As a result of Brahimi's week-long visit, Unita representative Isias Samakuva returned to the capital for a meeting after an absence of two months. Brahimi dangled a carrot of more "political space" for the rebel Unita movement. At the joint commission meeting last Friday, Samakuva proposed the handing over of Unita's headquarters region of Bailondo and Andulo take place on October 15. Diplomats in Luanda and New York are sceptical about this proposal, seeing it as a reversion to Unita's delaying tactics.
Unita attacks on the ground are continuing despite this. It has recaptured more than 100 localities across the country since May, when the crisis began. A UN representative in New York confirmed fighting between Unita and the Angolan army in Malange province started last weekend after a second massacre was reported. The UN has not been able to get a verification team into the region but Angop, the government news agency, reported that 100 Unita soldiers took over Kunda-dia base, 175km north of Malange City, the provincial capital, killing 145 people, including some foreign citizens.
Unita is said to be shipping in 60 tons of supplies a day, including weapons, an analyst told the Mail & Guardian - supporting evidence that Unita is not about to make peace. The rebel movement's delaying tactics are based on the hope that conditions might change in their favour, inside or outside the country. Berhand Dinka, the UN's special representative for the Great Lakes region, confirmed this in Luanda last Saturday.
Dinka stated: "What happens in the Democratic Republic of Congo will have serious consequences ... throughout the region, and even for Luanda." He had just returned from a summit of heads of state at Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, called by President Robert Mugabe to discuss the situation in Congo.
The end of President Laurent Kabila's inept regime in Congo would allow Unita to rebuild and expand its rear bases in that country.
An agreement between Kabila and Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos presently allows the Angolan army to enter the Congo to outflank Unita. But Kabila's inability to control his border regions has allowed Unita a limited re-infiltration of Congo, and the rebel organisation already has military alliances in the region. The threat of major regional instability added to the threat of war in Angola is what faces the incoming UN special representative, Diallo.
A UN representative says the Lusaka protocols are not open to re-negotiation to accommodate any fresh demands by Unita, but Brahimi's comment that everyone must have enough political space in Angola raises unanswered questions about how far the international community will go to ensure that the oil-rich region does not burn.
