ALL WE ARE SAYING IS GIVE PEACE A CHANCE IN ANGOLA
(Washington, D.C.): The Clinton
Administration has often tried to deflect
blame for its inept conduct of U.S.
foreign policy by claiming that it is a
victim of the moral ambiguities and other
complexities of the post-Cold War world.
It is useful in evaluating that claim and
in assessing the true character of this
Presidency more generally to reflect upon
Mr. Clinton’s handling of one of the
least morally ambiguous and relatively
uncomplicated foreign policy problems he
has faced in office: the effort
to help foster a genuine and durable
peace in Angola.
Unfortunately, the Clinton
Administration has been populated by
senior policy-makers with distinctly
left-wing sympathies. They opposed, among
other U.S. policies during the Cold War,
successive Presidents’ efforts to resist
communist penetration in the Third World
by working with pro-Western forces like
the National Union for the Total
Independence of Angola (known by its
Portuguese acronym, UNITA), led by Dr.
Jonas Savimbi.
Perhaps it would, therefore, be too
much to expect Mr. Clinton actively to support
UNITA, as his Republican
predecessors did. It would be
sufficient, though, if his Administration
were to pursue an even-handed policy that
pressed both UNITA and its
long-time enemies in the ruling communist
Popular Movement for the Liberation of
Angola (MPLA) to implement faithfully the
terms of a peace agreement the parties
signed in Lusaka, Zambia in 1994.
It speaks volumes about the true,
left-wing agenda of the Clinton
team, however, that it is pursuing a
policy blatantly partial to the MPLA
regime of Jose Eduardo dos Santos.
In recent weeks, this unbalanced policy
has been manifested in the following
actions:
- On 16 September 1996, President
Clinton extended a three-year-old
Declaration of a State of
Emergency arising from what he
inexplicably calls “the
unusual and extraordinary threat
to the foreign policy of the
Untied States constituted by the
actions and policies of
UNITA.” In an
accompanying message to Congress,
Mr. Clinton claimed that harsh
economic sanctions against UNITA
must be maintained “because
of the prejudicial effect that
discontinuation of the sanctions
would have on the Angolan peace
process” and in order
“to apply economic pressure
to UNITA to reduce its ability to
pursue its aggressive policies of
territorial acquisition.”
These sanctions prohibit the
“sale or supply … of arms
and related materials of all
types and petroleum and petroleum
products” to UNITA. - On 11 October, the
Clinton Administration supported
a United Nations Security Council
decision to impose new sanctions
on UNITA by 20 November if, in
the judgment of the UN, the
organization has not fully
complied with the Lusaka
Protocol. These
draconian sanctions would augment
those continued in force by
President Clinton in September
and their multilateral
counterparts extended earlier
this month by the UN. They would
prohibit UNITA from having
offices in any foreign countries,
forbid air travel by UNITA
representatives, freeze UNITA
assets overseas, etc. - Then, on 14 October, Secretary
of State Warren Christopher
traveled to the Angolan capital,
Luanda. During this three-hour
photo op.-whistle stop, Mr.
Christopher met with President
dos Santos but declined
to meet with Jonas Savimbi
unless the latter traveled to
Luanda. As Dr. Savimbi’s physical
security could not be assured
under present circumstances in a
city that has witnessed the
assassination of several senior
UNITA representatives at the
hands of MPLA operatives, he
asked that the meeting occur
elsewhere in Angola. Secretary
Christopher declined to
accommodate this request, reinforcing
perceptions that, under President
Clinton, the United States has
switched sides in the Angolan
conflict by dispatching
subordinates to visit with
Savimbi.
The cumulative effect of all
these sanctions would
indisputably be to cripple
UNITA — a longtime goal
of the MPLA and its leftist
sympathizers in the United States
and elsewhere.
Why the U.S. Must Act as an
Honest Broker
The Clinton Administration’s
favoritism toward the dos Santos regime
is all the more extraordinary in light of
the fact that it is UNITA, not
the MPLA, that is making the most
concerted effort to comply with the terms
of the Lusaka Protocol. As the
Center for Security Policy has noted
previously,(1)
consistent with its obligations under
that accord, UNITA has quartered
virtually all of the 63,715 troops it is
required to demobilize under the accord.
These unarmed men are at considerable
risk insofar as the MPLA has offensively
deployed army units near these quartering
areas. And the magnitude of the risk
UNITA is taking for peace by such a
demobilization is not significantly
diminished by the fact that some of its
personnel have found conditions in these
areas — including a lack of proper
sanitary facilities, kitchens, medical
treatment or even shelter — to be so
unbearable as to compel them to return to
their homes and civilian life ahead of
schedule.
UNITA has also turned over
large quantities of its heavy weapons,
including tanks, armored personnel
carriers, long-range artillery and rocket
launchers and tons of mines, to the UN
peace monitors. In addition, nine senior
UNITA generals — including the chief of
staff — have arrived in the Angolan
capital of Luanda to begin the process of
integrating UNITA troops into the Angolan
armed forces.
What About the MPLA’s
Responsibilities?
The Lusaka Protocol imposed
obligations on both sides of the
Angolan conflict, obligations that were
supposed to be fulfilled in parallel.
While UNITA was required to take mostly
actions meant to make the military
situation in Angola more stable and
conducive to peace, the dos Santos regime
was supposed to take primarily political
steps that would allow UNITA to be
integrated into the Angolan political
system as a legitimate opposition party.
But dos Santos has balked,
declaring that UNITA must fulfill all of
its obligations before he even begins
to fulfill his.
Specifically, the MPLA government has
yet to legalize the existence of UNITA as
a political party and the leadership of
UNITA — including Jonas Savimbi — has
not been granted a clear expression of
immunity from prosecution under wartime
laws banning UNITA. The dos Santos regime
has insisted that Savimbi assume a
figurehead post as Vice President, a step
calculated to prevent him from being an
effective opposition leader.
Meanwhile, the MPLA government has
stymied measures intended to bring about
a meaningful integration of UNITA
personnel into the ministries and armed
forces of Angola. For example, the
MPLA has repeatedly issued capricious
demands concerning the composition of
UNITA appointees to a unified general
staff and army in a transparent effort to
find pretexts for a lack of progress by
dos Santos and Company — and for
energizing international pressure on
Savimbi’s organization.
The MPLA has also refused to
honor those of the Lusaka Protocol’s
requirements that bear on its military
capabilities. The include
obligations to: demobilize the
government’s feared Rapid Intervention
Police; suspend purchases of arms; move
troops around the country only with
authorization from UN peacekeepers;
recover the 700,000 small arms
distributed by the dos Santos regime to
pro-government civilians; and repatriate
foreign mercenaries.
The Bottom Line
The Clinton Administration
rationalizes its several recent actions
on the grounds that by squeezing UNITA,
it can bring about the conditions
envisioned by the Lusaka Protocol before
next February, when UN peacekeepers are
currently scheduled to be removed from
Angola. In this case — as in so
many others from North Korea to the
Middle East, from Bosnia to Beijing —
the Administration is focussing
exclusively on process (not least, the
American electoral process) and
disregarding the inconvenient fact that
the results do not justify U.S. support
for the process.
In signaling to the parties in the
Angolan peace process that the United
States is unmistakably siding with dos
Santos and his regime, President Clinton
is inviting one of two things to occur in
Angola — neither of which is conducive
to peace in that long-suffering nation:
1) The dos Santos regime will act on its
understandable expectation that the
international community — and the
Clinton Administration in particular —
will not object if it moves to crush its
enemies, once and for all. Or 2) UNITA
will act to protect its troops and people
against such a genocidal assault and take
up arms again. Either scenario will have
the effect of destroying the fragile
Angolan peace and plunging that country
back into a bloody civil war.
Fortunately, the United States can do
much to preclude such an undesirable
outcome simply by acting as a genuinely
honest broker. This will require the
Clinton Administration to do, at a
minimum, the following: acknowledge
the disproportionate risks for peace that
UNITA has taken in the military arena to
fulfill the terms of the Lusaka
agreement; demand that the MPLA do no
less on the political side; and make
clear that the United States will veto
the imposition of any new UN sanctions if
the latter has not occurred.
The American people are entitled to
know before the 5 November U.S.
presidential election whether the
Clinton Administration will accept
responsibility if its policy of ignoring
UNITA’s real contributions to peace in
Angola produces renewed conflict there —
and how it proposes to react when, not
if, such an undesirable result
ensues.
– 30 –
1. See Damned
Be the Peacemakers: Clinton/Christopher’s
Betrayal of Jonas Savimbi Invites Renewed
Bloodshed in Angola (
October 1996).
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