DAMNED BE THE PEACEMAKERS: CLINTON/CHRISTOPHER'S BETRAYAL OF JONAS SAVIMBI INVITES RENEWED BLOODSHED IN ANGOLA

(Washington, D.C.): The UN Security
Council is expected to pass a resolution
tomorrow continuing its economic
sanctions against the National Union for
the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).
Such a step is the logical — if not
inevitable — consequence of President
Clinton’s decision on 16 September 1996
to extend a three-year-old Declaration of
a State of Emergency arising from what he
improbably calls “the unusual and
extraordinary threat to the foreign
policy of the United States constituted
by the actions and policies of
UNITA.”

In an accompanying message to
Congress, Mr. Clinton announced that
prohibitions on the “sale or
supply…of arms and related materials of
all types, and petroleum and petroleum
products” to 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.” (Emphasis added.)

Reality Check

The use of such dramatic language by a
U.S. administration that has managed to
overlook the transgressions of parties to
other “peace processes”
(notably, the systematic violations of
the Oslo agreements by Yasser Arafat and
of the Dayton Accords by Slobodan
Milosevic and his proxies) would seem to
suggest that the conduct of Dr. Jonas
Savimbi’s UNITA has to be truly
egregious. Nothing could be
farther from the truth.

In fact, UNITA has taken extraordinary
risks to conform to the terms of the
Lusaka Protocol — the agreement signed
in 1994 that officially ended the
conflict in Angola. These risks are all
the greater because of the ruthless bad
faith periodically exhibited in the past
by the ruling regime of Jose Eduardo dos
Santos.⁽¹⁾
Despite tremendous logistical
difficulties and a near-total lack of the
required infrastructure, UNITA has
quartered all but 423 of the 63,123
troops it is required to demobilize under
the Lusaka Protocol. They have remained
in the 15 quartering areas despite
barbaric conditions that deny UNITA’s
personnel proper sanitary facilities,
kitchens, medical treatment or even
shelter.

These troops have also turned over
their heavy weapons (including tanks,
armored personnel carriers, long-range
artillery and rocket launchers and tons
of mines) to the UN peace monitors (known
as UNAVEM III). And five senior UNITA
generals have arrived in the capital of
Luanda to begin the process of
integrating some 26,000 UNITA troops into
a unified Angolan Armed Forces, with
10,500 already selected.

Who’s Posing the Real
‘Threat’ to the Angolan Peace Process?

By contrast, the Dos Santos regime has
taken steps that appear, at best, to
signal a lack of commitment to the
successful (not to say prompt)
fulfillment of the Lusaka Protocol; at
worst, its behavior is consistent with a
plan to dispense with that Protocol and
destroy UNITA, once and for all. For
example, UNITA notes that:

Instead of returning his
government’s forces to their
barracks as the quartering of
their erstwhile enemies proceeds,
dos Santos is occupying
areas vacated by UNITA units.

The UN has documented raids
by government forces in
these areas against the civilian
population involving looting and
other acts of retaliation.
Press gangs are also
operating in these areas,
forcibly recruiting people into
the government army.

Government troops are deployed
in offensive formations
near the UNITA quartering areas.

Dos Santos’ military is also
violating the Lusaka Protocol by
engaging in routine
movement of military forces
throughout the country without
the required, specific
authorization, monitoring and
accompaniment by UNAVEM III
personnel.

Weapons purchases by the
government have
continued despite a prohibition
in the Lusaka Protocol on such
transactions by either side. Some
of these shipments are being made
with the knowledge of UNAVEM III;
indeed, some of the same
nations whose forces are
participating in the UNAVEM III
mission are involved in supplying
these weapons to the dos Santos
regime.

The government is failing to
abide by the Lusaka Protocol’s
provisions concerning some of its
most formidable forces — the
Rapid Intervention Police.
Like UNITA’s troops, these units
were supposed to be quartered and
disarmed of their tanks, armored
assault vehicles, rockets and
other heavy ordnance.

In fact, thousands of these
RIP troops remain unquartered and
at-large with weaponry clearly
excessive to normal police
duties. They are reportedly being
used to intimidate the population
and otherwise suppress
demonstrations in violation of
the spirit and letter of the
Lusaka Protocol.

Over 4,000 mercenaries,
many of them from South Africa,
continue to support and conduct
government military operations in
Angola. While 180 were
repatriated with much fanfare in
January 1996, the continued
presence of these personnel —
some operating in the guise of
“security firms” —
constitutes a serious breach of
the Lusaka Protocol.

Government supporters among the
civilian population (notably in
Luanda) remain equipped with as
many as 700,000 arms
distributed by the dos Santos
regime — even though the Lusaka
Protocol requires total
disarmament of civilians under
UNAVEM III supervision.

What is more, the dos Santos
government has unilaterally declared that
the political obligations incurred under
the Lusaka Protocol will only be carried
out after the conclusion of military
issues. As a result, the
government is refusing to permit UNITA to
resume its role as a legitimate
opposition political party. It
declines to take steps necessary to
alter the symbols and trappings of the
state associated with the
pre-Lusaka Angolan regime of the Marxist
dos Santos. It has balked at the
Protocol’s requirement for decentralization
of political authority. And it
is insisting — with the support of some
in the international community — that
Savimbi assume a position in the
government, an action calculated to
compromise his ability to lead an
effective, legal opposition political
movement.

The U.S.: A Dishonest
Broker?

On the face of it, this is a
“peace process” in trouble —
but not because of the behavior of Jonas
Savimbi and his UNITA followers.
Even in the absence of the dos Santos
government’s sordid history of ruthless
double-dealing, genocide and calumny, its
recent conduct should be sending warning
signals to anyone committed to fostering
a real peace in Angola.

Incredibly, the Clinton
foreign policy team — whose
diplomacy is usually characterized by
obsessive even-handedness and moral
equivalence justified as essential to its
role as an honest broker in assorted
peace processes — is clearly
taking sides, and
the wrong side at that. In
addition to extending its unilateral
sanctions on UNITA and supporting the
extension of UN-imposed sanctions,
Secretary of State Warren Christopher is
currently expected to meet with President
dos Santos but not Dr. Savimbi
when he visits Angola on 14 October. The
State Department maintains that the
Secretary of State is willing to meet
with Savimbi but insists on doing so only
in Luanda, a venue in which, under
present circumstances, the UNITA leader’s
safety simply cannot be assured.

Clearly, if Secretary Christopher
believed it important to maintain a
balanced approach to the parties in
Angola — a stance strongly supported by
his special envoy, Amb. Paul Hare — other
arrangements could be made so as to
offset the unmistakable impression that
the United States is only interested in
UNITA’s adherence to the peace accords
and will remain indifferent to the
government’s systematic breach of the
Lusaka Protocol. Such an
impression is a sure-fire formula for
renewed bloodshed in a nation that has
already suffered deadly hostilities for
too long.

The Bottom Line

It behooves the Clinton
Administration, therefore, to take
immediate steps to reestablish its
credentials as an honest broker
interested only in advancing a process
leading to a genuine and durable peace.
Toward this end: Secretary Christopher
must make a point of meeting with Dr.
Savimbi, the United States must end its
unilateral sanctions against UNITA and
Washington must oppose the further
extension of multilateral sanctions by
the UN Security Council. In addition, it
should take an active role in assuring
full compliance with the Lusaka Protocol
by both parties.

Even if these steps were not
manifestly consistent with the Clinton
Administration’s stated interest in
fostering peace in Angola, they would
still the right thing for the
United States government to do. After
all, the U.S. owes Savimbi a great deal
for resisting the communist
totalitarianism of the dos Santos regime
during the Cold War era and for creating
conditions under which the Angolan people
may yet experience freedom, not only from
war but from that regime’s abiding and
ill-concealed authoritarian tendencies.
We must not abandon them now.

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1. Notably, UNITA
negotiators were murdered by government
operatives as they participated in
internationally sponsored peace talks in
Luanda in October 1992.