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ACTION ALERT
CRITICAL UN VOTE ON ANGOLA PEACEKEEPING NEEDS U.S. SUPPORT
February 1, 1995
The Angolan peace process, two and a half months after last November's peace treaty, is at a critical stage. On February 8 the United Nations Security Council will vote on a new peacekeeping mandate (UNAVEM III), which would involve expansion of the UN peacekeeping forces to some 7,000 troops at an estimated cost of $300 million. Although the cease-fire has recently been holding, provisions of the treaty such as demobilization are delayed pending arrival of the larger UN force. The Clinton administration and key congressional leaders have favored the expanded force. But the new climate in Congress, plus continued ambivalence on the peace treaty by Unita leader Jonas Savimbi, have raised doubts about the U.S. position.
**The Clinton administration needs to be urged to stand firm in support for the expanded UN presence in Angola. Key Republican leaders in Congress need to be urged not to let budget-cutting zeal and anti-UN sentiments endanger the chances for sustainable peace in Angola. The U.S. is not being asked to commit troops, and the Angolan government has pledged to pay $65 million, a substantial share of the costs of the UN operation. The rapid deployment of peacekeepers is essential to alleviate continued insecurity in Angola and avoid resurgence of war.**
The projected U.S. financial obligation for the UNAVEM III operation is $100 million, as compared with an estimated $240 million of covert U.S. expenditures on military subsidies for Unita from 1986 through 1992. U.S. oil companies have approximately $5 billion of investments in Angola.
BACKGROUND
The war in Angola resumed in late 1992 when Unita leader Jonas Savimbi refused to accept his election defeat by President Jos, Eduardo dos Santos of the incumbent MPLA. An estimated 1,000 people a day were dying from war- related causes in 1993; despite somewhat reduced levels of conflict in 1994, casualties were still high. Even in the capital Luanda, which did not come under direct attack, the swollen population of over two million is afflicted by water shortages, cholera and rampant inflation leaving hundreds of thousands on the edge of survival.
Over two million of Angola's eleven million people are dependent on international relief for survival. Fighting continued in some areas after the November 22 cease-fire. Scattered incidents still threaten to touch off new larger confrontations and make delivery of relief supplies precarious. Cereal production was down in both 1993 and 1994. UN and non-governmental relief supplies are now reaching most sites in the interior, but food supplies are barely sufficient to avert starvation. Clothes, blankets, medicines are all in short supply.
If the peace treaty holds, the World Food Program estimates, the number of Angolans needing food aid could be cut to only 1.2 million people. If it does not, farmers will not be able to plant and the food situation will again worsen. Over eight million mines litter the countryside. There are new plans underway to step up mine clearing. But even with peace it will be a long process.
Angola had a brief interlude of peace, beginning in May 1991, when the Angolan government and Unita signed a first peace agreement providing for demobilization of the two armies and multi-party elections. Elections held in September 1992 were judged free and fair by international observers. The MPLA won 54% of the legislative seats, as compared with 34% for Unita. President dos Santos fell just short of 50% in the presidential race, compared with 40% for Unita leader Savimbi. Savimbi refused to accept the results, choosing instead to return to war. Unita launched a series of offensives around the country in October 1992, benefitting from the fact that it had systematically violated the peace agreement by not demobilizing its troops. It relied on diamonds smuggled from northeastern Angola to pay for supplies brought in through Zaire or from South Africa.
The international community was slow to respond. In May 1993, the United States finally recognized the Angolan government, and in September the UN Security Council imposed an oil and fuel embargo on Unita. New peace talks began in Lusaka in November 1993. A year later, after many delays, they resulted in a new peace treaty, with agreement on procedures for troop demobilization, a second round of presidential elections, and a specified share of ministries and provincial governorships for Unita.
In the months preceding the cease-fire, the Angolan government army made significant advances, while Unita's access to outside arms declined after installation of the newly elected government of South Africa in May. Unita headquarters city Huambo was taken just before the cease- fire went into effect in late November. Significant but reduced military confrontations continued after the cease-fire. Since an early January meeting between chiefs of staff of the government and Unita armies, only minor incidents have been reported.
The establishment of security through full implementation of the peace process is an essential prerequisite for the Angolan government and emerging civil society to address the multiple problems facing their country (see attached memo from the Media Institute of Southern Africa for one illustration).
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
In a letter to President Clinton last November, a bipartisan group of Members of Congress, including Republican Rep. Benjamin Gilman and Senator Jesse Helms, urged U.S. support for mobilizing and deploying UN peacekeepers in Angola. Legislation introduced by the Republicans in January, however, would impose strict limits on U.S. funding for U.S. peacekeeping across the board. Both the administration and key legislators need to hear that there is support for an expanded UN presence in Angola, and that the U.S. should pay its share.
Write: Anthony Lake National Security Advisor The White House Washington, DC 20500 Fax: 202-456-2883 Senator Jesse Helms Chair, Foreign Relations Committee, U.S. Senate Washington, DC 20510 Phone: 202-224-6342 Fax: 202-224-7588 Rep. Benjamin Gilman, Chair, International Relations Committee, U. S. House Washington, DC 20515 Phone: 202-225-3776 Fax: 202-225-2541 Send copies or similar letters to: Senator Nancy Kassebaum Chair, Africa Subcommittee U.S. Senate Washington, DC 20510 Phone: 202-224-4774 Fax: 202-224-3514 Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Chair, Africa Subcommittee U.S. House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 Phone: 202-225-3931 Fax: 202-225-5620 Sorry, no email addresses available for these Members of Congress.**************************************
Media Institute of Southern Africa
Communique, January 19, 1995
ANGOLAN JOURNALIST MURDERED
Ricardo De Mello, Director of the privately-owned daily newsletter "ImparcialFax", has been gunned down by an unidentified assassin outside his home. De Mello, 38, was shot in the early hours of Wednesday (January 18) on the stairs leading to his apartment in the capital Luanda. His body was discovered at about 06:00 by a child, who alerted the editor's wife, Arminda Mateus, who also writes for ImpacialFax.
Mateus said money and identification papers were still in her husband's pockets when she found his corpse. "It's clear it (De Mello's murder) was a political crime," says Mateus. "We have been persecuted all the time...even myself and our son have been threatened. The military people warned us yesterday (Tuesday January 17) that my husband had to stop publishing stories concerning them and the war. Those in Government circles have considered us a threat because of our (ImpacialFax's) independent editorial approach."
De Mello launched ImparcialFax - a news bulletin published five times a week and distributed via fax to subscribers - in February 1994, and the publication soon earned a reputation for running stories which few others dared to published in the all-pervading atmosphere of censorship and fear which has increasingly enveloped the Angolan media during 20 years of civil war.
Although De Mello was well-connected with the ruling MPLA, ImparcialFax's journalism made him unpopular with hard liners within the party, the police and military in particular. On September 20 1994, ImparcialFax reporter Mariano Costa was arrested at Luanda airport by government security agents and detained for 28 hours without charge, during which time the journalist was interrogated about stories he had written about the UNITA rebel movement. Pressure on De Mello and his staff increased the following month after ImparcialFax published details of secret military documents outlining an army psychological warfare campaign.
According to MISA's representative in Angola, Wednesday's edition of ImparcialFax said in a short, front-page editorial: "The truth can't die. The murder of Ricardo De Mello is a death of the (Angola's) new-born democracy". -- David Lush Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Private Bag 13386, Windhoek, Namibia e-mail: dlush@misa.alt.na Tel. +264 61 232975 Fax. +264 61 248016
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Translated excerpts from article in government-owned Jornal de Angola, Jan. 19, 1995
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INDIGNATION AND CONSTERNATION
The Angolan Ministry of Social Communications "vigorously" condemned the assassination of director Ricardo de Mello. It was with profound sorrow that we learned of the death of the director of Imparcial Fax, Ricardo de Mello. "An act that we vigorously condemn" said Minister Hendrick Vaal Neto.
In a communication, the Minister "requested that the appropriate authorities pursue the investigation with all the clarity and rigor that they can muster.
The secretary of the MPLA [majority party in the government] also joined the movement of solidarity and consternation. A communication released last night by the MPLA said that "in spite of not agreeing with the editorial line of this publication, one could not be alien to what happened to undermine the climate of peace". The MPLA insisted "that the appropriate authorities must assume the serious responsibility of investigating, discovering and punishing the true authors of this action, so that this can not serve to encourage the continuation of instability." The identical position was expressed by the directorate of Agency Angola Press-ANGOP.
The Syndicate of Angolan Journalists (SJA) and the Union of Journalists (UJA) equally expressed their repulsion. The SJA said that "the crime occurred in the wake of threats, psychological pressure and aggression against journalists that have rejected with dignity, to serve as simple sounding boards of the established powers". The UJA on its side, stated " a rapid and transparent judicial enquiry should be pursued to appoint the civil and criminal blame on the authors of the crime." The directorate of the Radio as well manifests its revulsion and grief. The Angolan Association of Human Rights, as well moved by the barbarous act, " called upon the civic and moral consciences of Angolan Parliamentarians to aside from the political investigation open an parliamentary investigation into the real circumstances in which the assassination occurred, with the objective of reestablishing the conditions which guarantee the exercising of freedom of the press in the country".
The collective of "Jornal de Angola" is profoundly shocked by the barbarity, and manifests its revulsion and presents condolences to the bereaved family.
The FpD (political party) said "without any doubt this terrible act, is a selective political crime designed by persons of the prevailing institutionalized prepotency"....
On its part, the Angolan Socialist Party (PSA) expressed "profound consternation and revulsion" on the violent death of the director of the journal "Impartial Fax" and appeals to the National Police for an "honest, transparent and thorough inquiry". "Those responsible, are judged by the people and by history", underlined the document, and further put forward that Ricardo Mello was an "illustrious democrat and tireless campaigner".
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This material is made available by the Washington Office on Africa (WOA) and the Africa Policy Information Center (APIC). WOA is a not-for-profit church, trade union and civil rights group supported organization that works with Congress on Africa-related legislation. APIC is WOA's educational affiliate.
To receive basic information with a list of publications send a blank email message to woa-info@igc.apc.org. [Note: Do *not* use the "reply" function in your mail program, which will send your message to woa@igc.apc.org. The address for an automatic response is *not* the same as for other substantive messages, which should be sent to woa@igc.apc.org. Please be patient on responses to other queries.]
For additional information: Washington Office on Africa 110 Maryland Ave. NE, #112 Washington, DC 20002. Phone: 202-546-7961. Fax: 202-546-1545. Email: woa@igc.apc.org. ******************************************************* Message-Id: [199502020204.SAA18704@mail.igc.apc.org] From: "Washington Office on Africa" [woa@igc.apc.org] Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 20:55:09 +0000 Subject: Action Alert on Angola Peacekeeping
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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