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AC Vol 43 No 20 www.africa-confidential.com 11 October 2002 Vol 43 No 20 AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL CÔTE D’IVOIRE 3 ANGOLA Whose army? The rebels may be a rag-tag bunch Neutering UNITA of low-ranking soldiers, but they President Dos Santos’ ruling MPLA is glad of victory in the war have the support of local people in against UNITA but resists other kinds of change the territory they control, and they Eight months after the violent death of Jonas Malheiro Savimbi, the oil-financed élite of the ruling won valuable diplomatic points for cooperating with West African Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola is neutering his União Nacional para a Independência mediators. In contrast, President Total de Angola (AC Vol 43 Nos 8 & 12). The UNITA-Renovada splinter group, formed by Eugenio Gbagbo’s refusal to sign a Manuvakola in 1998 to rival Savimbi’s UNITA, was badly weakened when Manuvakola stepped down ceasefire and his anti-foreigner on 30 July. His successor, Jorge Alicerces Valentim, has a big mouth, little charisma and no real support. rhetoric are winning him no friends. The MPLA has put most other UNITA leaders into a gilded cage. Mainstream UNITA still has strong popular support, mainly but not entirely among the highland IMF/WORLD BANK 4 Ovimbundu people – although its interim leader, General Paulo Lukamba ‘Gato’, does not command the same fear-filled affection as his late predecessor. A party congress, possibly in mid-2003, will elect The terror factor a new leader. There is talk of links with smaller parties, including the northern, Bakongo-dominated, World Bank President James Frente Nacional para a Libertação de Angola, whose veteran chief, Holden Roberto, is old, tired and Wolfensohn firmly told rich country undermined both by state propaganda and by his aspiring successor, Lucas Ngonda. Another possible delegates at the Bank and Fund ally is the Partido do Renovação Social (PRS), strong in the north-eastern diamond regions. annual meetings that they need to Political alliances will not matter much until the elections, officially in late 2004, probably in 2005 or help poor countries because later. The only declared candidate of note is Vicente Pinto de Andrade, an intellectual from an poverty breeds terrorism. Put like that, the aid message may get established MPLA family and perhaps the stalking horse for another reformist MPLA man, Lopo through. Fortunato Ferreira do Nascimento, who has not yet declared, and has numerous enemies and not much presidential ambition. AFRICA/COTTON 5 Don’t forget Cabinda Cottoning on to the A different kind of small party is the Frente para a Libertação do Enclave de Cabinda, which fights for independence for the enclave that produces over 60 per cent of the country’s 930,000 barrels of oil per WTO day. FLEC’s bickering factions, held loosely together by a popular cause, stress that the fighting is far African cotton producers are from over in Angola – unless Cabinda is another country. It has won some attention by accusing the opposing US plans for fat subsidies Forças Armadas Angolanas of launching brutal new offensives in Cabinda. The MPLA, while fostering to cotton farmers and may bring a FLEC’s divisions and complaining of interference by shadowy ‘foreign circles’, maintains it cannot formal case at the WTO. negotiate until Cabinda provides a single interlocutor, so the conflict will continue. Washington is threatening to cut aid and debt relief but African The MPLA and its opponents come together in a 44-member parliamentary commission that is producers are organising – with supposed to produce a new constitution, to be voted on by parliament – where UNITA, with 70 seats, Brazilian support. could in theory combine with other opposition parties to deny the MPLA the necessary two-thirds majority in the 220-member house. The MPLA and UNITA broadly agree on a ‘semi-presidential’ SOUTH AFRICA 6 system; the MPLA wants a government run by the president, UNITA prefers leadership by a prime minister. The last premier, Marcolino Moco of the MPLA, held the job until it was abolished (probably Scrambling for Africa unlawfully) in January 1999, shortly after the collapse of the 1994 Lusaka peace protocol. The MPLA insists provincial governors should be appointed, not elected. With UNITA tranquillised, South African businesses are officials have been able to visit the provinces and see at first hand the awful consequences of inadequate hoping to be first in line for contracts if President Mbeki’s NePAD pays governors. In Bie, Luis Paulino dos Santos was sacked in April; in Malange, Flávio Fernandes was off. Telecoms, energy and sacked in July. transport companies are looking The MPLA’s main aim is to keep tight control of politics and to keep UNITA down. It promotes Jorge to move into new markets where Valentim, the UNITA spoiler, in the news, subtly indicating that he has a chance of eventually leading their services are badly needed. the party, along with Gato, Isaías Henrique Ngola Samakuva (Paris-based representative) and Abel Epalanga Chivukuvuku, parliamentary affairs chief in Gato’s Politburo. In fact, Valentim is a non- POINTERS 8 starter. Other senior UNITA people include Jerónimo Wanga, new head of its parliamentary caucus, and Jaka Jamba, Deputy President of parliament. Morocco, Zimbabwe, Chivukuvuku is urbane, charismatic and well liked by Westerners but has a skimpy party following. France/Angola & Samakuva, widely respected and a man to watch, is unwilling to come to Luanda, reportedly afraid for his personal safety. Wanga is soft-spoken, thoughtful and appears timid. Jamba is more of an ideologue USA/Africa than a leader. Manuvakola is out of the picture. Senior members of UNITA’s external wing, nominated by Savimbi, include Adalberto da Costa 11 October 2002 Africa Confidential Vol 43 No 20 Clinging to the cash box For once, donor money may influence Angola’s oil-rich leaders. At present, signs that the United States, despite its growing interest in African oil and the country receives humanitarian funds, channeled through the United its oil presence in Cabinda, is urging the IMF to go easy on Angola. Nations and collected through a consolidated appeal. For 2002, the first Signs of transparency have emerged, such as a new Finance Ministry target was US$234 million, later revised upwards to $292 mn.; less than half website with well ordered information on government finances. There is no of that had been pledged by the end of September. The UN Coordinator, Eric matching frankness, though, about the size and nature of state expenditure. de Mul, says Angola itself must share ‘a greater part of the burden’ in the A ‘diagnostic study’ being developed to model oil revenues could have 2003 appeal, to be launched in mid-November. helped track real revenues but it is bogged down and the international With the fighting essentially over, Angola wants to be treated as a accountants KPMG, which are helping design it, haven’t been paid. ‘normal’ developing country, through a donor conference. (The last one, in Western organisations (including London-based Global Witness, which 1995, pledged around $1 billion). Emergency aid is administered by UN launched the ‘blood diamonds’ campaign) have launched a campaign to agencies and non-governmental organisations, while funds pledged at donor make mining and oil companies publish what they pay to governments such conferences flow directly to the recipient government – in other words, as Angola’s. The idea is to make frankness about such payments a Angola’s rulers can get their hands on cash received as ‘normal’ development requirement for listing on rich-world stock exchanges. The MPLA’s assistance. Signs of abnormality, such as the involvement in domestic Information Secretary, Norberto dos Santos ‘Kwata Kanawa’, recently politics of the UN Mission in Angola (Luanda would prefer just a bland UN denounced a ‘campaign of defamation against Angola by a north American Development Programme without political complications), the Cabinda multi-millionaire of Hungarian descent’. His target was the immensely insurgency and noisy external allegations of corruption, are deeply unwelcome rich good-governance campaigner George Soros, who backs Global Witness to the ruling Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola. and whose Open Society Foundation’s head in Angola is Rafael Marques, A donor conference could not be arranged before 2003 at the earliest, after a vociferous and much harassed critic of the MPLA. Angola has been through a staff-monitored programme by the International Angolan diplomats are working to scupper the campaign. Their efforts Monetary Fund to show it can manage donor funds properly. Misplaced are being helped, whether intentionally or not, by the fact that the oil giants optimism, then bitter disappointment, has long characterised the Angola- ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco are lobbying for a voluntary, instead of a IMF relationship. Luanda hopes the Fund will ease the strict conditions its mandatory, approach to publishing what resource-extraction companies pay programmes involve. There is absolutely no chance of that and there are no to foreign governments. That could allow the old mischief to continue. Junior (Rome), Colonel Domingos Jardo Muekalia (Washington) were formally extinguished on 2 August. The favour may be intended Carlos Morgado and Isaac Wambembe (Lisbon), Ernesto Mulato to turn UNITA soldiers against their commanders – the troops are (Lomé), Azevedo Kanganje (Brussels), João Vahekeny (Geneva). languishing obediently and surprisingly peacefully in horrible camps. Some have visited Luanda since Savimbi’s death, others don’t want to UNITA’s situation got worse when, on 24 September, the United or can’t afford to. (The MPLA claims they should dip into the huge States extended sanctions against it for another year. US Ambassador diamond stockpile amassed by Savimbi but the pile is still buried.) Chris Dell, who is concerned about the plight of ordinary Angolans, Under Gato, UNITA has also reached out to veteran members expelled is privately embarrassed and publicly explains the move as just an by Savimbi such as Fatima Roque, Norberto de Castro and Honório administrative roll-over.
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