Voices from the silence People’s narratives of their lives in Angola Report Released in April 2001 by Médecins Sans Frontières Document en provenance du site internet de Médecins Sans Frontières http://www.msf.fr Tous droits de reproduction et/ou de diffusion, totale ou partielle, sous quelque forme que ce soit, réservés pour tous pays, sauf autorisation préalable et écrite de l’auteur et/ou de Médecins Sans Frontières et/ou de la publication d’origine. Toute mise en réseau, même partielle, interdite. VOICES FROM THE SILENCE People’s Narratives of Their Lives in Angola A Testimony by Medecins Sans Frontieres to the Human Costs of the War Luanda, 12 April 2001 Table of Contents INTRODUCTION 3 OBSERVATIONS 4 CONCLUSION 5 USER’S GUIDE 6 I. MANIPULATION AND VICTIMIZATION OF PEOPLE 7 I.A. POPULATION CONTROL 7 I.A.1 PUNISHMENT FOR BETRAYAL 10 I.A.2 POLITICAL TARGETING TO CONTROL POPULATIONS 12 I.B. ENTRE DEUX FEUX 14 I.C. PHYSICAL AND MENTAL TRAUMA 21 I.C.1 GENERAL 21 I.C.2 VIOLENCE AND ABUSE OF THE POPULATION 26 I.C.3 GENDER VIOLENCE 32 I.C.4 INDISCRIMINATE SHELLING 34 I.D. FORCED LABOR AND BATIDAS 34 I.E. FORCED RECRUITMENT 37 I.F. TRAUMA TO THE FAMILY 38 II. FORCED DISPLACEMENT 40 II.A. GENERAL 40 II.B. IMMEDIATE FLIGHT - LEAVING ALL POSSESSIONS 43 II.C. DISPLACEMENT TO THE MATA: A ROUTINE FOR SURVIVAL 45 II.D. LIVES OF DISPLACEMENT 46 II.E. REFUGEE ISSUES 50 III. LIFE AFTER DISPLACEMENT (IN GOVERNMENT AREAS) 52 III.A. HEALTH AND PERSONS WITH HANDICAPS 53 III.B. LIFE IN THE CAMPS AND TRANSIT CENTERS 57 III.C. IDP AREAS BEYOND INTERNATIONAL ASSISTANCE 63 IV. MANIPULATION OF AID AND INAPPROPRIATE RESETTLEMENT 67 IV.A. PROBLEMS WITH AID 67 IV.B. FALSE PROMISES AND THE MANIPULATION OF AID TO MOVE PEOPLE 69 IV.C. RESETTLEMENT RISKS 73 V. LIFE UNDER UNITA 76 VI. GENERAL STORIES OF IDP LIFE 83 VII. PARTING COMMENTS 92 ANNEX 1: METHODOLOGY 94 ANNEX 2: QUESTIONNAIRES 95 MSF Internal Briefing Document: People’s Narratives 2 VOICES FROM THE SILENCE People’s Narratives of Their Lives in Angola Draft 23 April 2001 INTRODUCTION The health and humanitarian situation in Angola has seriously deteriorated since the resumption of the war in December 1998. Both governmental and UNITA forces have been responsible for an increasing disregard for human rights and international humanitarian law. Fighting between the Government forces and UNITA rebels has been accompanied by a dramatic rise in brutality, indiscriminate violence and deliberate targeting of civilians: killing, pillaging, rape, abduction, torture, indiscriminate shelling of cities, forced displacement and widespread laying of anti-personnel land mines have become common in this conflict. Due to the lack of humanitarian access and assistance in governmental areas, beyond very limited security perimeters surrounding major provincial towns, and the absence of access or assistance to Unita zones, these last 30 months have probably marked the most violent and depravation-filled times in people’s lives. According to estimates, the war has left one million dead since the early 90s and Angola now has more amputees per capita than any other country. Nearly 2.6 million Angolans have become internally displaced since the latest outbreak of violence iin Dec/98, bringing the total to almost a third of the population (3.8 million out of a population of 12 million, plus another 450,000 refugees, mainly living in neighbouring DRC and Zambia). Lack of assistance, land mines and insecurity have confined internally displaced persons (IDPs) to poorly serviced barrios of Luanda or to IDP sites near the main provincial capitals (Kuito, Huambo, Malange, Uige, etc.), where they are almost completely dependent on international humanitarian assistance. The humanitarian situation remains a complex emergency with high numbers of Angolans suffering from communicable diseases, malnutrition and violence/abuse. Perhaps the recent pronouncement of UNICEF sums up the situation better than statistics: Angola is the second-worst place on earth to be a child. In the face of such a desolate picture, Medecins Sans Frontieres released, in November 2000, its report on the humanitarian situation in Angola: Angola: Behind the Façade of Normalization – Manipulation, Violence, and Abandoned Populations. The bedrock of the report was MSF’s presence on the ground, in particular the hundreds of interviews MSF had conducted with its beneficiaries – parents at feeding centers, patients at health clinics, and members of their communities. In all, MSF has now talked privately with over 550 internally displaced persons (IDPs), in Huila, Huambo, Bie, and Malange provinces, in addition to Angolan refugees in Zambia and DRC. While there were some differences in focus between the interviews conducted in the different regions, the fundamental impetus for all of these interviews was to better understand the nature of and reasons for our interventions: the massive displacement of people over the past decade, especially since 1998. Why have millions of people fled their home areas? How did they arrive in this specific place? What sort of medical problems do they face? What have their lives been like? The basic method was to talk with and listen to the people directly. As their stories unfolded, as people told us about their lives and their reasons for fleeing to the security zones controlled by the government (the only areas where MSF is able to work since 1998), they revealed to us a world of ongoing, worsening misery and cynical manipulation: brutal violations and abuse, MSF Internal Briefing Document: People’s Narratives 3 gender violence, starvation, forced displacement, and, ultimately, despair. In some ways, we were caught off-guard. We wanted to talk about healthcare, displacement and life in the camps or transit centers. They needed to talk about much more. ‘’MSF has decided to make a limited release of these testimonies to interested parties. We feel compelled to bear witness in this pure form; to give voice to the people themselves, whose suffering in silence beyond the borders of our access is too often assumed but not comprehended. This document is not intended to present a complete representation of the situation in Angola. We have talked to our beneficiaries, people who almost by definition fled from Unita-controlled areas to zones of government control. We have not been able to talk with many people who chose to remain with Unita, or who fled to Unita for protection from FAA. It must also be remembered that many of the interviewees possessed no concept of a neutral humanitarian organization, but instead arrived from the mata to find us working in government zones, meaning that they may not have felt free to talk to us about government abuses. The result is an disparity of stories detailing abuse by Unita, with fewer stories concerning FAA or government abuses.1 It is important to understand that MSF’s aim was not to investigate incidents or establish the credibility of what individuals were telling us, but rather to listen compassionately, and to view the picture broadly. It is not that we doubt the truth of what we have been told, it is simply that we did not try and are therefore unable to confirm it. Our conclusions and our understanding of the situation, though, do not rely upon the report of one IDP, but from hearing the same accounts over and over again, in differents provinces and at different moments in time. OBSERVATIONS The point of this document is to give voice to the people; to let them tell their individual stories. In listening to and reviewing these stories, though, patterns begin to emerge that may not be apparent from just a partial sampling. MSF therefore notes some of our most important observations but limits itself to a few comments so as not to distort the voices of the people. [cites will be added to the below to highlight examples] 1. Generally speaking, MSF is shocked by the sustained high level of violence against civilians since roughly 1998, a violence completely unrelated to the pursuit of proper military objectives. Even before the war restarted, and long before Unita began to lose ground, civilians became the overwhelming targets of violence. • According to IDPs spanning all the areas in which interviews were conducted, there has been a change in the tactics and behavior of Unita since 1998, characterized by increases in the frequency and gravity of violence against civilians. The use of violence shifted from primarily a means of punishing individual transgressions to more a policy of population control through fear and collective punishment, and then, most recently, to the terrorizing and killing of civilians living on the governmental side through the use of indiscriminate violence. Violence became much more indiscriminate and routine – burning of villages, killing during raids, abductions mutilations – ushering in a reign of anxiety and fear. It also became more targeted, focusing (especially in 1998) on sobas, teachers, administrators and others linked to the government. • The tactics of FAA also changed, also becoming more violent towards the people since 1998. In particular, the people told us that FAA troops now regularly rape women, and that the violence associated with FAA batidas (a combination of pillaging and forced labour) has increased. 1 Evidence supports the view that Unita is responsible for a higher degree of violence against civilians than FAA , but the degree of this disparity was distorted by the demographics of our interviewing, making it appear even larger than it is. MSF Internal Briefing Document: People’s Narratives 4 2. Displacement to government areas is often not, as routinely explained, because of the war in the sense of people fleeing conflict.