DATE=8/23/2000
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=WAR-TORN ANGOLA
NUMBER=5-46899
BYLINE=ED WARNER
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: The people of Angola have a way of summing up
conditions in their country: What a paradise it could
be. What a hell it is. They're referring to the sad
state of their nation after decades of war financed by
oil and diamonds that in peacetime could make Angola
prosperous. What can be done? V-O-A's Ed Warner
reports the views of a visiting parliamentarian from
Angola and an American professor with long experience
in the troubled African nation.
TEXT: Visitors to Angola are startled at the sight of
so many amputees -- people of all ages who have lost
hands, feet, arms and legs to the landmines that
infest the country and are still being laid as the war
drags on.
These people try to get on with their lives amid
poverty, squalor and the pervasive stench of raw
sewage. Almost everything they need has to be
imported, including drinking water. Life expectancy
is 42 years. One-third of Angolan children die before
the age of five.
That is the present, says Abel Chivukuvuku, a member
of Angola's parliament who is visiting Washington.
The future, he adds, can be different:
/// CHIVUKUVUKU ACT ///
This is also a country with tremendous
potential. Angola accounts today for about
seven per cent of the oil deliveries to the
United States. Angola is home to about five per
cent of the world's reserves of diamonds. There
are vast, fertile lands.
/// END ACT ///
Mr. Chivukuvuku says Angola could be one of the
richest nations on earth, if only the war could be
stopped. Its riches -- oil and diamonds -- are now
paying for the weapons that keep the war going.
This is a replay of past colonial wars for plunder,
says the London-based human rights organization,
Global Witness. The conflict began during the Cold
War between a Marxist government backed by the Soviet
Union and a rebel force, Unita, supported by the
United States. But ideology no longer matters in what
Gerald Bender calls a battle for power alone.
The leader of Unita, Jonas Savimbi, had near-hero
status in the Cold War, says Mr. Bender, professor of
international relations at the University of Southern
California. He was called charismatic so often, it
could have been his middle name. Today, Mr. Bender
says Mr. Savimbi is willing to destroy a country to
satisfy his ambition:
/// BENDER ACT ///
If you have spent 39 years of your life fighting
to gain power, it is unlikely at this late stage
in the game that you are going to decide it was
all for naught, and you are going to quit. I
think it is almost certain that Savimbi will
fight until he either has power or he dies. As
long as he is alive, the war will continue.
/// END ACT ///
Mr. Savimbi has broken off negotiations and refused to
abide by a 1992 election that he lost. Yet he is
hardly the sole cause of the conflict, says Mr.
Chivukuvuku. The blame is widely shared:
/// CHIVUKUVUKU ACT ///
There are people who have been saying that we
can reduce the conflict and the wars in Angola
exclusively to one person -- Jonas Savimbi -- as
if we could say the struggle is one person
against eleven million-nine-hundred-ninety-nine-
thousand and nine-hundred-ninety-nine
individuals. It could never happen.
/// END ACT ///
Some perspective is needed, says Mr. Chivukuvuku. The
Angolan government is not responsive to its suffering
people. Some 30 families, the ruling elite, live
comfortably, if not sumptuously in sealed compounds
amid the desolation of the capital, Luanda. Billions
of dollars in oil revenues each year has produced at
least one billionaire.
Mr. Chivukuvuku urges a safe, honorable retirement for
Mr. Savimbi and all the other senior participants in
the endless war. He says, let a new generation
dedicated to Angola's future take over:
/// CHIVUKUVUKU ACT ///
Hopefully, in Angola there is a striving grass-
roots movement made up of the churches, of
political parties, of individual personalities,
of civic organizations which have been fighting
to change that perspective and build a new
future. It is a kind of maturity of those that
believe that those who want war have had 25
years. Now it is our turn to determine our
destiny.
/// END ACT ///
What a destiny it can be, says Mr. Chivukuvuku, if the
Angolan people can begin to enjoy the wealth now
devoted to war. (signed)
NEB/EW/JP
23-Aug-2000 13:42 PM LOC (23-Aug-2000 1742 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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