1990s in Angola

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In the 1990s in Angola, the last decade of the

National Assembly passed law 12/91 in May 1991, coinciding with the withdrawal of the last Cuban troops, defining Angola as a "democratic state based on the rule of law" with a multi-party system.[3]

Observers met such changes with skepticism. American journalist Karl Maier wrote, "In the new Angola, ideology is being replaced by the bottom line, as security and selling expertise in weaponry have become a very profitable business.[4] Michael Johns, The Heritage Foundation's primary Reagan Doctrine advocate and a key Savimbi advisor, described the Soviet Union and Cuba's diplomatic initiatives as "a perilous moment" and urged the U.S. to maintain military pressure on Angola's government through escalated support to UNITA in an effort to ensure the withdrawal of Soviet and Cuban troops and the establishment of free and fair elections.[5]

Savimbi wounded in combat

U.S.-supported UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi.

In early 1990, the MPLA sought to overrun UNITA militarily in southern Angola in several major military offensives, coordinated with Soviet and Cuban troops and military advisors. While UNITA ultimately repelled the offensives, Savimbi sustained bullet wounds twice in battles in January and February 1990, though they did not restrict his mobility

new thinking" in Moscow's foreign policy. The Heritage Foundation's Michael Johns wrote that, "If there is 'new thinking' in Soviet foreign policy and if Gorbachev is, as he claims, very different from Leonid Brezhnev, then Moscow will call off the Angolan offensive. If not, then Gorbachev's 'new thinking' will fail its first regional test, forcing America to reconsider its new relaxed attitude toward the Soviet Union."[7]

Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly

Main article: Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly

As Washington's role in the Angolan conflict grew, Savimbi retained Black, Manafort, Stone, and Kelly, an influential lobbying firm based in Washington, D.C., paying the firm US$5 million for government and public relations support on UNITA's behalf. Savimbi reaped huge rewards.[8]

Senators Larry Smith and

Charlie Black, a partner in the firm, said, "Now when you're in a war, trying to manage a war, when the enemy... is no more than a couple of hours away from you at any given time, you might not run your territory according to New Hampshire town meeting rules."[8]

In December 1990, Savimbi returned to Washington, D.C., meeting with President George H. W. Bush and several of his key American advisors,[2] the fourth of five trips he made to the United States.

Bicesse Accords

Main articles:
Halloween Massacre (Angola)

President dos Santos met with Savimbi in

UNAVEM II mission with a presidential election in a year. The agreement attempted to demobilize the 152,000 active fighters and integrate the remaining government troops and UNITA rebels into a 50,000-strong Angolan Armed Forces (FAA). The FAA would consist of a national army with 40,000 troops, navy with 6,000, and air force with 4,000.[10] While UNITA largely did not disarm, the FAA complied with the accord and demobilized about half of its forces, leaving the government disadvantaged.[11]

Angola held the first round of its

Halloween Massacre. Civilians, using guns they had received from police a few days earlier, conducted house-by-house raids with the Rapid Intervention Police, killing and detaining hundreds of UNITA supporters. The government took civilians in trucks to the Camama cemetery and Morro da Luz ravine, shot them, and buried them in mass graves. On November 2, assailants attacked Chitunda's convoy, pulling him from his car and shooting him and two others dead. Confiscated by the Angolan military, the three bodies were never seen again.[13]

Savimbi and UNITA return to war

Following the Chitunda killing, Savimbi questioned the legitimacy of the general election, announced that he was withdrawing from the run-off election, and led UNITA to war, scoring major military successes in 1993. On April 13, 1993, The New York Times reported that, "Nearly six months after the elections that were supposed to cement the peace in Angola, the rebel leader who lost in the vote has resumed the civil war and scored such enormous advances that there is talk he might engineer an outright military victory."[14]

UNITA regained control over

Executive Order 12865 on September 23, labeling UNITA a "continuing threat to the foreign policy objectives of the U.S.".[17] By August 1993, UNITA had gained control over 70% of Angola, but the government's military successes in 1994 forced UNITA to sue for peace. By November 1994, the government had taken control of 60% of the country. Savimbi called the situation UNITA's "deepest crisis" since its creation.[4][18][19]

Lusaka Protocol

Main article: Lusaka Protocol

Savimbi, unwilling to personally sign an accord, had former UNITA Secretary General

balance of power, led to the protocol's collapse.[19]

Arms monitoring

In January 1995,

FROG-7 scuds and three FOX 7 missiles from the North Korean government in 1999.[25]

The UN extended its mandate on February 8, 1996. In March, Savimbi and dos Santos formally agreed to form a coalition government.[21] The government deported 2,000 West African and Lebanese Angolans in Operation Cancer Two, in August 1996, on the grounds that dangerous minorities were responsible for the rising crime rate.[26] In 1996 the Angolan government bought military equipment from India, two Mil Mi-24 attack helicopters and three Sukhoi Su-17 from Kazakhstan in December, and helicopters from Slovakia in March.[24]

The international community helped install a Government of Unity and National Reconciliation in April 1997, but UNITA did not allow the regional MPLA government to take up residence in 60 cities. The

UN Security Council voted on August 28, 1997, to impose sanctions on UNITA through Resolution 1127, prohibiting UNITA leaders from traveling abroad, closing UNITA's embassies abroad, and making UNITA-controlled areas a no-fly zone. The Security Council expanded the sanctions through Resolution 1173 on June 12, 1998, requiring government certification for the purchase of Angolan diamonds and freezing UNITA's bank accounts.[15]

The UN spent $1.6 billion from 1994 to 1998 in maintaining a peacekeeping force.

UNITA Renovada, a breakaway militant group. Thousands more deserted UNITA in 1999 and 2000.[15]

The Angolan military launched

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to update the Security Council to the situation in Angola every three months. Dos Santos offered an amnesty to UNITA militants on November 11. By December, Chief of Staff General João de Matos said the Angolan Armed Forces had destroyed 80% of UNITA's militant wing and captured 15,000 tons of military equipment.[15][27][28] Following the dissolution of the coalition government, Savimbi retreated to his historical base in Moxico and prepared for battle.[29]

Diamonds

Main articles:
Blood diamonds § Angola, and Economy of Angola

UNITA's success in mining diamonds and selling them abroad at an inflated price allowed the war to continue even as the movement's support in the Western world and among the local populace withered away. De Beers and Endiama, a state-owned diamond-mining monopoly, signed a contract allowing De Beers to handle Angola's diamond exportation in 1990.[30] According to the United Nation's Fowler Report, Joe De Deker, a former stockholder in De Beers, worked with the government of Zaire to supply military equipment to UNITA from 1993 to 1997. De Deker's brother, Ronnie, allegedly flew from South Africa to Angola, directing weapons originating in Eastern Europe. In return, UNITA gave Ronnie bushels of diamonds worth US$6 million. De Deker sent the diamonds to De Beer's buying office in Antwerp, Belgium. De Beers openly acknowledges spending $500 million on legal and illegal Angolan diamonds in 1992 alone. The United Nations estimates Angolans made between three and four billion dollars through the diamond trade between 1992 and 1998.[17][31] The UN also estimates that out of that sum, UNITA made at least $3.72 billion, or 93% of all diamond sales, despite international sanctions.[32]

Executive Outcomes (EO), a private military company which had fought on behalf of UNITA prior to the 1992 elections, switched sides after the election. EO played a major role in turning the tide for the MPLA with one U.S. defense expert calling the EO the "best fifty or sixty million dollars the Angolan government ever spent". Heritage Oil and Gas, and allegedly De Beers, hired EO to protect their operations in Angola.[33] Executive Outcomes trained 4,000 to 5,000 troops and 30 pilots in combat in camps in Lunda Sul, Cabo Ledo, and Dondo.[34]

Cabinda separatism

Cabindan rebels kidnapped and ransomed off foreign oil workers throughout the 1990s to in turn finance further attacks against the national government. FLEC militants stopped buses, forcing Chevron Oil workers out, and setting fire to the buses on March 27 and April 23, 1992. A large scale battle took place between FLEC and police in Malongo on May 14 in which 25 mortar rounds accidentally hit a nearby Chevron compound.

Armed Forces of Cabinda (FLEC-FAC), and the Democratic Front of Cabinda (FDC) in 1995. Patronage and bribery failed to assuage the anger of FLEC-R and FLEC-FAC and negotiations ended. In February 1997, FLEC-FAC kidnapped two Inwangsa SDN-timber company employees, killing one and releasing the other after receiving a US$400,000 ransom. FLEC-FLAC kidnapped 11 people in April 1998, nine Angolans and two Portuguese, released for a US$500,000 ransom. FLEC-R kidnapped five Byansol oil engineering employees, two Frenchman, two Portuguese, and an Angolan, on March, 1999. While militants released the Angolan, the government complicated the situation by promising the rebel leadership $12.5 million for the hostages. When António Bento Bembe, the President of FLEC-R, showed up, the Angolan army arrested him and his bodyguards. The Angolan army later forcibly freed the other hostages on July 7. By the end of the year the government had arrested the leadership of all three rebel organizations.[36]

See also

References

  1. ^ Chapman, Graham; Kathleen M. Baker (2003). The Changing Geography of Africa and the Middle East. p. 21.
  2. ^ a b Walker, John Frederick (2004). A Certain Curve of Horn: The Hundred-Year Quest for the Giant Sable Antelope of Angola. p. 190.
  3. ^ Hodges, Tony (2001). Angola. p. 11.
  4. ^
    ISBN 978-0-8133-3598-8
    .
  5. ^ ""Angola at the Crossroads," Heritage Foundation Executive Memorandum #210, November 17, 1988". Archived from the original on 2008-11-05. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
  6. ^ Alao (1994). p. XX.
  7. ^ "Angola: Testing Gorbachev's 'New Thinking', by Michael Johns, Heritage Foundation Executive Memorandum #259, February 5, 1990. Archived December 19, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ a b Steve Burkholder (1993). "On the town with Jonas Savimbi - huge U.S. lobbying expenditures by Angola". Common Cause Magazine. Retrieved 2007-11-11.
  9. ^ Calvo Ospina, Hernando (2002). Bacardi: The Hidden War. p. 46.
  10. ^ Wright, George (1997). The Destruction of a Nation: United States' Policy Towards Angola Since 1945. p. 159.
  11. ^ "All the President's Men". Global Witness. 2002. p. 11–12. Archived from the original on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 2007-09-20.
  12. ^ Rothchild (1997). Page 134.
  13. ^ a b James P. Lucier (April 29, 2002). "Chevron oil and the Savimbi problem". Insight on the News. Retrieved 2007-09-21.
  14. ^ "Angola Rebels Rebound, Within Reach of Victory," The New York Times, April 13, 1993.
  15. ^ a b c d Hodges (2004). Pages 15–16.
  16. ^ Kukkuk, Leon (2004). Letters to Gabriella: Angola's Last War for Peace, What the Un Did And Why. p. 462.
  17. ^ a b Roberts, Janine (2003). Glitter & Greed: The Secret World of the Diamond Empire. pp. 223–224.
  18. ^ a b c d Vines, Alex (1999). Angola Unravels: The Rise and Fall of the Lusaka Peace Process. Human Rights Watch.
  19. ^ a b c d Rothchild (1997). Pages 137–138.
  20. ^ a b c "Angola Unravels, XII. International Response". Human Rights Watch. 1999. Retrieved 2007-11-02.
  21. ^ a b c Stearns, Peter N.; Langer, William Leonard (2001). The Encyclopedia of World History: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Chronologically Arranged. p. 1065.
  22. ^ "Angolans Offer Rebel Leader a Top Post". The New York Times. June 18, 1995. Retrieved 2007-11-03.
  23. ^ "Angola Rebel to Join Foes". The New York Times. August 12, 1995. Retrieved 2007-11-03.
  24. ^ a b c Vines (1999). Pages 103–104.
  25. ^ Vines (1999). Page 106.
  26. ^ "V. Undermining the Lusaka Peace Process". Human Rights Watch. 1999. Retrieved 2007-09-28.
  27. ^ Martin (2004). Page 141.
  28. ^ "Report of the Secretary General of the United Nations Observer Office in Angola (UNOA)". United Nations Observer Office in Angola via Global Security. 2000. Retrieved 2007-09-28.
  29. ^ Zacek, Jane Shapiro; Ilpyong J. Kim (1997). The Legacy of the Soviet Bloc. p. 254.
  30. ^ "Angola 'regrets' De Beers pullout". BBC News. 2001-05-31. Retrieved 2007-11-16.
  31. ^ Arms Project (1994). Angola: Arms Trade and Violations of the Laws of War Since the 1992 Elections: Sumário Em Portugués. Human Rights Watch. p. 3.
  32. ^ Arnold, Guy (2000). The New South Africa. pp. 131.
  33. ^ Gberie, Lansana (2005). A Dirty War in West Africa: The RUF and the Destruction of Sierra Leone. p. 93.
  34. ^ Arms Project (1994). Arms Project; Angola: Arms Trade and Violations of the Laws of War Since the 1992 Elections: Sumário Em Portugués. Human Rights Watch. p. 31.
  35. ^ Significant Incidents of Political Violence Against Americans 1992. DIANE Publishing. p. 20.
  36. ^ Vines, Alex (1999). Angola Unravels: The Rise and Fall of the Lusaka Peace Process. Human Rights Watch (Organization). pp. 39–40.
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