Civil society participation in peace-building in Angola

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Angolan civil society is growing slowly but surely. As Gaspar Domingos pointed out at the beginning: "There are now some local initiatives of associations, churches and NGOs that have developed recently, this is a very new experience in Angola." Fernando Pacheco concurred: "The (civil society) movement is still weak but it is stronger than it was some years ago. It used to be very abstract, something in the capital, but now it is becoming more concrete and it is taking place in the provinces and in the communities. On the level of the NGO movement and the movement of churches we see that there are many concrete actions and a high level of conscience about a culture of peace. In at least six provinces there are informal networks that discuss this question."

Pacheco also pointed out that this concurs with the way in which the state is organised: "As long as there is centralisation of the social, economic and political life in the capital, there is a necessary movement towards decentralisation into the periphery. This means that there is some very interesting work being done on the level of the provinces and interesting work is possible with the communities. (I could add that from the side of the government there is centralisation, but decentralisation from Luanda to the provinces is coming from the NGOs.) I believe that we should focus much more on that community level for our peace process in order to have sustainable peace. This does not mean that we should abandon working at a macro level, at a national level, but in my view we should give priority to the work at the grass-root level." Some members of civil society in Angola even go as far as to think that peace will not come from the capital.

Role

Given the modest growth of Angolan civil society, the legitimate question arises as to what it can actually do: how can it be involved in the peace process? There was also a question raised about possible civil society activities or organisations operating in the UNITA-controlled zones; Pacheco's remark to the effect that he was not sure who would check possible UNITA re-armament following a cease-fire appeared to indicate that the problems civil society would face in UNITA-controlled zones would in all probability resemble those faced by civil society actors in the government-controlled areas.

The same speaker issued a caveat regarding expectation: "I think it is very important that we do not have very high expectations of what civil society could do because it is still very weak. Civil society should be involved together with other partners, together with the international community (but) they should not be the main players in this process because they do not have the capacity."

Civil society could (and indeed does) play an important role in bringing about what is termed 'a culture of peace'. Domingos: "If civil society is invited to make war, they can also make peace. In Angola there are two problems, one of them is a military problem, namely the fact that there are two armies, and the other thing is that people are looking for peace. We need a culture of peace where everybody is included. Government has the responsibility to protect the people – and it should not accept other armed groups such as UNITA – but it should accept that other people, also UNITA, give their opinion on the peace process and the negotiations." These are processes that in the first instance take place at very basic levels, for instance the family, as a participant from the UK pointed out: "We all know that soldiers come from families and that some of the contradictions in the peace process are to be found in families who face two truths: one is that their son is a soldier and earns a living, and the other is that they want peace. I think that if they could face the contradictions in their own community in their own families that then maybe a beginning of understanding of the real problems emerges at the basic level and can grow a will to chose peace rather than the option for war". Pacheco would agree: "I have personal experience in the province of Huambo, in the central high lands of Angola which is the heart of the conflict. And I asked the same question two years ago in several communities. They said 'we have ways to solve the problems, but you in the city you do not know about this.' The communities have those mechanisms to solve problems without interference from outside. There are also bulletins and newsletters in the provinces in communities that are used to strengthen this culture of peace."

Needless to say, the contribution of women is an integral part of this civil society effort. Domingos: "It is almost by nature that we work with women, generally the churches in the provinces have a lot of women active and they always take women into account when they develop their programs. Women can do their work very efficiently through the churches, there are movements of churches where the women have made very positive contributions to the peace process in Angola."

In the long tern, as a Delft University-based participant argued, it is vital for NGOs and other civil society actors to move away from immediate relief, since he pointed out that "it is the enemy of development", let alone sustainable development. In the long term, one should aim for sustainable settlement and towards giving people 'non-agricultural survival options'. "What we don't see in all the resettlement and rural development programmes are sustainable agricultural options that could give more employment. This is keeping people on the brink of poverty without any possibility to purchase other goods like education, health and so on". Pacheco had to add to this that the current financing format that international donors use effectively prevent him from doing long-term work: "If I have an emergency project I think I would get money in two or three days, but if I would come with projects, and I have them, to organise campaigns of civic education or a project for community radios, then they say: sorry, no money, because Angola is at war". Bob van der Winden had another suggestion for creatively expanding the definition of disaster relief a bit further: "Is there any project in place at the moment that is making it attractive for UNITA soldiers to leave the army and start another kind of life, other than going on robbing and murdering? We will have a new era of war lords if we do not prevent it at this moment. So I would suggest to use at least a big part of the disaster relief to tackle this problem."

Arms

Indeed, the immediate problem remains the existence of wide-spread violence in Angola, perpetuated by a continuing flow of arms into the country. Domingos saw a role here for international organisations: "The biggest problem that we have in Angola is the problem of arms. There are conflicts in all people but the conflict in Angola is extremely sharp because of the existence of enormous quantities of weapons, Angola does not produce weapons itself so the responsibility lies partly with the international community. Everybody thought that the agreement of Lusaka was going to work, that it would be a local solution, an internal solution, but the weapons kept pouring in". Exposing who is selling arms into Angola and who gains from the ongoing war, that is one of the jobs international NGOs can do, as was argued in Working Group C.

Media

To make the educational tasks of the various civil society actors more viable, the need for adequate information, both inside and outside Angola, was stressed time and again. Pacheco had this to say about it: "I want to (mention) the importance of good and credible information. I also think that it is important that the people in the interior have information that they can believe in. The problem now is that the people who write about Angola are very often strangers that come for a few days, they draw some quick conclusions and they transform that into an absolute truth. This has been a big problem. So they communicate a lot about the negative aspects of the country, but they do not try to mention the positive aspects that exist, the initiatives taken by the population and taken by civil society and other groups. Another aspect is the need to deepen the knowledge that we have about the society in Angola". Logistics are clearly a problem here. 'At the moment there are six independent weekly newspapers that jointly sell some 30.000 copies per week – in Luanda. They are not taken to other provinces because there is no communication, no transportation. On the other hand these media do not have the possibility to relate what is happening (how life is) in the provinces, in the interior. It could be interesting to link up the media and try to have them report about what is happening in the interior of the country'. One of the ways to do this is by using radio. "Local radio stations have much more importance than the newspapers. For example, Radio Ecclesia is very important in the construction of this culture of peace. This would be a very concrete answer to the question regarding the role of the North, what kind of support they could give. The could support the creation of local radio stations, provincial radio stations that could disseminate the kind of information needed. Because even in Luanda people do not know anything about the initiatives that are undertaken in the interior."