- Introduction
Mr. W.R. Beelaerts van Blokland
Head of Southern Africa Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Hague
The title of the conference 'Angolan Reflections on Peace Building' held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Hague on 9 December 1999, emphasised the need to let Angolans talk about what they see as the best way to bring about peace in Angola. In the past, more than once, peace negotiations were held without any significant direct role or participation of Angolan civil society. As a result, the vast majority of the population were excluded from playing such a role. They were not part of the peace process and subsequently people did not 'own' or internalise the outcome of the negotiations of, for instance, the Lusaka Protocol. Now we have to face the fact, that it has not brought endurable peace. If there is one thing that our friends from Angola have tried to make clear to us at this conference, then it is the need to recognise that civil society should be involved and consulted when talking about peace building and reconciliation in Angola.
As such, the conference about the perspectives for peace building in Angola, gave an overwhelming quantity of inside information from experienced people involved with development and human rights issues on a daily basis. Angolan people, with a vision and with an impressive drive and motivation. Transparency and accountability are key words, which they often used at the conference. All this makes us, as part of the international community, aware of our responsibilities with regard to the situation in this potentially wealthy country. In Europe and North America we should be sensitive to the needs of the people in Angola and be aware about our own role and responsibilities. It is not just a matter of an internal conflict. We should therefore not look at short term emergency relief and humanitarian aid only – however very much needed – but also work on a long term basis to achieve sustainable peace, by maintaining and strengthening our support to civil society organisations in Angola and recognise the international dimension to conflicts in African countries such as Angola, the role of international trade, finance and investment.
The Angolan guests called upon us for support towards NGO's, churches, trade unions, the youth movement, the media and so forth. They also asked us to put Angola high on the international political agenda. As you know, the Dutch government, together with the Canadian government and our European partners, has consistently been trying to give priority to the situation in Angola in all its aspects, within the Security Council of the United Nations over the last number of years. We will continue doing so.
From our side we would like to encourage all organisations present at the conference to push through with initiatives to keep up the international attention for Angola. Therefore we would like to draw particular attention to one important recommendation which was proposed, the establishment of a joint independent North Atlantic initiative, to act as a centre of expertise on issues relating to Angola, monitoring relevant developments and to work together on areas such as information, research and action with the central objective to support the peace process in Angola. We therefore would like to call upon the organisers of the conference, the Netherlands institute for Southern Africa (NiZA) and the Interchurch Organisation for Development Co-operation (ICCO), and its supporters, to take further steps to help making international social responsibility in this context real.
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- Opening remarks
Mrs. Wieteke Beernink
Head Horn-Southern Africa and Middle East Department of ICCO
Ladies and Gentlemen,
On behalf of ICCO and NiZA, I would like to welcome you all to today's conference 'Angolan Reflections on Peace Building'.
And especially a warm welcome to our guests from Angola. We are honoured that you accepted our invitation to be here today to share your experiences of your struggle for peace in your country.
My visit to Angola two years ago made a profound impression on me: Angola, a country marked by decades of war. It shocked me to see so much destruction, so much misery, so many orphans, and such a lack of confidence in the future, so much suffering of the Angolan population. I wondered how it was possible that people managed to persevere and survive. Then, the answer came from a group of refugee women I met in Malanje. They taught me that survival is a matter of wanting to live. And that is only possible if you hope hard enough that one day things will be different, if you believe hard enough that it is worth struggling for peace.
Since my visit, the situation in Angola has deteriorated. Last year (1998), the military battle broke out once again. This signified an end to the Agreement of Lusaka. Millions of people are fleeing for their lives, an uncountable number of people are dying of starvation.
Throughout the course of this year, several initiatives for peace have been implemented by the Angolan civil society and the Church. In October (1999), the separate peace initiatives merged into the National Forum for Peace, which serves as a national platform of individuals and organisations. This is the first time during the decades of war that civil society has organised itself at a national level to form a peace movement.
ICCO and NiZA both agree that it is extremely important that the rest of the world contributes to the Angolan peace initiatives and to mobilise support for them. And this is why we decided to organise this conference. In addition, we have organised lobbying events in Brussels and the Netherlands. We are working in close association with colleague NGOs in Canada, the United States and Great Britain who are currently organising similar activities. Our joint goal is to place Angola on a higher position on the international political agenda, and here in the Netherlands, on a higher position on the political agenda and to raise public awareness. For this reason we are very pleased that quite a number of journalists are attending this conference.
We are very aware of the complexity of the Angolan situation where things are changing every day. It would be very naive to have too high expectations of the peace initiatives that are taken now by civil society. They won't have immediate results but can contribute to a sustainable peace in the future.
And that is why we believe it is important to support them.
We see it as a positive signal that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has made a contribution to today's conference by offering us this location and welcoming us as guests. And for this, we would like to express our thanks. We would also like to thank Novib and Cordaid for their financial support, making today possible.
So, finally, I would like to wish you all an enjoyable day and sincerely hope that the 'Angolan Reflections' will stimulate us to take action.
Thank you.
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- The role of civil society and the media in the current socio-political context in Angola and the role of ngo's in peace building
Mr. Fernando Pacheco
President of ADRA, an Angolan NGO
In order to save time I will move immediately to the subject that has brought us here, though first I would like to express my thanks to the organisers of this seminar.
I work for ADRA, an Angolan NGO with ten years of experience in the field of community development in the broad sense of the word; this means helping communities to find solutions to their material and non-material problems, on a social, economic, cultural and political level. We mainly work at the grass roots, because we believe that everything should start from there. This doesn't mean that we don't intervene on other levels. Maybe that's the reason that I am here today.
I won't speak on behalf of Angolan NGOs, only on behalf of ADRA. The fragility of civil society and of the Angolan NGOs in particular have not allowed a common view to emerge on these issues, especially because the NGOs are extremely heterogeneous in terms of culture, politics, ideology and religion. There is no such thing as an "NGO culture" in Angola. The movement is very new and greatly influenced by politics and the Angolan government, and by various external currents: religious (in its different forms), humanist, humanitarian, environmental, developmental, etc.
When people talk about Angola nowadays, they concentrate on what they consider to be its two great evils: the MPLA and its government and UNITA. It is also common to say that the situation won't improve until these two evils are exterminated. I don't agree. Whether you like them or not, MPLA and UNITA are more than political parties; they are two powerful socio-cultural movements that represent approximately 90% of Angolans and that are unavoidable at this moment in history.
These two strong powers are responsible of the two major perversions that afflict the country and Angolan society: the war and bad governance (as opposed to good governance). I will discuss these two perversions and try to describe the main features of the Angolan context, without which it is difficult to understand the themes that we will discuss during this seminar.
I will start with the war.
There are various reasons that explain why there has been such a long war in Angola. It is difficult to find a consensus about this question among Angolans. So my opinion is very debatable, but I still want to express it. Participants will have the opportunity to debate and express their own positions.
Until 1992, the causes of the civil war were considered to be: ideological differences, the Cold War, the exclusion of certain elites (and later the repression of those elites), poverty and the exclusion of important social groups.
Since 1992 other aspects have been cited:
- the question of "identities" (of which the ethno-linguistic or cultural identities are only a part) and their political manipulation;
- the existence of financial resources (especially oil and diamonds);
- poverty and the lack of job opportunities and personal perspectives, which makes it easy to recruit human resources (this largely explains why the Central Plateau continues to be the main theatre of war);
- the presence of lots of weapons, which stimulates the development of a culture of violence;
- the fact that this culture of violence and war goes back a long way (this century we had 40 years of peace which is not the same as saying that the war has been going on for almost 40 years);
- the fact that Angolans have learned to distrust each other and find it more difficult to negotiate, to establish peace or reach a consensus than to make war; and
- the existence of a generation of men whose whole way of life is war (pillaging is an important motivation for soldiers to go to the war). We have a culture of war instead of a culture of peace and democracy. This explains why the educational level of the soldiers is so low, because other young people "flee" the war – and not only the sons of the elites. This has convinced me that, even if the civil war came to an end, it is probable that armed gangs will emerge and continue to seriously destabilise the country.
But what was the objective of the last two phases of the war, or, if you prefer, of the two last wars? UNITA recently said that this war is happening because it is necessary to discuss the profound causes of the conflict. Jonas Savimbi said in his last interviews that UNITA is fighting so that all Angolans can be citizens. Does this justify a war? In my opinion - and I accept that this is very debatable, but I don't have another explanation – this war is happening because Jonas Savimbi wants to win power – which is not illegitimate – but he doesn't know how to do it without using violence. This is an opinion that I will leave with you for later discussion. It is necessary to help UNITA free itself from Jonas Savimbi, because with Jonas Savimbi UNITA will never be democratic, and without UNITA Angola won't be able to become a democracy. But the war also exists because MPLA/the government are not competent (and here I refer again to the lack of a democratic culture) to find other ways to isolate Jonas Savimbi other than by making war. Discussing with UNITA (even without Savimbi) without manipulating the talks, in an open and transparent way, with the involvement of civil society and the international community, would have been much more credible and would have been less expensive in terms of financial and, above all, human resources.
I believe that the best way to establish peace in Angola is to go back to the Lusaka Protocol. It wasn't the best of agreements, but it was what was possible. Its failure doesn't mean that we have to forget about it and try to establish a new abstract agreement. Such a strategy wouldn't be fruitful as we have already seen in other situations. We had never made such progress as when we signed the Lusaka Protocol. What exactly went wrong? In my opinion, three things:
- the complete demilitarisation of UNITA didn't happen;
- the areas under UNITA control were not handed over, and continued under UNITA control; and
- the government failed to implement a concrete reconciliation policy in the areas where its administration was restored.
All these things may be debatable. But what we can't afford is an abstract peace proposal that ignores everything that has happened. We have to analyse what went wrong and correct it without going back. Civil society has the right to demand to be present, but it cannot question the legitimacy of the government. Civil society is non-governmental, it shouldn't be against the government and has to understand that the complete bankruptcy of the Angolan state, in spite of all its deficiencies, would mean total chaos.
Now I will look at the question of governance.
Earlier, I said that the war also due to the incompetence of MPLA/the government and its lack of democratic culture. Someone said that the difficulties of the government in its struggle against UNITA were mainly due to a lack of organisation, incompetence and corruption, rather than to the capacities of UNITA. This seems to me to be an exaggeration, and it underestimates UNITA, but we have to consider the question of corruption carefully. Corruption has reached extremely worrying levels, it is undermining the whole society and it is right that many people say that it affects the government's capacity to conduct the war. What worries me most is the distance between leaders and the people and their problems, and the contempt shown by leaders for the people. And here, once again, the 'ethnic' argument falls down: the farmers and displaced people of Huambo and Bié are as excluded as those of Malanje or Uíje. The conduct of the government is making it increasingly unpopular.
Angola is living through a situation 'sui generis'. The 1992 Constitution guarantees broad democratic liberties for citizens, and it is very much appreciated that the government hasn't proclaimed martial law or a state of emergency because of the war. However, the war limits the exercise of these liberties and many people believe that it only serves as a pretext for a campaign of intimidation and repression against those people who try to denounce the wrongdoings of the government. And this is where the violation of human rights, which has to be denounced, fits in: abuses by the police, arbitrary imprisonment (the case of the UNITA deputies is ridiculous), limitations on constitutional guarantees.
It is within this framework that we should look at the situation of journalists and the media. It is logical that a state at war imposes restrictions on the flow of information. This wasn't done – another proof of incompetence – and there is no dialogue between the government and the privately owned media. On the contrary, there is a lot of tension between the two sides. Directors, editors and journalists are often summoned to "offer an explanation" about material in the newspapers and on the radio. Fifteen journalists are not allowed to leave the country because the police have started legal proceedings against them, not the court, as it should be.
The situation in the privately owned press should be understood as a reflection of Angolan civil society, and would have been unthinkable a few years ago. After the Ricardo Melo case, it was thought that there would be no space for the privately owned press in Angola. At that time, there were only two newspapers and four private radios. Now there are five weeklies and one two-weekly, with a total circulation of 30.000 copies and five private radio stations. We do have independent and pluralist political analysis, as well as denunciations of corruption and bad governance. These achievements can lead to important changes and the creation of space that, regretfully, is not used by the opposition political parties, which, with rare exceptions, are very incompetent.
However, we must understand that the media are still very weak. Their naivety and inexperience, their lack of professionalism and rigour all produce errors that make them vulnerable. On the other hand, the newspapers are almost exclusively limited to Luanda. There are private radio stations in only three provinces.
The role of civil society as a whole has increased, which is illustrated by three recent examples:
– The cycle of debates about ethics and corruption organised by the Angolan Lawyers' Association and the National Democratic Institute of the United States, which had a profound impact on society and the centres of power;
– The conflict between the pastoral communities of Gambos (Huíla) and a businessman who wanted to seize their land;
– The victory of the Huíla Teachers' Union against the Provincial Government, when the government tried to get the courts to condemn the union for an alleged illegal strike.
The increasing role of NGOs in the provinces is also interesting; it can be considered as an exception to the rule that all the institutions are concentrated in Luanda. They work mainly in the field of civic education and human rights, work that is barely visible but far reaching, with special attention for cultural groups, mainly theatre groups that start coming up.
The existing peace initiatives and dynamics emerge on the level of NGOs and base groups – although timidly. In this world – that involves some churches as well – the building of a culture of peace and democracy starts, an essential development for far reaching work.
A first conclusion is that Angola is no dictatorship as it is sometimes made to believe and that there is democratic space. It is true that this space is 'conditional', but it is possible to use it. Apart from the periods 74-75 and 91-92, we never had a similar space in this country and this means progress.
In the second place there is a beginning civil society, which can be an important potential for change when it grows. This must be valorised because this happens in a country where the references are negative. However we shouldn't think that civil society is 'an angels child' as opposed to the 'devils' represented by the politicians.
In the third place there is a state whose institutions have to be helped/strengthened/ improved in order to avoid a worsening of the situation (UNITA taking over power by means of force) or chaos. Civil society cannot survive without the state.
Civil society has the right to demand some political space and to participate. Politics are also made by civil society and are not the exclusive right of political parties. We cannot accept the idea that politics are only for politicians. The organisations of the civil society can and must have an important role in building a culture of democracy and peace.
Therefore civil society must try to increase it credibility among citizens in general and Angolan political actors in particular. That is the only way to become a voice of arbitration which has authority, without threatening the legitimate powers, and face the problems of peace, reconciliation, rebuilding and democracy from a mainly human point of view, not a political one, not a moral one, not a social one, but everything simultaneously.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Fernando Pacheo is director of 'Action for Rural and Enviromental Development' (ADRA), the largest Angolan national NGO.
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- Previous initiatives to bring peace to Angola, 'lessons learnt' and recommendations for the future
Rev. Daniel Ntoni Nzinga
I worked for the World Council of Churches from 1993 until 1994 as the international co-ordinator of the Ecumenical Monitoring Programme in South Africa (EMPSA) and from 1995 until 1997 as a consultant for International Affairs and co-ordinator in a special programme on Africa called "the reconstruction of Africa". The programme dealt with the problem of violence, especially political violence, in South Africa and other southern African countries such as Mozambique, Angola, and also Liberia and Sierra Leone. I left the World Council of Churches when the programme finished and the work was handed over to the countries where we were working.
I was asked to talk about the lessons provided by previous peace processes and to make some recommendations that could be useful in the future. First, I would like to share with you a definition of peace held by Angolans, and especially by the group I am representing here (the Angolan Group for Reflection on Peace, GARP). We don't define it simply as being prepared to live side by side; we don't define peace as the absence of armed conflict; and we don't define peace as simply silencing the weapons. Unfortunately, these three ideas have always been the foundations of the many agreements reached in Angola, these three ideas have, in one way or another, set the tone for the peace processes that have occurred.
In colonial times, there was peace on the basis of one of the definitions I mentioned just now. In colonial times, one of the rules of the game was that everybody had to live side by side. Angola, as a colonial state, was founded on this basis. People had to carry on living without looking at what was happening, without their consent, around them. As the previous speaker said, the country's identity was created on these terms. The peoples who formed the emerging Angolan nation did not choose to be Angolans but were forced to be Angolans at gunpoint. The lands that today are called Angola were not integrated into the Angolan state with the consent of the people, the people that lived there, this was done at gunpoint. People were forced to live together. And that's the way it has continued. We have an old saying in Kikongo, my language, and I'll share it with you: "Ye ntakudi a mbizi, ye ntubi a matadi mutu kavondi salu kiankweno". Two children went to the river. One went to fish and the other wanted to spend his time throwing stones into the water. They were children, and that's when you learn about living in society. Each did what they wanted; one of them continued to throw stones into the river without interfering with the fishing of his friend. Generally, our elders told us that it was impossible to avoid conflicts. Usually, whoever goes fishing is not only fishing for themselves, because for us in Africa, in my time, fishing was not a sport. We went fishing to get something to eat. All this about everybody living side by side presents this danger. As I already said, the agreements themselves created problems and, at this point, I will get back to commenting on the lessons to be learned and also on the causes of the problems.
In Angola, there is a national conflict. This is our position in GARP. This national conflict is a series of conflicts that were created throughout our history. The previous speaker mentioned the question of identity as one of those problems. Here, I just want to take the example of Cabinda. We have a problem with Cabinda that was not the doing of the post-independence State. As I already said, certain things have occurred that have made Angolans into what we are today. Often, when people talk about the war in Angola, either at a national level or at an international level, they don't include the armed confrontations in Cabinda as part of the problem. UNITA is not the only armed group fighting the Angolan government and if we're not careful, it won't be the last.
In addition to the problems created by colonialism, we have to recognise that we ourselves created our own problems after 11 November 1975, the date held to be the date of Angolan independence. We went to Alvor after the overthrow of the Fascist government in Portugal, after the Portuguese people accepted that the peoples of Africa deserved their independence, deserved to decide their own destinies. We went to Alvor divided, we Angolans, and we left Alvor even more divided. For me and for the Angolan Group for Reflection on Peace, this was a very important lesson. When we raise the issue of peace and development, we need unity, the unity of Angolans.
Then, in 1991, came the signature of what I would call the second peace agreement, at Bicesse. It is interesting because during the weekend which followed the signing of that agreement, I was here in the Netherlands, in Amsterdam, at a conference which I think was organised by the Eduardo Mondlane Foundation, to discuss what should happen in Angola after Bicesse. I am very sorry that I didn't have the ideas then that I have now; Bicesse only affirmed the rights of the most powerful, which was the same as what happened at the time of Angolan independence. Bicesse was an agreement negotiated and signed by those considered to be the most powerful. This is a lesson that we should take into account when thinking what direction we want to go in. Because, if you are going to accept such a principle, it makes the exclusion of others legitimate, it is the politics of exclusion. This did not help us achieve the peace that the country needed.
Later, there were elections, but these elections were decided by the number of bullets fired rather than the number of votes cast. I am talking about the 1992 elections, the first elections in the lives of all Angolans. Because in the 500 years that we lived with the Portuguese, there were never any elections. The people were never asked to give their consent to anything. The first time was in 1992. But as these elections were not well-prepared, the people themselves were not well-prepared for change. The haste to organise the elections made it easy for the political leaders to resort to bullets. It was a repeat performance of what took place in 1975, when independence was declared. Our independence did not come, as in other African countries, with a public declaration by the people, but in a hail of bullets.
Then there was Lusaka. Unfortunately, Lusaka did not learn the lessons of either Alvor or Bicesse. It ratified another important feature of the situation: the new elitism and the principle of "might is right". Only those bearing arms were represented at Lusaka. They were the only ones who were invited to sit around the table. As far as we were concerned, this could not result in change, because there had been no preparations for change. It could not change anything because the process itself, and here I am talking about the process as well as the results of Lusaka, condoned the principles of exclusion and "might is right". As the process was not inclusive, as the process did not take into account the lessons of the past, Lusaka was also a failure.
I would like to comment on the role played by the international community. The international community went along with this way of thinking and, in fact, it was the international community that directed the negotiations. If we are honest, we would have to say that it was the representative of the international community that drafted the agreement which we know as the Lusaka protocol. I would go so far as to say that the Lusaka protocol did not express the aspirations of the Angolans because they did not participate. The result was that the people did not feel any ownership of the peace process or results.
Another problem was that the people, as well as not participating in the negotiations, were not associated with the implementation of the agreement itself, and so there were violations of the agreement. For example, you have an area called Cazombo, a long way from Luanda. The Joint Commission that was implementing and monitoring the agreement was based in Luanda. It took a long time for information to get from Cazombo to Luanda. It took a long time for the joint commission to send investigators to the area and to verify the information it was receiving. By the time that particular investigation was completed, more violations had already occurred, because the population in that area was not party to the agreement
The final lesson that I wanted to mention has to do with what I call the war economy. The previous speaker talked about the wealth factor – Angola is a rich country in economic and even social terms. But in human terms, Angolans are very poor. The agreements that have been signed have made some people rich. You have all read reports about the Congo (DRC): money badly used even by the international community representatives in the country. Well, many Angolans are becoming rich. When I use the word many, I don't mean to say that most Angolans are becoming rich, it is a small elite that is getting rich.
In relation to this I should also mention the companies, especially the foreign companies, that are taking advantage of the organised disorder of the country today to get as much as they can from the country. Because the Angolan government and its institutions are incapable of properly monitoring or managing the activities of these companies. At the same time, because of the war, the Angolan government is constantly being forced to pass laws and adopt policies that favour these foreign companies, in a way they would not even expect in their countries of origin.
What does it all mean, what can we do? In the first place, I want to ask you all to work together in an international campaign for an immediate cease-fire in Angola. We can't do anything until the weapons have been silenced. I don't mean to say that silencing the weapons will necessarily mean peace, but I am saying that we must have an immediate cease-fire throughout the country. If you have read the peace manifesto that we published in July, you will know that this was the first point of that manifesto and it still is. We demand an immediate cease-fire and we call on the whole international community to join us in this demand. I said this two weeks ago in South Africa: during the struggle against apartheid, the whole world joined together to demand the end of racist oppression. We are calling on you to do this because we know that you can do this. We ask you to stand up and be counted along with us Angolans in demanding an immediate cease-fire.
Second, we want to see the initiation of conversations aimed at launching an inclusive peace process. An inclusive process in terms of what it covers, because the war in Angola is not the problem, the war is a symptom of the problem. We have got to talk about all these problems, some of which my colleague has already referred to.
Third, the war has created a tragedy in Angola. The very culture that is the main cause of war has resulted in a tragedy in Angola. We have millions of human beings who need immediate help. So in addition to the demand for an immediate cease-fire, we want assistance for the most needy victims. We know that the international community has the capacity to act when it wants to. We have seen what it did in Bosnia, Kosovo and other parts of Europe when crises and humanitarian disasters have occurred. There is a disaster taking place today in Angola. With tears in my eyes, I have to say I am sorry we have not received the same attention.
The fourth point is that for Angola to be able to transform itself from a war to a lasting peace, we need an organised civil society. Because of everything that has happened in our history, we have not found it easy to organise civil society. Now non-governmental organisations have begun to emerge, such as ADRA as represented by my colleague, and many others. The working groups that are being established in one way or another represent this expression of the will of the people to solve this crisis. Our society needs the support of the international community. We call upon the countries of Europe, the Netherlands where we are today, to not hide behind diplomatic rules and principles when we need you to support us, and to support Angolan civil society. It has to be strengthened, it has to be helped to organise itself, to work in a concerted fashion, because it is only then that we will be able to solve the crisis.
Finally, if we are going to build a peace process in Angola, we need to create peace. The English have a better way of putting it: "to have a peace process we need to create the process itself". What should be the role of the international community? The international community should help us first to create peace and only later send people to monitor the peace. There's no point having peace monitors where there is no peace. We do not need a group to come here and count the number of dead people, but we do need you to prevent the unnecessary deaths of Angolans.
My final recommendation: help us develop an authentic and credible peace agenda. These are the tasks that we decided to carry out and with your support we hope we will manage to bring peace to the country, especially as we approach the new millennium.
Thank you.
[non authorised text]
Rev. Daniel Ntoni Nzinga is co-ordinator of the Angolan Group for Reflection on Peace (GARP).
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- Questions and answers [1]
Joke Oranje: I would like to bring up the issue of education. From the various proposals that were made, it becomes clear that we are in a difficult situation, because while assisting the victims of war one could easily get the impression that it is not going to help because the war still is going on. Perhaps the direction of our emergency funds could be changed a bit towards more structural work on education, in particular on peace education. In the long run you will need a culture of peace to sustain peace. If, as is the current situation in Angola, only 30% of the children in Angola have access to education, I think that is a point that needs attention. I believe that even those who are investing in oil and diamonds could help by investing now in educational efforts, while the peace process goes on.
Angolan refugee in the Netherlands (name unknown): I would like to emphasise what the previous speaker just said about the situation of the new generation, of the children that have become orphans (by war). I have also seen many children here in the Netherlands without the responsibility of the parents and the Dutch government is not taking responsibility for the accommodation of the children to build a future for the new generation in Angola. This is a case that we should take very seriously.
The other issue that I wanted to raise is the foundation of peace in Angola. The foundation of peace in Angola needs to be created by us, with the help of foreigners. The foreigners should help the country, not only (just) help in the sense of looking for an economic objective, because the country as such is very, very ruined. I am not only speaking of financial help, because the country is so rich that all could enrich themselves. We need industry to be able to make a step, it needs international assistance, and not just to export the economy (to abroad) and the country as such not being assisted.
Henk Kieft (chairman): What I take from your intervention is that also the Dutch government is challenged in the Netherlands to support refugees from Angola in the Netherlands and to allow the possibility for them to go back and to contribute to the rebuilding of the Angolan society and the economy. I would like to invite the two organisers, ICCO and NiZA, after our Angolan speakers have given their reaction to your questions, to give their views on your proposal.
Daniel Ntoni Nzinga: I think that the idea that is brought up is very valid. To consolidate peace in Angola we need in this phase a large investment in the educational system, as well as in the health system. The Angolans that are dying are not just because bullets hit their bodies but many more die because of insufficient medical assistance, and as you know the majority that can still escape are in the cities where the living conditions are far worse at the moment. Ignorance is also a serious problem. We are sacrificing generations while destroying, or letting our educational system destroy itself. There is another problem that is related to this, which is the fact that only those that have the financial means manage to send their children abroad to study. This is a seed of new wars, we need to stop this process as soon as we can. Because I am sure that there will be sons and daughters that will ask "why did he reach this level and did I not succeed?". Thus the question of identity which my colleague raised will come back to us in a few years' time if we do not take measures now. All this will have to be part of a process of constructing peace in Angola.
Fernando Pacheco: I would at least say something where I differ from the intervention of the reverend. He refers in a slightly pessimistic way to the situation of education in Angola. I do not agree with this view. Because even if it is true that the educational system is well affected […] it is also true that there are many very interesting initiatives that are being realised […] by both national and foreign NGOs. I could even say that from a point of view of the development projects, those that have most substance are the projects in the field of education. I could give you various examples related to this aspect. ADRA for example, has a project that is directed at children and schools, which assists a thousand teachers to improve their work with the children.
Wieteke Beernink (ICCO): I would like to react to the second question regarding the attitude of the Dutch government towards giving support to Angolans who are refugees in the Netherlands and who want to return to their country. A few years ago the Dutch government started an initiative directed at giving support to refugees who wanted to return to their country of origin, and asked ICCO and other co-financing agencies to co-operate. At that time our stand was that it did not seem very realistic to support people to return to Angola while the war was still continuing. We realise that at this moment most refugees prefer to stay in Holland instead of going to a country which is in a complete state of war. As a result of the reaction of the co-financing agencies, the government realised that at this moment it is not realistic for Angolan refugees to return to their country of origin. As ICCO we say that it is much more important to look at the millions of internally displaced persons (IDP's) within the country and hundreds of thousands refugees within the region, we should focus on how those can be assisted first.
That deals with one part of your question, the other part of your question concerns the support of the Dutch to Angola itself. The Dutch government has decided to stop bilateral development co-operation with Angola completely, because of the war and because of bad-governance. Fortunately, the co-financing agencies such as ICCO and Novib, will continue, with funds provided by the Dutch government, to support projects in Angola. This support will especially be directed at NGOs and churches and we think it is very important to continue our support not only for emergency activities, but especially for programs that are directed towards working for sustainable development. We think that it is very important to contribute to building civil society by giving support to organisations, especially by providing organisational and institutional support.
Henk van den Heuvel (NiZA): I would like to add something to Wieteke's comments with regard to the refugee issue. Wieteke was referring to the project of giving incentives to Angolan refugees that are currently in the Netherlands to repatriate to their country by giving them support upon their return to Angola. That project has come to a halt. I would like to draw the attention to the refugees that come from Angola to the Netherlands in general. Even this year there was a big debate about the question whether or not refugees from Angola should get asylum in the Netherlands. NiZA is very worried about this, because in a broader perspective the mechanism that is in place to monitor the human rights violations in certain countries is not working very well. The Dutch government in its asylum procedure works with so-called "Ambtsberichten", which are reports of the embassies in the countries of origin of the asylum seekers about the situation in the country. The point is that there are quite a number of NGOs in Europe, among which Amnesty International who in particular has been very strong (vocal) about this, who try to make clear to the Dutch government that refugees should get asylum in the Netherlands.
Daniel Ntoni Nzinga: I would like to return to the point of education. As a Church pastor, I participated in the promotion of many school programs at the level of the country. Today, having an idea of the situation of my country as a whole, I consider many of the initiatives which are very good as islands, but I wish that these islands integrate themselves. I was speaking of Angolans with money who send their children to study abroad. This is a reality, also inside the country, today. Not very far from my house is a building, formerly a residence that has been transformed in less than two years into a very beautiful college, but my nephews who live nearby can not enter this school because their parents do not have the money.
What we need is a global process of education for all Angolans and that every Angolan child has the feeling that he is part of this society. Now, doing one thing in one place while the rest does not have access to it can not be the model. Here I refer to a process that is directed at responding to the needs of all. Not all have the money to pay 600 dollars to be admitted to university. It is only a small number of people that manage this. Neither do all have the money to register their children for school and pay 200 dollars. A person who earns 10 dollars per month has to pay 200 dollars to register his children, really: what is going on here?
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- Two accounts on civil society and peace building:
The role of the independent trade unions
Mrs Ana Conceição Pedro Garcia
Angolan trade union leader
My name is Ana Conceição Pedro Garcia. I am vice general secretary of the General Angolan Confederation of Independent and Free Trade Unions (CGSILA) and vice president of the Angolan Women's Peace and Development Movement.
The history of independent Angola could be described as a tangled inferno of bloody events which have destroyed its people, Angolan workers, the country's main productive resource. War is the hard, crude reality. And, to the frustration of all Angolan women, children and men, it's taking a long time to achieve a lasting peace. The war achieves nothing, builds nothing. It only brings death, poverty and oppression. Angolan men and women are prisoners in their own homes because of the war. They can't move around, or trade the goods they produce. The communications network has been completely destroyed. It is prohibited to use many roads and others have been destroyed. Because of the war, there is no national production; industry and agriculture are paralysed. There is no investment, there are no employment opportunities and work is precarious. Because of the war, there are displaced people, unemployment, social exclusion and marginalisation, egoism, plunder and corruption. Government institutions don't work properly and there are economic inequalities. Approximately 40 per cent of the urban population is below the poverty line and the situation is even worse in the rest of the country, where people are living in extreme poverty. Altogether, approximately 8 million Angolans are below the poverty line. This reality and the numbers involved leave no room for doubt nor indifference about the effects of the war.
The changes in international relations at the beginning of the 1990s affected the socio-economic and political situation in Angola, culminating with the installation of a democratic, multi-party system and trade union pluralism. It was necessary to adapt the Angolan trade union movement to the new international reality. This new historic phase in the country's history involved the implementation of a democratic and legal system, which permitted the existence of more than one trade union confederation. This new trade union confederation adheres to the principles and ideals of working together to achieve peace in the country through dialogue.
The CGSILA was founded on 18 July 1996 as a result of a split in the National Union of Angolan Workers (UNTA), linked to the MPLA and the only permitted trade union confederation at the time of the one party state. UNTA was an authentic trade union confederation, born during our country's liberation struggle. However, ideological differences and part of the membership's failure to understand and adapt to the changes that the country and the world were going through caused this split and the foundation of another confederation. This new confederation has eight national unions affiliated, which operate in 11 provinces of Angola. All are internationally affiliated to independent trade union federations and we have a coherent national and provincial structure. Our members in the provinces suffer repression because their unions are independent and free. Our representatives are simply trying to defend the interests of the workers. Of course, as social partners of the government, they should continue to participate in all development programmes within the limits established by labour and strike laws, and other regulations.
As an independent and free union, immediately after our confederation was established, we organised a strike in protest at the precarious situation of Angolan workers and to demand the rights that any worker in the world would expect to have. Our demands included the right for CGSILA to participate in national development, and to have a say in defining a national minimum wage, something that we still do not have in Angola. We also demanded a new general labour law because the current law is not appropriate for the new situation that the country is in. We also demanded the ratification of the principal conventions of the International Labour Organisation. We also demanded the implementation of the tripartite system and social consultation mechanisms that exist to regulate labour relations, in accordance with the tripartite principles established by the ILO. Furthermore, we demanded an end to attempts to stifle our unions' and our confederation's attempts to disseminate information. Although there is supposedly freedom of expression in the country, the independent unions are always prevented from informing the workers about the actions they are taking. In the current conditions in Angola, free trade unionism is only managing to develop through enormous sacrifices and willpower. Although the CGSILA and other trade unions are managing to establish themselves on the national and international scene, we are also experiencing enormous difficulties to maintain our work. Although the CGSILA is now recognised by the Angolan government, it is difficult to raise issues because the lack of resources makes it difficult to organise activities. The solidarity of the international free trade union movement is extremely important for the CGSILA because we know that there cannot be democracy in Angola without a real and lasting peace and without social inclusion. We also know that there can be no democracy in any country without the participation of the trade unions.
We in the CGSILA faced our first problems when we raised legal questions about the way our rights are not guaranteed. The government's first reaction was to confiscate the passports of the confederation's main leaders in an attempt to stop them maintaining contacts with other trade union confederations, especially in the West.
Since the CGSILA was founded, some affiliated unions have organised sector level strikes that were very embarrassing to the government but which were legal in the terms of the current strike law. Our demands were never met. One example of this is the government's failure to accede to our demand for a minimum wage. Wages are low in Angola; the lowest wage at the moment is no more than five dollars and even teachers only earn 20 million kwanzas, which is approximately 2.5 dollars.
ILO rules state that governments can subsidise trade union confederations. Unfortunately, the government does not respect our rights in this matter because it wants to weaken the independent trade union movement. The CGSILA is currently affiliated to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions which has its headquarters in Brussels. It is also affiliated to the Confederation of Trade Unions of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) and it is a member of the International Organisation against Torture. We are members of the latter organisation because of the psychological pressure suffered by leaders of the independent trade union movement in our country.
The ideals that have always guided the CGSILA are spreading. The defence of the workers, the consolidation of the unions and democratic trade unionism are increasing in importance and we need a lot of international support from our partners to maintain this. We believe that unions are as necessary today as they have always been. Because trade unionism's field of action is broadening all the time.
In any society, an action or event always has an effect in all areas and accentuates how closely related are politics, society, economics and finance. Therefore, to fight for only one point of view, fight for only one cause, and to see only one side of the question is not good enough, in fact, it is suicide. Especially because the modernisation of the economy is a very serious challenge. That is why we defend the need to achieve peace in Angola through dialogue.
We represent the most precious part of civil society; the workers, and the progress and wealth they generate. The unions are a social partner that should be involved in the harmonious development of the country. Nowadays, organisational changes at work resulting from economic and technological development are transforming society. Jobs for life and continuous work for the same company are becoming much rarer. But in all this process of change, some things never change, and workers' rights will continue to be our main concern.
Thank you.
[non authorised text]
Mrs. Ana Garcia is vice-chairperson of the Confederation of Independent and free Trade Unions (CGSILA).
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Two accounts on civil society and peace building:
The role of the churches and church based NGO's
Rev. Octávio Fernando
We would like to thank the organisers of this event, the speakers and all the participants who I am sure want to find a solution to the Angolan problem.
There is no doubt that these kinds of initiatives make us more globalised. The fact is that we need each other. After all, we are human beings and created in the image of God.
The problem of the African continent in general and of Angola in particular dates from 1885, when, in Berlin, the colonial powers decided and dictated the destiny of the African states without those states having a say.
Other factors involved were:
The anomalous form of administration that was applied exclusively in the colonies. The theological dualism applied by some missions.
The divorce of the bible from its context in order to move the Church away from the political process, referring to the word of Christ, which I quote: "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's". Our understanding is that it is up to God to define what is Caesar's and his place in society, and not Caesar who decides what is God's, because God is above Caesar.
Nevertheless it was the Church that in the past ran up the flag of freedom and convinced the Portuguese colonial administration to abandon violence and start a dialogue. The patriotic conscience, the love of life, the thirst for truth and the sense of prophetic responsibility call again for the social engagement of the Church.
Participation of the Church in the Peace Process
In this context the Angolan Church has been issuing statements, writing pastoral letters and trying to help the Angolan government find fair non-violent solutions.
At the micro and macro level of the Church's participation in the peace and reconciliation process, many activities are taking place such as:
– Seminars and workshops about:
– Human rights
– Civic education
– Conflict resolution and prevention
– Training of leaders and many other activities that encourage the development of a harmonious society
– Ecumenical summits, services and demonstrations within the framework of Jubilee 2000.
– An ecumenical group was founded consisting of the Episcopal Conference of Angola and São Tomé (CEAST), the Council of Christian Churches in Angola (CICA) and the Evangelical Alliance of Angola (AEA) in order to lobby and do advocacy work around issues that are weakening Angolan society. The Church wants to change the culture of war into a culture of peace.
The war has delayed attempts to exercise citizenship and the emergence of a strong and active civil society. The struggle for survival is so acute and so urgent that very little time is left for some of us to reason in a more patriotic way.
For the reasons mentioned above, we appeal to the international community to stop thinking that Angola is a lost case and to put it back on the international agenda.
The way to convince the Angolan government to conduct a transparent administration and respect human rights and life is not to maintain two armies, as some people believe. The international community must reflect seriously about this question and find other strategies rather than supporting the war. We also appeal to you to support the peace initiatives of Angolan civil society. I would like to finish by quoting from the bible, after all I am a minister of the church. The words are well known to you, because some of you brought them to Africa in the past. "Now the Lord said to Abraham, 'Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation and I will bless those who bless you and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves" (Gn. 12:1-3).
This means that, throughout history, God has created the power to correct nations that oppress the people. But He also created nations to bless the people that suffer.
God will bless you if you bless the suffering people. But if you keep the blessings that God gave you to yourself, what you have today will be taken from you.
Thank you very much.
Rev. Octávio Fernando is Secretary General of the Evangelical Alliance in Angola (AEA).
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- Questions and answers [2]
Henk van den Heuvel: My question is more a request, Frei Zeca is not only representing the Catholic Church in Angola, but he is also the director of a catholic human rights' organisation in Angola. I would like to ask the permission of the chairman to allow him to say a few words about his work.
Frei Zeca: Thank you Henk for this challenge. It is difficult to talk about my work in just one or two minutes, but I will try. You can tell from the Reverend Octávio Fernando's introduction that the churches, and the Catholic Church in particular, are playing an active role. I will go into a bit more detail and explain what we are doing in practical terms so you can understand what is going on better. There's not enough time to tell you everything, but perhaps we can talk more in the breaks.
Mosaiko is a cultural centre with two main characteristics:
1 it is a research centre that tries to focus on the real causes of problems, taking into account the inter-relationship of cause and effect;
2 the centre also promotes its own initiatives and supports and stimulates the initiatives taken by others. The centre is active in four areas: the main area is justice and human rights, but there are also pilot projects in the field of socio-economic development. In a broader way, the centre is working at grass root level on gender issues and more general issues important for humanity, such as cultural and religious issues.
In the area of human rights we've just published a manual entitled 'Human rights, a training course manual'. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy here to show to you, but there is a copy in the NiZA library (BIDOC) in Amsterdam. I hope that you will get the chance to have a look at this recently published book. We have also been working in different parts of the country during the last two years, conducting seminars, generally full-time one-week seminars, about human rights' issues. During the seminars we try to analyse the causes of problems, to improve understanding and to strengthen the capacity of individuals and groups to intervene in the medium and long term. In Angola we generally say, and we in MOSAICO agree with this, that is not so much a question of rebuilding, but of starting again from the foundations, especially the human foundations.
Frei José Sebastião Manuel (Frei Zeca) is director of Cultural Centre mosaiko, a Catholic human rights and civic education program under the Department of Justice and Peace of the Episcopal Conference for Angola and São Tomé (CEAST).
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- Working group A:
Civil society participation in peace-building in Angola
It was chaired by Wieteke Beernink (ICCO) and the Angolan guests present were Fernando Pacheco and Gaspar Domingos
Size
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."
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- Working group B:
The future role of a new UN mission in Angola
It was chaired by David Sogge, an independent consultant, and the Angolan guests
present were Octávio Fernando and Frei Zeca
Dame Margaret Anstee, referring to the impossible mission she was given when heading the UNAVEM II mission to Angola in 1991 and 1992 was once quoted as saying: "The UN has given me a 747 to pilot, with only enough fuel for a DC3." So how can the UN get it right next time? The objective of this workshop was to have a discussion over concrete suggestions for the future role of the UN in Angola (if there is to be a future role).
Record
Although the participants were asked not to dwell too much on the past, a few remarks were made regarding the UN's track record in Angola. After all, the UN has spent a lot of money in Angola. It cannot be said that the UN accomplished nothing. Some of the military actions such as the clearing of land mines in some areas were effective. The importance of this particular action was that it created freedom of movement, which is a pre-condition to national reconciliation and therefor peace. But it is equally clear that the UN should have done more. It must be considered where and why its first efforts failed. The UN was unable to prevent Angola from returning to war, which may have been partly due to an inability to find the appropriate people and put them in the right positions. But there were more underlying causes involved. A significant, felt problem with the UN in Angola was its lack of transparency. This was particularly the case with regard to the de-mobilisation campaign. In addition, over the last few years, the UN has failed to recognise and prioritise human rights. While warring parties were fighting and killing people, the UN simply collected data. Many people asked for data, but no one was allowed access. This was a key problem, which officials at the UN have also (privately) expressed.
Requirements
So the UN needs to fulfil a number of vital requirements if it is to play a useful role in any future Angolan operation. Unsurprisingly, transparency should be top of the agenda. If UN officials are alleged to be involved in corruption, mismanagement, etc., then it must inform the public of its position. Transparency (of the UN and governments) was more evident in, for example, Cambodia than in countries like Angola. And in Rwanda and Haiti for example, data were collected and published effectively. Clearly, there is also a case for a mandate which actively promotes human rights and does not put them on the backburner for the sake of having peace and reconciliation. The workshop came up with a wish-list of issues to be put in a possible future UN mandate for operations in Angola. These included Human Rights monitoring, information and media support, strengthening of civil society, in particular:
– protecting civil space
– enlarging civil space
– supporting conciliatory initiatives
– And, finally, the UN must find the right person for the right place. Otherwise, its presence in Angola will be deeply compromised. On the other hand, the situation in Angola is complex, and the UN must not be a 'scapegoat' for its failures.
Partners
Quite a lot was said about who the UN should be working with. It was felt that the practice of reducing it to a small circle of officials and leaders was insufficient. After all, even Angolan leaders themselves feel it is important to understand the Angolan situation by reference to its people and culture. Furthermore, it is very important to deal with "grass-roots" people. Civil society must be involved. The UN in particular need to have this understanding. It is also important to deal with UNITA, however difficult.
The question really is: how can the UN involve all stakeholders in developing a short, medium and long-term vision? The first requirement for answering that question is to talk to those stakeholders. Consequently, it was suggested that the UN could help support the civil society organisations through direct support. There have been some comparable experiences with the UN and civil society organisations in Cambodia. One ought to learn from these early UN experiences and act upon them. Other peace-keeping operations have indeed shown that it is possible for the UN to help by directly involving civil society organisations, which are otherwise seen as a threat. Since the UN recognises the government as legitimate, it can ask for greater access for civil societies in Angola. Not all civil society organisations are welcome and individuals are sometimes detained. Journalists, teachers are being put on trial. Any action by civil society, however just, can be seen by the government as an act of rebellion. But one can be thankful that these people and organisations continue.
It is a delicate situation that the UN should learn to handle. How should the UN contribute to the creation of a democratic culture from the 'bottom-up'? The UN must allow greater access to negotiations by other parties. Civil society becomes weak if it is not involved in the negotiation process. Strengthening civil society could bring success. There is, for example, a small group of people working on human rights. Before the Lusaka accords there were many more. The UN Division of Human Rights should be reinforced and its support to local human rights groups and information activities expanded. The UN should keep a space open for human rights organisations to work, and give them an opportunity to present their views. What people really miss is a political discussion, picking up ideas from civil society and supporting them. Also, the churches in Angola have made much effort to be involved (food, lodging, etc.), but the UN was unable to understand this role.
Role
The UN could thus contribute to what was termed by one participant 'the politics of inclusion', so woefully absent in Angola today. That also means working in practical terms. For instance, given that human rights violations, conducted with impunity, lead to 'vicious circles' of impunity, what do you do after human rights violations are first detected? The UN record in Angola is notoriously poor here.
Finally, it is important to bear in mind how Angolan people are suffering. Those people who have decision-making power over policy, military and economy also need to understand this. It is equally important to have a medium and long-term framework, even if people are involved in short-term actions. Angola needs more than just short-term solutions. Most of all, Angola needs an inclusive way of working, including the presence of the UN.
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- Working group C:
Trade and financial aspects of the war in Angola
It was chaired by Fabio Poelhekke, an independent consultant and the Angolan guests present were Ana Garcia and Daniel Ntoni Nzinga
Poelhekke framed the discussion quite neatly at the beginning of the session. 'The tragedy of Angola is that it is too rich a country, that the natural resources, especially diamonds and oil, are literally fuelling an ongoing conflict. I think that it is the task of everybody who wishes Angola well for the future, to try to curb the financial flows coming into Angola from arms and war into ploughs, to give a biblical example.'
Actors
There are three groups involved in milking Angola through the ongoing war:
a the non-legal opposition, i.e. the UNITA rebels, because it is using illegally traded diamonds to fuel their war,
b the legal Angolan government that is using too much of the resources coming from diamonds and specially also from oil, to fuel the war instead of using this money for the benefit, the development and the survival of its own population, and
c as the third party the international operating companies in the diamond trade and the oil production who are also co-responsible for the fact that the money with which they buy the resources from Angola is used in such a detrimental way for the Angolan population.
Ana Garcia commented on the role of the two Angolan actors: 'We should make a distinction between UNITA which is a rebel group and the government which has responsibilities towards its citizens and not put them on the same plan. You should make a distinction between having sanctions against UNITA covering all trade in arms, but for the government that has also a task of preserving national integrity and security you should not think of a complete ban of buying arms but at least of transparency regarding this issue so that you can see what is entering the country.' Daniel Ntoni Nzinga agreed. 'The arms trade by the government of Angola should not be prohibited but controlled; the buying of weapons should be justified by the need to use them and not just because the government wants to have them. A serious problem is that weapons are often distributed within the country by the security forces themselves (security forces: the police and the army). This is a very big danger, because it is done in name of security, and in the end not even the state is able to control the use of all these weapons. Therefore we, as civil society, are striving towards having rigorous checks on the trade and use of arms by government forces. This is linked to our very strong feeling and position that any form of illegal arms trade that not only benefits UNITA but also other armed opposition groups in Angola (such as FLEC in Cabinda) should be completely stopped.'
Illicit trade
Most trade in and out of Angola goes unrecorded, which hampers exposure, as Ntoni Nzinga made clear. 'We know that most of Africa is surviving on the basis of what we call informal trade. It is not only Angolan diamonds that are involved in this, but also diamonds from Sierra Leone, and other mineral resources from Liberia are also in that situation. In all those years that UNITA was struggling against the Angolan government they did not only sell diamonds, in the past it has also been documented by former South African army officials that UNITA sold other items illegally to finance the war, ivory for instance. The point really is, that it is not only trade, but also the revenues of large investments that finance the war. It is not only UNITA as such, it is a lot of other individual Angolans that are selling diamonds illegally and that are getting considerable revenues from them. There should come a system that controls all forms of selling diamonds.' Which is why the Fatal Transactions campaign was started, as part of an appeal, also made by Angolans from civil society, to expose those manufacturers, transporters and dealers who profit from the war, as NiZA's Joost Hartog explained. Joost Hartog (NiZA): 'Our contribution to the peace process is to get the way the war is financed more transparent and it is a direct appeal to the public, to business and to governments to stop the illegal trade in diamonds. We have chosen for diamonds, not because we are totally in favour of the government or against UNITA, but it is just a start and it might even be so that also the government is willingly or unwillingly involved in the illegal diamond trade.'
Government trade
Diamonds for war on the UNITA side; oil for war on the government side. That is the usual equation, which Ana Garcia was not entirely happy with. 'We should take care not to treat diamonds and oil in the same way, because as far as the oil revenues are concerned, the little that is being done within Angola in the education and health sector is also being financed by oil revenues. So you should take a different stance if we talk about oil revenues.' Having said that, it is true to say that both government and international oil companies are profiting from a trade which is not benefiting the overwhelming majority of the Angolan people and are being less than forthright around it. Ntoni Nzinga: '(International) companies, for instance Chevron in the USA, ELF Aquitaine in France, BP in England produce annual reports I assume to their company shareholders, to their governments. It would be very good if civil society organisations and groups in Europe, America and elsewhere could spend some time and check those reports they are producing, we did it in the anti-apartheid movement, checking what the companies were claiming to be doing in South Africa when in fact they were doing something else. In addition, let me inform you that the government of Angola does not provide any information to the public, on all those dealings. The only thing you can read is an article in the Jornal de Angola (the government controlled daily) saying a contract has been signed of, say, 60 billion. What it is meant for nobody knows, what the footnotes are nobody knows, and you are not allowed to ask, because if you ask as a journalist or as a lawyer or whatever, you might end up in prison.' As Ntoni Nzinga already indicated, this also calls for international scrutiny, which has in the meantime resulted in the Global Witness publication called "A crude Awakening".
Security and advocacy
The lack of openness about one's business dealings also stems from a sense of insecurity. Ntoni Nzinga pointed this out: 'Security is more concerned with the security of government, than with security of the people, and that is the biggest challenge that we face. One of the biggest issues of civil society, which is now starting to organise itself, is to link the concepts of security and peace. Because it is our position that it is impossible to have peace in Angola without justice, and you can not speak of justice if this can not guarantee security for everybody. At the moment, the security forces are more directed in the sense of controlling than in the sense of providing a service to the people. That is one of the main reasons why the human rights issue in Angola is a very serious problem. We have to get away from the idea of coercion.' The human rights issue can of course be extended to include the issue of child soldiers, which was briefly raised by Pedro Bruno Kiafuka of the Iniciativa Angolana Anti-Militarista para os Direitos Humanos.
Ntoni Nzinga saw advocacy as a means of education at the same time. 'We will have to build the capacity of the Angolan civil society to start asking questions, because our government is not used to be asked questions, everything they do is correct and right. We must learn on both sides, the government and ourselves, to develop that new culture of accountability.' This also requires knowledge - as Pacheco indicated in Workshop A. Ntoni-Nzinga had a practical suggestion. 'All the 400 NGOs that are functioning in Angola are all providing service. It is only now that groups are emerging to reflect together and then address the issues. That is why as GARP and GAP we decided to start a process of establishing an institute, an Angolan institute for peace and development which should concentrate on research and advocacy rather than providing services of humanitarian kind or whatever. Those kinds of activities need to be encouraged, so that the Angolan authorities can hear from within Angola itself how people think.'
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- Summary and plenary discussion
Henk Kieft (chairman): Now a presentation will follow of the issues that have been raised in the working groups, starting with working group A, which discussed the role of civil society in peace building in Angola. Their first statement reads: promising new local initiatives are emerging, in the field of sustainable development, conflict resolution and capacity building of civil society, for which continued and/or increased support from the international community in general and international civil society in particular is required. Working group A noted that many interesting things are happening in the rural areas where journalists are rarely present. Therefore their recommendation is that Angolan media and other organisations should not focus only on what happens in Luanda and in the formal circuits, but also on what happens in the interior.
Frei Zeca: In this context I would like to underline that assistance should not only focus on what is called the formal sector but sufficient attention should also be given to the informal sector: i.e. to the issues and concerns of the persons in the streets and in the villages, through the organisations and the groups that form civil society, or better, the civil societies in Angola.
Henk Kieft (chairman): The second statement of working group A refers back to an issue that has already been mentioned in the introductions of this morning. It reads: all different actors in civil society should participate in the construction of the peace process. In order to define how Angolan civil society could be supported in this respect, we first need to establish to whom to address this statement. I invite the panel to elaborate on who could initiate this participation of civil society and how this could take shape.
Daniel Ntoni Nzinga: The actors that we consider important in this process are the NGOs that are particularly involved in reflection on peace and the churches who are doing some very serious work in creating space for mediation. The churches could take up a role of mediator if accepted and requested for by the two parties involved in the conflict. I also consider the trade unions of great importance. GARP acknowledges the important role that the workers could play in the search for peace. The youth and women's organisations in the country could also play an important role. In fact, all organisations of the masses should have access to the debate. I also like to include here the cultural associations that were formed at many levels and the organisations of peasants. Talking about NGOs, human rights organisations and professional organisations, such as the lawyers association, should also be included. I already mentioned the necessity to create a process that should culminate in a platform of all these organisations, or at least the majority of those that want, in order to share ideas. This platform should be developed to facilitate the movement of persons and ideas, as I like to call it.
We as GARP together with GAP have launched an appeal for a national forum for peace, which we hope will take place before the end of this year (1999). The objective of the forum is exactly to congregate all the organisations that I just mentioned. We would like to see that this process is combined with the process that the churches are developing. Reverend Octávio Fernando spoke this morning already of the ecumenical group that is working on peace. We are also working to join our efforts with the international Jubilee 2000 campaign, which in Angola is being understood as a jubilee, i.e. not just as a celebration but as a transitional process. We want to make sure that Jubilee 2000 will be a proclamation of peace in Angola.
Henk van den Heuvel: Hoping that one day peace negotiations will be initiated again and imagining that the Angolan government invites civil society to play a role, would you like this same group to participate in the negotiations together with the government and UNITA? I am asking this because in my view there is a difference between the present initiative to construct a peace process and a culture of peace among the people on the one hand and peace negotiations as such on the other.
Daniel Ntoni Nzinga: Yes, I think that the creation of consensus on the most important issues of the nation is a decisive step towards the creation of a credible agenda for peace. This consensus should be developed through dialogue between the same groups that claim to represent civil society. Second, we do not think that all can participate in the process of negotiations but within this movement for peace there will certainly be structures and groups that are more inclined to do this work of mediation and these should participate in name of the movement as a whole. The platform should serve as a place where all the actors complement each other.
Chris Collier: What are the most important obstacles in the development of the national platform for peace and what does it want to do?
Daniel Ntoni Nzinga: The first obstacle is fear. We will have to leave behind us the fear that all depends on the political forces in the country. Angola presently has a culture which implies that initiatives either for change or for action are prerogatives of the political forces, in particular of the political parties. In this phase UNITA and the MPLA claim these prerogatives. We will need to leave this fear behind and enter a new phase in which all Angolan organisations have the right and can develop their capacity to intervene with ideas in the management of the nation, without necessarily having to be the country's leaders. The big challenge for us is to make civil society act and simultaneously preventing these groups from transforming themselves into political parties. One of the fears I have had several times is that maybe GARP will turn into a political party, or that ADRA would become very vocal about the road to be followed in order to reach peace and turns itself in a political party, or that the churches will start to talk about what pastor Octávio urged us to leave to Caesar.
Another obstacle is the lack of preparation of the Angolans to engage themselves or to develop an internal mechanism for mediation. Until today we do not have this culture, therefore we need to create conditions so that among the Angolans within this movement for peace there will be people that can carry out these tasks with confidence and the necessary capacity.
The third obstacle is that the Angolan civil society currently does not have the material resources that should help it to act efficiently.
Fernando Pacheco: Another obstacle would be the change of context. The context in Angola is changing very frequently and could evolve in such a way that it could provoke significant changes that could stop the realisation of the forum.
Frei Zeca: I would like to present a personal concern which is related to the experience that we have had at Mosaiko in our work. Several persons are speaking in terms of a vision for the medium or longer term. We need to have something effective and important which has an action plan, but at the same time I think that an action plan should be proportional to the dedicated effort and time and to the dimensions of the issues.
[name questioner unknown]: What is the position of Angolan civil society organisations towards support for this peace process from NGOs and churches in other countries?
Daniel Ntoni Nzinga: Yes, we need help from all the sectors in civil society and I will use the words that I will borrow from my colleague: the international civil society, being the civil societies in all countries of the world should join us to help us to succeed with this agenda.
Henk Kieft (chairman): The last statement of working group A is that in order to attain sustainable peace the demobilisation of UNITA soldiers should be promoted and initiatives offered. (It is very important that the demobilised soldiers find some way of supporting themselves to build a future for themselves; it is necessary to give them the possibility to build their own future). The question to the panel is who should take these initiatives, how this process is to be initiated and supported?
Fernando Pacheco: This is a process which in principle is up to the Angolan state, only the Angolan state does not have the capacity to do it alone. Through projects of NGOs with international assistance in line with earlier actions with help of the United Nations, I think that this is the most effective way. There is a lot of international funding available to support this kind of initiatives. The demobilisation as such can only be the responsibility of the Angolan government, there are no NGOs and churches that can assist.
Daniel Ntoni Nzinga: The civil society through organised groups and through institutions such as churches will contribute, but the programme as such has to be included as it was in Lusaka. In Lusaka, this was an integrated part and at the same time there was not sufficient attention for it, but I think that the churches and the other groups can participate in the implementation and even in the vision of how this demobilisation should take place. I would like to emphasise here that it is not only a matter of demobilising only the soldiers of UNITA but also of demobilising the mentality of the Angolans regarding violence and this needs to be an integrated part of this demobilisation process.
Joke Hartmans: A precondition is that the government should control the national territory, because otherwise it will be impossible to have an effective integration of former UNITA soldiers in government structures. I have personally accompanied a process where we have tried to incorporate former UNITA health workers in the national health system and we started off very well, but because the extension of state administration did not take place as it was foreseen in the Lusaka Protocol, the whole programme fell apart. So the effective control over the national territory is a precondition.
Pedro Bruno Kiafuka: My question is as follows, as we saw here in this framework one speaks of demobilisation of one side only, of the side of the Angolan rebels. But the Angolan conflict is a conflict that concerns all Angolans because it is not only UNITA that has the possibility of arms and military, there are also other para-military groups in the country that are killing too. To give privileges to a government that has already assassinated many persons, to have even a larger number of persons or uncontrolled military, I am against this.
Henk Kieft (chairman): Working group B dealt with the possible future UN mission in Angola. To guide the discussion, this working group distinguished between principles of UN intervention and the contents of such an intervention. UN involvement should be guided by three principles that were identified by the group, the first one being transparency, the second one recognising human needs, even of the powerful, and third the need for politics of inclusion. Transparency is to be provided by the UN itself regarding its own role and the UN should also promote transparency by other actors in the game.
The issue of the substance of UN involvement in Angola refers to the desired mandate of a future UN mission in Angola. According to working group B, such a mandate should include 1) human rights monitoring, 2) information and media support, 3) strengthening civil society by protecting and enlarging civil space and by picking up and supporting conciliatory initiatives.
This is what came out as points for discussion and recommendations from working group B. What is the opinion of the Angolan panel?
Frei Zeca: I sincerely do not want to be advocate of the devil, because my interventions might be inconvenient, but I participated in this group and after this discussion which in my view was very short and here already drawing conclusions is such a thing that from my point of view is not proportional to the extension of the problem, for instance, what would be necessary is much more time, much more depth, much more clarity, etc.
Henk Kieft (chairman): I take it that this intervention of the panel means that this is a premature way of formulating the mandate and giving suggestions and it needs more communication and reflection together to sense the depth of the problem to come up with more relevant recommendations.
Chris Collier: I would like to make a comment on the human rights monitoring, in my view it should not be restricted only to the monitoring because than what do you do after human rights violations are detected? I think one of the main problems, one of the main obstacles in Angola is that of the impunity with which human rights are violated. And I think that as the Human Rights Watch report on Angola is also saying this leads into a vicious circle of impunity, so if there is no rule of law, if human rights violations are not dealt with in some kind of a fair way, than there is absolutely no incentive to put down your arms, that is at least the way I see it. So, it should be more than monitoring, then what?
Henk Kieft (chairman): It was taken up in the second point namely publishing everything that is monitored. Is it necessary to add?
Joke Hartmans: I participated in this working group and in my view the scope was broader than just human rights, in my perception the outcome was that the mandate of a new UN organisation should be to promote national reconciliation with human rights as part of that effort.
Ana Garcia: I would like to stress that in Angola capacity building of the judicial system is very important. They are instruments that in fact should move away from the mentality that causes fear among the people. I would like to give a concrete example: in front of a police person in my country, I feel more fear than security, I feel more vulnerable together with a police person than when I am with an ordinary citizen. For this reason it is very important (that the international community) get involved in capacity building of the defence and security forces.
Henk Kieft (chairman): I would like to move forward to the outcome of working group C. This group started by saying we do not want to be mentioned as the working group on trade but a working group on sanctions. The answer on the question sanctions or not is a clear yes, but the group reported that our Angolan delegation insisted very much on developing the lobby for sanctions in very tight co-operation with partners in Angola, it should not purely be an initiative of expatriates. Second point, supporting an institution for research and monitoring that indeed monitors trade and illegal trade specifically oriented on oil companies and banking institutions. This is necessary for transparency of the trade, and to understand what is probably a legal part and what is probably illegal part and it should be possible to publish. The basic thinking behind this conclusion of the group was that 'look at the future of the children' and the basic process of (the basic argument for supporting sanctions) of illegal trade is to undermine the financial basis of the war [...] I see a reporter of the group moving is there something missing in my reporting [...]
Fabio Poelhekke: What is missing is that there was a very strong message from the Angolan guests that such a research and monitoring institute that is being planned as an initiative of the Angolan civil society should systematically be supported by European civil society not especially or only with money but very much especially with a constant flow of information derived from companies in the north (commercial companies involved in the Angolan situation) because the Angolan civil society does not have direct access to such information. They are denied access to such information and it is the obligation of northern civil society to help them get the information they need in a structural way.
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- Conclusions and recommendations
Mr. Peter Hermes
Executive Director of the Netherlands institute for Southern Africa (NiZA)
'Angola is strategically one of the most important countries in Africa. With an enormously fertile environment, it could be the breadbasket of Southern Africa. Rich in minerals – oil, gas, diamonds – its people could be amongst the most prosperous in the continent. Luanda could join Pretoria, Lagos, Nairobi and Cairo as a hub for New Africa, a magnet for international investment and business. Failure to realise this economic potential is a real loss for African welfare. To ignore the plight of the Angolan people would be criminal. To continue to drift along with sanctions against UNITA which do not bite exposes the rest of the world to charges of hypocrisy. The time for serious actions is long overdue.'
These are not the words of an 'out-of-time' activist from the good old Angola Committee. These are also not the words of Angolan Non-Governmental Organisations, as present here today. No, these are the words of the British Minister of State of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, also named the Minister for Africa, Peter Hain. He takes a firm position against Jonas Savimbi, and has even frozen Savimbi's bank accounts in the UK.
Peter Hain spoke at an event organised by NiZA's partner in the UK, Action for Southern Africa, recently in London. His speech received widespread attention in the British media. At an event similar to today's seminar on Angola, organised by partners of ICCO and NiZA in Canada, the Canadian Minster for Development Assistance, Maria Minna, was equally critical of Jonas Savimbi. The objective appears to be to get all parties to the negotiation table again.
Although we appreciate the hospitality of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, we would have appreciated it even more if one of our Ministers dealing with Foreign Affairs or Development Co-operation could have joined us here today, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Netherlands is not very outspoken on conflicts in Africa. It has not taken the lead in discussions at international fora on these issues, whether it concerns the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the conflicts in the Great Lakes Region, or Angola. The government of the Netherlands tries to operate in line with European Union policies, the United Nations and other multilateral institutions. The present membership of the United Nations Security Council, however, gives our country the unique opportunity to put conflicts in African countries on the international agenda.
In September this year (1999) the Netherlands chaired the Security Council and it took a positive initiative: it proposed a discussion on the trade in small arms. We have seen today the importance of this issue. Trade in natural resources, such as diamonds and oil, is used to perpetuate the war efforts in Angola. The availability and easy accessibility of small arms (bought with money from diamond sales or oil revenues) is responsible for despair and misery, the death of numerous people, the death of nations, or – as in Angola – decades of suffering, displacement and starvation. No developed and democratic country in the world should accept the reality of this awful truth.
In general, the Dutch government is in favour of careful diplomacy with regard to conflicts, less outspoken than in the past. Development Co-operation is now concentrated in seventeen countries (plus three temporarily). A condition for the bilateral policy on development co-operation is 'Good Governance'. Good Governance is not – as it should be - an aim or an objective of bilateral policy; it has become a starting point for bilateral relations and aid.
Today we have learnt about the importance of a number of issues, such as :
– transparency and accountability by the government of Angola;
– the involvement of the United Nations in the peace process in Angola, with a clear mandate respecting human rights, transparent about its role, tasks and resources
the need for the United Nations to re-establish its credibility in Angola;
– the recognition of positive local developments and peace initiatives, carried out nation-wide by Non-Governmental Organisations, such as churches, trade unions etc., improving the access to information and functioning of local media throughout the country;
– inclusion of all sectors of civil society in the peace process, implying the need for substantial support for civil society initiatives, such as GARP, GAP and other mediating mechanisms towards sustainable peace in Angola;
– creating the necessary pre-conditions to encourage demobilisation of UNITA troops (and other rebel movements and surplus government troops) by offering appropriate alternatives and income generating opportunities;
– developing and strengthening the lobby capacity for implementation of sanctions in dialogue with partners in Angola, especially sanctions on illegal trade;
– special attention to children, the main victims of the war and the future of the country, and the need for education for all.
Bilateral support to war-torn societies with corrupt governments must be directed towards Non-Governmental Organisations like the ones here today. These NGOs are working under extremely difficult conditions, trying to uphold human dignity and minimum conditions for survival of the people living under extremely violent and poor conditions. The effect of this kind of support might be more far-reaching as compared to bilateral support to so-called Good Governance countries. In order to guarantee Good Governance in the long term, there is a real need to include civil society in a post war period for constructive bilateral development aid. We challenge the Dutch government to adapt its policies in line with the outcome of today's seminar. Good Governance as an objective – in stead of a condition – for bilateral aid will make development co-operation more flexible and strategically more effective since this includes civil society.
As the main recommendations which resulted from the seminar today, I would like to mention the following:
War torn societies – such as Angola – should not only qualify for emergency relief but also for continuing support to the organised civil society in order to enlarge its breathing space. In the long run this would be the way to guarantee a genuine democracy, so that the Angolan people have a say in crucial issues concerning their daily lives. We call upon governments in the North and institutions to:
– substantially increase financial support to the organised civil society in Angola in order to strengthen its capacity and quality whilst making important contributions towards achieving peace and reconciliation in the country;
– secure human rights monitoring and making it possible to publish about human rights abuses in a free and open way.
We call upon the international community to:
– comply with the United Nations sanctions against UNITA by undermining the very financial basis for continuation of the war by UNITA, urging them back to the negotiation table again;
– support the intention of NiZA and ICCO to explore the possibilities of establishing a kind of Angola monitoring body in close co-operation with Angolan NGOs, like the ones present here today.
NiZA and ICCO will continue to work together on this issue, in order to put Angola further on the public agenda. The monitoring body just mentioned could carry out further research and provide information on request to Angolan organisations, institutions, media, people, also outside the capital. It should support initiatives from inside the country in its efforts to achieve transparency and accountability on the part of the government and its institutions.
Angolans deserve our sincere and lasting support in their peaceful and courageous struggle against the war, against corruption and human rights abuses.
Thank you very much.
Henk Kieft (chairman): Thank you very much Peter for this summary of conclusions and recommendations for both NiZA and ICCO as organisers of this conference. We are nearing the closure of this conference. A lot of information has been shared, especially our guests from Angola have really tried to tell us what they have in their heart. People have been talking together building networks for further action, a lot of issues were raised for building a joint strategy of co-operation between NGOs here and NGOs in Angola, and I feel a level of commitment here. Mr. Peter Hermes has summarised the future steps in the name of both NiZA and ICCO and I think that is the basic outcome of this day and I would like to thank you very much for your interventions and your support.
Frei Zeca: I did not have the plan to become the last speaker, but now I will take the opportunity to say a few words. In this room I have heard a lot of richness, a lot of willingness, a very genuine, honest and generous spirit to be with the Angolan people. I feel sad that all this richness might be lost, therefore I would like to make a practical suggestion such that this group could meet more regularly for instance once every two months to discuss and above all exchange information.
