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GPROOTED ANGOLANS

FROM CRISI TO CATASTOPIHE

A humanitarian catastrophe is imminent in Angola, a country already in crisisand an unwitting arena for East-West confrontation in Africa.

Continuing civil strife, along with South African, Cuban, and superpowerinvolvement in that country, has resulted in the massive uprooting of its ruralpopulation. Millions of Angolans have sought safety from the conflict in thenation's towns and cities, and nearly 400,000 have fled to neighboring countries.The displacement of these people-combined with failed agricultural policies,an unwieldy bureaucracy, and poor weather conditions-has resulted in a 1987harvest that will meet less than half of Angola's grain requirements through April1988. The government has had to commit its meager foreign exchange earningstoward waging its war against insurgency and destabilization, and there is virtuallyno prospect that Angola will arrange commercial imports sufficient to meet theneeds of its people. An immediate appeal by the Angolan government and aprompt and favorable response from the international donor community areneeded to confront the famine conditions which significant parts of Angola willface by the end of 1987.

The growing emergency in Angola should not surprise anyone who has mon-itored the deteriorating situation in that nation. Indeed, evidence of an impendinggrain shortage has been available for some time. That famine and starvationactually will occur in Angola, however, appears now to be almost inevitable.

The making of the crisis in Angola did not begin in recent months. It stemsmost immediately from the failure of three competing liberation movements tomaintain a coalition government, following withdrawal of the colonial power in1975. The coalition derived from an agreement, signed by the three movements,that called for elections, but governmental authority disintegrated before theycould be held. The struggle for power in Angola has been waged by force ofarms ever since.

The disastrous effects of prolonged conflict on Angola's civilian populationhave gone largely unreported in the Western media. Press coverage has oftenbeen restricted, and the ideological aspects of the conflict have prevailed overhumanitarian considerations in the public statements of U.S. and European

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policymakers. But the story of Angola is one of human tragedy and humanendurance: shanty towns of rural peasants forced into congested urban areas;maimed children still gamely playing football; hunger, homelessness, and thetrauma of senseless violence.

This paper-based in part on U.S. Committee for Refugees field visits to areasin Angola controlled by both sides of the conflict, as well as to Angolan refugeesin Zaire and Zambia examines the conflict that continues even now to uprootgreat numbers of civilians inside Angola, and to push significant numbers ofrefugees across that country's borders. It also summarizes the effects of thesepopulation displacements on the social and economic well-being of Angola, andoffers recommendations to minimize the ever-increasing suffering that Angolansare forced to endure. The principal finding of this report is that the man-madehumanitarian emergency which exists for Angolans threatens to deteriorate dra-matically over the next few __7months. But, its worsteffects may be avoided if Within Angola, millions of rural civilians have been forcecthe Angolan authorities actquickly to request foodassistance and if the inter-national community re-sponds in a timely andgenerous fashion.

The conflict in Angolatakes place in a highlycharged, geopolitical con-text that makes adequateattention to the humani-tarian crisis facing uprootedcivilians extremely diffi-cult. That context is definednot only by superpowerrivalry, but also by theregional politics of south-ern Africa and, especially,by the profound influenceof the Republic of SouthAfrica within that region.This paper attempts toplace the current traumaof Angola into an histori-cal context, and includesan explanation of some ofthe deep-rooted cleav-

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ages in Angola that make resolution of its conflict so difficult. It should be clear,however, that South Africa has obviously exploited that conflict to further itspolicy of regional destabilization, by which it seeks to postpone dismantling itsrepugnant system of apartheid.

The U.S. Committee for Refugees believes that the needs of Angola's uprootedpopulations require urgent attention and should not be overlooked in the midstof the larger regional crisis. That is the central purpose of this paper But ourconcern for the innocent victims of conflict in Angola must be viewed in a contextof support for the struggle against the forces of apartheid, which remains theparamount issue in the region.

Uprooted Angolans

Following a 13-year armed struggle for liberation from Portugal, Angola achievedits independence in 1975.But even as Portugal pre-om their villages by years of civil conflict. Ica4/Y Muller pare to witda frmpared to withdraw fromAngola, competing liber-ation movements, backedby foreign powers, vied tocontrol the future of thisstrategically placed andmineral-rich nation. For thedozen years since inde-pendence, a Soviet andCuban-backed govern-ment has battled a rebelforce militarily supportedby South Africa and by theUnited States. The econ-omy of Angola has beendecimated, the popula-tion devastated, and peaceand unity in the countryremain well beyond reach.

More than twice the sizeof France and situated onsouthern Africa's Atlanticcoast, Angola is a nationof great economic poten-tial. It was once a netexporter of food, and itspetroleum, diamond,manganese, gold, and

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uranium deposits eventually may make it one of the richest nations of southernAfrica. Nevertheless, today the Angolan people are hungry, and the nationremains impoverished.

Since 1975, nearly half of Angola's population of 8.6 million have beenuprooted by conflict. Nearly 400,000 have sought refuge from the violence inneighboring Zaire and Zambia, exacerbating economic and political problems inthose countries. Within Angola, millions of rural civilians have been internallydisplaced, including 700,000 forced from their villages within the past two yearsby armed conflict, by looting, and by mines-buried in fields and along villagefootpaths-that have already crippled some 20,000 Angolans.

As a result of the destruction of health facilities and decreased access to healthcare, Angola now has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world.UNICEF has estimated that 55,000 children under the age of five died fromviolence-related causes in 1986 alone. Urban areas are swollen with displacedpeasants, and an outbreak of cholera is occurring in Angola's capital, Luanda,and in other urban centers. A massive arms build-up in spring 1987, moreover,suggests that the level of violence will escalate during the remainder of the year.

The civil war which followed Angolan independence from Portugal in 1975has been marked by modem ideological overtones and foreign intervention. Butthe roots of conflict in Angola can be traced back much further, to the distrustand animosity that developed among the nation's main ethnolinguistic groupsduring centuries of slave-trading and Portuguese colonization. A basic sense ofhow these relationships developed is essential to understanding the conflict thatrages in Angola today.

Until the great southward migration of Bantu peoples reached what is present-day Angola around the start of the thirteenth century, that territory was inhabitedsolely by Khoisan hunters and gatherers-known to Westerners as Bushmen,but calling themselves zhu two si, "the harmless people." The Bantu who reachedAngola were more technologically advanced than their ancestors who had begunthis great southward trek several centuries earlier from their original homelandaround the present Nigeria-Cameroon border. The Bantu migrants had learnedto work iron and herd cattle, and they had established a variety of regionalcultures in central Africa before ultimately overwhelming the Khoisan and forcingthem into marginal areas in Angola and into the Kalahari Desert.

Toward the end of the fifteenth century, the Portuguese explorer, Diego Cao,landed at the mouth of the Congo River-which now marks Angola's northernborder-and came into contact with the southernmost salient of the KongoEmpire, the most developed and centralized kingdom established by the Bantumigrants. Immediately south of the Kongo, a great number of smaller kingdoms

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had taken form among the Mbundu and Ovimbundu peoples while, even farthersouth, other Bantu groups were still vying for control of lands from which theKhoisan had been ousted. Conflict was widespread in those areas, and therewere great movements of competing ethnic groups in a southwesterly directiontoward the Atlantic coast.

Portuguese government contact with the Kongo kingdom was initially peaceful:emissaries were exchanged between Lisbon and Mbanza, the Kongolese capital;proselytizing was carried out in Kongo by Franciscan missionaries; and a respectfulrelationship between the kings of Portugal and Kongo continued for about aquarter century.

The official Portuguese presence in Angola was small-little more than a tokengovernment, an expeditionary force, and an evangelizing mission-and waslargely confined to the coast for several centuries. But, even in the earliest decadesof contact, there were also many illiterate Portuguese adventurers, brigands, andconvicts seeking opportunity in the area. They soon formed a trading networkwith African groups in order to obtain slaves for profit.

Africans had practiced slavery in various forms since well before the comingof the Portuguese. But soon after their arrival, there was a great increase in theoverseas demand for slaves-who were required for agricultural labor, initiallyin Portugal and Sao Tome, and later in Brazil and North America-and thetraders offered attractive rewards for their capture. The ensuing trade in peopleprecipitated great population displacements throughout north and central Angolaand changed the very nature of slavery from a by-product of conflict to the solereason for it.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Portugal became convinced thatgold and silver mines existed in territory occupied by the Mbundu, and wagedwar to control them. No mines were found, but the profits derived from the greatmany slaves produced during the conflict demonstrated to the Portuguese gov-emment how profitable slavery could be. For the next two-and-a-half centuries,slavery became the major motivation for Portugal's extension and expansion ofits authority in the region.

Portugal's pre-industrial status severely constrained its ability to develop majoreconomic infrastructure in its colonies. Moreover, the slave trade required so littleexpenditure of energy and labor by those who most profited from it that allattempts to develop Angola's own legitimate potential were given up in favor ofexploiting its manpower for developing Brazil, which Portugal regarded as a moreimportant territory. The time came when the Portuguese population did not evenprovide for its own sustenance, and the ships that carried slaves to Brazil broughtback the food which Angola itself did not produce.

To expedite the export of slaves from Angola, Portugal established ports atLuanda and further south along the Angolan coast, and attempted both to expand

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its presence inland and to control the coastal plain. By the middle of the nineteenthcentury, however, the official Portuguese presence in Angola was still less than2,000 persons and was limited to isolated settlements along the coast. Most ofthe interior remained in the control of African traders and warriors who providedslaves to the Portuguese.

Slavery remained legal in Angola until 1878-and continued under variousand invidious guises until the 1960s-but international trade in slaves was effec-tively suppressed around 1850. From that time, Portugal could no longer lookupon Angola simply as a source of exportable manpower, and increasingly triedto pursue a policy of colonization. During the next three-quarters of a century,Portugal gradually achieved effective control over Angola. The Portuguese pen-etrated the interior, obtained European recognition of the territory as being withinPortugal's sphere of interest, and began a series of campaigns to suppress theAfrican inhabitants of the Angolan hinterland.

Unable to commit the necessary capital resources or to attract Portuguesesettlers, however, Portugal was slow to develop its colonization program. ThePortuguese population in Angola was still less than 10,000 in 1900, and almostall were "degredados"-convicted murderers, arsonists, and rapists taken fromthe dungeons of Portugal and cast onto the wharfs of Luanda. There, manybecame either colonial administrators and military personnel, or unscrupuloustraders and merchants. Portugal did not successfully subdue the major populationgroups until the mid-1920s, by which time the Portuguese population had grownto about 20,000.

For almost 400 of the 450 years after the first Portuguese arrivals, the pre-ponderance of human activity in Angola had been related to slavery-to raiding,capturing, fighting, escaping, trading in human lives. Scholars estimate that duringthat period up to 4 million slaves-30 percent of all slaves taken from Africa and40 percent of those landed in the Americas-were exported through Angolanports. High rates of loss during capture and transport suggest that perhaps twicethat number perished while resisting enslavement or during their captivity.

The relationships Portugal established with Angola's main ethnolinguistic groupswere all directed ultimately toward furthering the slave trade, but they variedsignificantly in duration, manner, and degree of involvement. With the passingof the slave trade, the groups also engaged in different economic pursuits withinthe colonial economy. The varying roles they played during the slave trade andcolonial eras contributed greatly- to a mutual distrust which continues to influenceattitudes and events in Angola today.

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7

the Republic of Zaire and the People's Republic of the Congo. Kongo peoplewithin Angola represent about 13 percent of the entire Angolan population,making them the country's third largest ethnic group.

Despite the relatively benign character of the first contact between officials ofthe Portuguese and Kongo kingdoms, tensions quickly developed. Much of thetraditional Kongolese leadership-the king and many members of the nobility-converted to Christianity soon after the Portuguese arrived and largely assumeda veneer of Portuguese culture. This spiritual and psychological alienation fromtheir own culture weakened the leaders' ability to understand and govern theirmore traditional populations, thus intensifying the formation of Kongolese factionsthat historically had disputed the king's succession.

Portuguese political influence, motivated by desire for the enormous profitsinherent in the slave trade, also led to disruptions within the empire. As early as1526, the Kongo ruler explained in a letter to King John of Portugal:

". . . many of our people, keenly desirous as they are of the wares andthings of your Kingdoms, which are brought here by your people, and inorder to satisfy their voracious appetite, seize many of our people, freed andexempt men; and very often it happens that they kidnap even noblemenand the sons of noblemen and our relatives, and take them to be sold tothe white men who are in our Kingdoms."

However damaging its effects, the slave trade continued, and relations betweenPortugal and the Kongo began to deteriorate as they quarreled over access toslaves, and to arable lands. These disputes eventually resulted in a series ofarmed conflicts, and the Kongo kingdom was effectively defeated by superiorPortuguese firepower in 1665.

Their political unity broken, the Kongolese in Angola submitted to Portugueserule, and Portugal gained control of appointments to the Kongo throne. Whenslavery was banned, and the Kongolese and other groups could no longer paytheir taxes in slaves, they were subject to Portugal's policy of forced labor. Thisgenerally required nonwage-eaming Africans to work without pay six months ayear for the colonial government or Portuguese settlers. The Kongolese frequentlyfled to kinsmen in Zaire when the burdens of colonial rule became too onerous,and from time to time, memory of the Kongo Empire kindled their hope for itsrestoration.

The Mbundu Comprising about 26 percent of its population, the Mbunduare the second largest ethnic group in present-day Angola. At the time of thearrival of the Portuguese in the Kongo Empire, the Mbundu lived in a numberof autonomous and semi-autonomous kingdoms and chieftaincies to the southof the Kongo.

Like the Kongolese, several of the stronger Mbundu groups also took part in

R

the slave trade, initially profiting from their role as intermediaries in furnishingslaves to the Kongolese and soon thereafter dealing directly with the Portugueseto exploit weaker groups. As in the Kongo, there was little trust between theMbundu and the traders at the best of times, and Portugal eventually decidedthat military subjugation was necessary for effective exploitation of the Mbundupeople. Portugal's armed suppression of the Mbundu began in 1671, but wasnot fully accomplished until well into the twentieth century.

As the trade in slaves expanded in the interior and Portugal carried out itspolicy of military subjugation, some Mbundu gradually migrated westward towardthe developing port of Luanda. There, some learned to speak Portuguese andbecame involved in commerce and, eventually, in government. A relatively smallnumber became "assimilados", persons who obtained Portuguese citizenshipand elite status in Angola by adopting a Christian faith and the Portugueselanguage and culture.

While African assimilados occupied a lower social position than those whowere "mestizo"-people of mixed Portuguese and African parentage-bothranked well above "indigenas", the unassimilated Africans who comprised morethan 97 percent of Angola's population. Mestizos were often born of Portuguese-Mbundu liaisons, but they descended from other African groups, too, and greatlyoutnumbered the assimilated Africans. Mestizo assimilados, in particular, were soclosely identified with Portuguese culture and society that their legacy of elitismendured through the era of nationalist struggle, and continues today.

The Ovimbundu The largest group in Angola, the Ovimbundu make upabout one third of the total population. Although concentrated in the country'scentral highlands, the Ovimbundu are also the most widely dispersed group inAngola. At the end of the sixteenth century, when the Portuguese were estab-lishing relations with the Kongo and Mbundu kingdoms, the Ovimbundu werealready established traders, active between the Atlantic coast and the deep interior.In the next century, when the Portuguese were anxious to find additional-ormore direct-sources of slaves, they found the Ovimbundu eager and able todeliver them in exchange for Portuguese weapons and wares.

With their vastly superior numbers-and with Portuguese armaments-theOvimbundu were able to undertake slave raids deep into the African hinterland,and were the Western world's most important suppliers of slaves for the nexttwo-and-a-half centuries. By the early nineteenth century, they controlled theentire slave trade between the interior and the Angolan coast.

With the collapse of the slave trade in the mid-nineteenth century and thesubsequent Portuguese penetration of the interior, the Ovimbundu people hadto abandon the warfare and slave raiding which had come to play integral rolesin their economy. They turned initially to collecting, transporting, and tradingrubber and, when that market collapsed in the early part of this century, to cash

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crop agriculture. They also continued to seek livelihoods outside the centralhighlands in the ports and as recruits in the colonial army, and they worked ingreat numbers as contract laborers on the coffee plantations which Portuguesesettlers were establishing on land taken from the Kongolese.

Th( Rise of9 KMtionsho

In the 1920s, as the colonial government finally completed its conquest of theAngolan interior, racial and class tensions developed in Luanda. Expanding buterratic growth in the Angolan economy since the late nineteenth century hadresulted in substantial increases in the African population in Luanda, whereuneducated Africans formed shanty towns and eked out bare existences. Theassimilado communities became increasingly aware of the plight of unassimilatedAfricans in Luanda and of their own alienation from their traditional origins, andthey found it more and more difficult to defend their elite social and economicpositions.

At the same time, the assimilados were also facing pressure from above.Angola's Portuguese population had doubled in the first two decades of thetwentieth century, an influx that was seen as restricting the potential for assimiladoadvancement. One new law divided the colonial bureaucracy into separateEuropean and African services, precluding assimilados from exercising any realauthority; another limited assimilado salaries and promotions, even within theprivate sector. Looking above and below them, assimilados came to view theirposition as precarious. Initial actions against the injustices of the colonial system,however, were limited largely to submitting petitions to the Portuguese authoritiesand writing protest literature and poetry.

A second and larger wave of Portuguese immigration to Angola began imme-diately after World War II. The Portuguese population in Angola more than tripledbetween 1945 and 1960, and included many Portuguese who were totallyilliterate. More than half had received no education at all, and less than six percenthad gone beyond fourth grade. The result was additional competition for jobs,even unskilled ones, in urban areas, while the use of forced labor to developplantations expropriated by the Portuguese further alienated rural populations.

Also, during the post-war period, a small but growing number of relativelyprivileged young assimilados were provided opportunities by North AmericanProtestant churches to pursue higher education in Europe, where they wereexposed to a variety of influences. Upon their return to Angola, these urbanitesbegan to orient their political views toward what they saw as the interests of theimpoverished popular masses.

The repressive nature of the colonial government, the dilemma of the Africanelite, and the desperation of the unassimilated urban poor created an atmospherefavorable to the promotion of extralegal associations, and many such groups

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were formed. In December 1956, some of these small political groups cametogether to form the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA).

While clandestine groups were being established in Luanda, another organi-zation, the Union of North Angolan Peoples, was founded among the manythousands of Angolan Kongolese who had migrated to Zaire to escape Portugueseoppression and to seek better livelihoods. This movement subsequently receivedmajor impetus from a disagreement between the Portuguese authorities andreformist Kongolese in Angola regarding the successor to the Kongo king, whodied in 1955. For two years, the Portuguese stymied all efforts to seat an educatedKongolese on the throne or to allow a council of educated Kongolese to advisethe illiterate puppet the Portuguese had installed.

In 1957, frustrated Kongolese nationalists, seeking restoration of the ancientKongo kingdom, decided to join the exile political party in Zaire. By the end ofthe following year, however, when it was clear there was little support amongAfrican heads of state for ethnic separatism, the Kongo movement changed itsname to Union of Angolan Peoples (UPA). Although still entirely of Kongoleseleadership, UPA purported from then on to stand for the liberation of all Angolanpeople.

For the next several years, both organizations propagandized among theirprospective adherents. UPA campaigned among the Kongolese in the far north-exploited for their land and labor by Portuguese coffee growers-by recallingthe glories of the former Kongo Empire; MPLA worked mainly among theMbundu-the unassimilated, impoverished Africans around Luanda-by evok-ing the memory of a once-powerful Mbundu queen. Police surveillance intensifiedalong the border and in Luanda. MPLA leadership was decimated by arrestsand, in 1960, the party re-established itself in exile, initially in Zaire.

The Wc feer Liberaion

Two significant events in early 1961 are usually cited as marking the start ofthe armed struggle for the liberation of Angola. The first, organized by MPLA,was a public march on a police station and a prison in Luanda, demanding therelease of political prisoners. This led to street violence during the first half ofFebruary, leaving hundreds of Angolans dead and many others wounded. Con-current and subsequent arrests severely restricted MPLA's ability to function forthe remainder of the year.

In a considerably more violent action in March, farmers and laborers-mostlyKongolese and incited by UPA-attacked towns and isolated Portuguese farm-steads in northwestern Angola, killing hundreds of Portuguese and assimilados,and thousands of Ovimbundu contract laborers, in a matter of days. Portugaldispatched thousands of troops to quell the uprising, and their retaliation waswidespread and brutal.

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UPA organized rapidly and, by summer, claimed an army of some 5,000untrained and ill-equipped soldiers who, nevertheless, offered stiff resistance tothe Portuguese for six disastrous months. Portugal's saturation bombing of villagesand its use of napalm forced more than 60,000 Angolans to seek refuge in Zaireby the end of 1961, while the death toll within Angola during the uprising wasestimated at several thousand Portuguese and as many as 50,000 Africans.

Its political image bolstered by its participation in the uprising, the UPA mergedwith a smaller Kongo group in the following year to form the National Front forthe Liberation of Angola-known by its Portuguese acronym, FNLA-and pro-claimed itself Angola's Revolutionary Government in Exile. The exile governmentreceived recognition and funding from the Organization of African Unity, weaponsand military training from Algeria, and a small amount of covert funding fromthe United States.

FNLA was headed by Holden Roberto, a Kongolese born in Angola, but raisedsince early childhood in Zaire. Roberto had received a French language educationin mission schools run by Baptists, who were active among the Kongolese onboth sides of the Angola-Zaire border. As a consequence, he spoke French andthe language of the Kongolese, but little Portuguese, the official language ofAngola.

While FNLA was establishing its exile government, the almost moribund MPLAwas being rejuvenated by Agostinho Neto, a Mbundu assimilado physician whospoke fluent Portuguese and wrote poetry. The son of a pastor, Neto had receiveda United Methodist Church scholarship to study medicine in Europe and hadbeen politically active as a student. He had been arrested several times andimprisoned for his political activities, but had escaped and made his way toKinshasa, the capital of Zaire, where he took over the MPLA.

Neto sought to establish a common front with FNLA, but centuries of markedlydifferent colonial experiences had generated distrust on both sides, and the twofactions could not agree on the terms of a coalition. MPLA leadership wascomprised largely of assimilated Africans, mestizos, and white Portuguese sym-pathizers-the latter two representing the colonial culture in the eyes of mostAngolans. FNLA's leadership, on the other hand, was still almost entirely Kon-golese and was widely viewed as ethnocentric and anti-intellectual. In any case,it was clear that Roberto's real concerns did not extend much beyond theKongolese people.

To broaden FNLA's image, Roberto appointed Jonas Savimbi as foreign min-ister of the exile government. Savimbi, although an Ovimbundu, had beensecretary general of the UPA and had attended university in Europe on a schol-arship from the United Church of Christ, which was active mainly among theOvimbundu peoples. Possessing rare oratorical and linguistic skills, Savimbi spokePortuguese and other European languages in addition to those of the Ovimbundu,

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the Chokwe, and other African groups in Angola. But Roberto's continueddomination of the exile liberation government frustrated Savimbi and other topleaders. In 1964, Savimbi withdrew from FNLA, charging Roberto with flagranttribalism and with being a tool of the CIA.

Operating from Kinshasa, FNLA repeatedly spumed MPLA's offers of unityand continued small-scale, but widespread, guerrilla operations in northwesternAngola. MPLA was expelled from Kinshasa by the Zairean government and thenmoved its headquarters to Brazzaville, the capital of the newly independentRepublic of the Congo. There it began its own guerrilla operations against theAngolan enclave of Cabinda in mid-1964.

Portugal meanwhile continued its policy of harsh reprisals in the wake ofguerrilla attacks. By the end of 1965, more than 400,000 Angolans had beendriven into refuge in Zaire. There they settled in an unorganized manner, seekingout kinsmen with whom they could share land or remaining near the borderfrom where they could return occasionally to Angola to tend their own farms.Many became thoroughly integrated into the Zairean economy.

Portuguese authorities forcibly resettled much of the remaining northern Ango-lan population in controlled villages established to restrict popular support forthe guerrilla forces. The removal of villagers from their farms, however, seriouslydisrupted the rural economy and resulted in significant increases in malnutrition,incidence of disease, and infant mortality.

In 1966, following a year's training with a small group of cadre in the People'sRepublic of China, Jonas Savimbi rejoined the struggle for Angolan liberation.He established his own movement, the National Union for the Total Independenceof Angola (UNITA), which organized initially among the Chokwe of easternAngola. UNITA appealed to a broader base than did FNLA, and it attractedrepresentatives of the smaller ethnic groups in eastern and southern Angola, aswell as some non-Kongolese dissidents from FNLA. The leadership of UNITAwas predominantly Ovimbundu, however, and the movement was viewed withsome mistrust by other groups because Ovimbundu had worked as plantationlaborers on expropriated lands, and had been favored recruits into the colonialarmy.

TheB Deal2pening_ (CUisi0

As the liberation war gradually spread south and east in Angola, refugees beganto arrive in Zambia and then, in smaller numbers, in Botswana. In 1965, some6,000 Angolans, mainly ethnic Lunda and Chokwe, were forced into Zambia'sWestern Province, an area of poor soils and bilharzia-infected water, where theystruggled to survive. During the next three years, their numbers doubled. TheZambian government, with the assistance of the United Nations High Commis-

14

sioner for Refugees (UNHCR), responded by establishing a rural settlement forthe Angolan refugees at Mayukwayukwa in Western Province, but natural con-ditions were too harsh to support more than a fraction of the refugee populationin an organized settlement, and refugees continued to arrive.

In 1971, a second settlement was established for the refugees at Maheba, inZambia's Northwestern Province, where soils and water quality were muchimproved. At Mayukwayukwa, large plots and development of the limited ground-water sources enabled about 2,000 refugees to attain bare self-sufficiency, andaround 10,000 moved on to Maheba. By 1973, their numbers had doubledagain to almost 24,000, but then remained fairly stable for the next two years.

All three liberation movements-MPLA, FNLA, and UNITA-carried out low-level guerrilla activities during this period. Until 1974, they tied down 50,000Portuguese troops and sapped Portugal's limited economic strength, despiteengaging in few major battles. However, the liberation movements repeatedlyconfronted each other, both politically and militarily, and each appears to haveprovided information to the Portuguese on the movements and activities of theothers. MPLA suffered incessant internal conflict as well, and important MPLAfactions broke away from Neto. At certain points in the war, the three liberationmovements inflicted more casualties among themselves than did the Portuguesegovernment forces.

Nevertheless, the continuing liberation struggles in Angola and other Portu-guese territories drained Portugal's resources. Growing popular and militarydiscontent in Portugal led to a coup by the reformist Armed Forces Movementin April 1974; within days, a policy of decolonization was announced. The newgovernment in Portugal signed cease-fire agreements with UNITA and MPLA atthe end of July, and with FNLA in October.

The war for the liberation of Angola came to a sudden and unexpectedconclusion, but it had already taken a tremendous toll on the nation's population.More than 100,000 Angolans had died during the conflict, more than half amillion had been forced into exile, and about 250,000 had been displaced withinAngola. Worse, the distrust that had grown up among the various ethnic groupsduring their earlier dealings with the Portuguese intensified even as they rebelledagainst their colonizers. During the liberation struggle, Angolans increasinglyidentified with their ethnolinguistic groups, and divisions of class, culture, andrace were exacerbated.

An [Ecupty Agge(onmnt

Despite continuing conflict among themselves through the remainder of 1974,the three movements came together for a meeting in Kenya in January 1975,and agreed to a common front in their negotiations for independence from

15

Portugal. At the middle of that month, they signed an agreement at Alvor,Portugal. The Alvor Agreement provided for a transitional government repre-senting all three movements, free elections for a people's assembly, and completeindependence for Angola on November 11, 1975.

The cessation of hostilities between the liberation movements and Portugal,and the signing of the Alvor Agreement, encouraged some refugees in bothZambia and Zaire to return home. Indeed, hundreds of thousands of Angolansin Zaire recrossed the border, but in Zambia most refugees were more cautious,and only several thousand returned to Angola. The caution of those who remainedin exile was, unfortunately, well justified.

Although they had agreed to hold elections to determine Angola's future, eachmovement continued to build up its arms and its army. And a new dimensionwas added: while external support for Angola's liberation movements had beenmodest during their long struggle against the Portuguese, foreign interest in Angolawas greatly aroused by its imminent independence. The United States and thePeople's Republic of China, for example, promptly provided funding to FNLA,the Soviet Union contributed substantially to MPLA, and UNITA began negoti-ating with South Africa for arms and training.

Civil Wamir Powieig8 nvlemn

Within weeks of signing the Alvor Agreement, political confrontation gave wayto military conflict. By March, the first shipments of what grew to be a $200million initial infusion of Soviet arms to MPLA were delivered, and Cubanpersonnel were training and advising MPLA units by late spring. In response,the United States provided additional funding to FNLA and, for the first time, toUNITA. UNITA and FNLA established a shaky alliance, but were neverthelessforced out of Luanda by MPLA.

The level of violence during 1975 was unprecedented since the beginning ofthe liberation struggle fourteen years earlier. Within months, 20,000 died inLuanda alone, and untold thousands more were killed outside the capital. Also,many thousands of civilians were forced to seek refuge from the conflict inneighboring Zambia and Zaire.

By October, a major MPLA offensive was close to victory over the retreatingUNITA and FNLA forces. Tens of thousands of civilians-Africans and Portu-guese-fled southward before the military advance and streamed into Namibiaby boat, in motorized columns, and on foot. By some reports, Cuban troopsparticipated in this major MPLA drive, but others insist that the Cubans did notenter the conflict until South African forces intervened to repel the MPLA advance,thus assuring the political and military survival of UNITA and, for a while, FNLA.In either case, South African involvement was clearly undertaken in order to

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further its policy of destabilization in the region, thus facilitating its illegal occu-pation of Namibia and its continued policy of apartheid. In the end, South Africa'sintervention severely tainted both FNLA and UNITA in the eyes of many in Africaand elsewhere.

In early November, an Organization of African Unity (OAU) conciliation com-mission proposed to all three movements that Luanda be demilitarized, that anOAU peacekeeping force be sent, and that elections be held-all of which wererejected by MPLA. On November 11, Angola officially became independent. Inthe absence of a single entity to assume the powers of government, Portugalabdicated its responsibilities, handed over authority to "the people of Angola,"and left. MPLA, being in control of the capital, took over the reins of governmentand, in light of South Africa's involvement on behalf of FNLA and UNITA, theOAU reversed its pro-coalition position several months later, recognizing MPLAas the sole legitimate government of Angola. Most other nations of the worldfollowed suit. The Soviet Union, citing South Africa's invasion, increased itssupply of armaments to MPLA, and Cuba sent in thousands of combat troops.

The events of 1975-the abandonment of responsibility by the Portuguese,the failure of the liberation movements to maintain a coalition government, theirchoice of arms over ballots, the massive military build-up by superpowers, andthe direct involvement of Cuban and South African troops-fueled a civil conflictthat soon overshadowed the liberation struggle both in its sheer ferocity and inthe pervasiveness of its effects on the Angolan population. During the year, atleast 50,000 people died as a result of the violence. About 300,000 Portuguese,almost the entire professional and technical resource of Angola, fled the country.Tens of thousands of Angolans were forced into Namibia and Zambia, and manyof the Kongolese who had returned from Zaire hoping to participate in electionsonce again sought refuge in that country. Within Angola, several hundred thou-sand civilians fled from their homes, and the violence continued.

By March 1976, FNLA and UNITA had been defeated militarily, but subse-quently regrouped. During the next several years, the MPLA government con-centrated on combatting the resurgent guerrilla forces while also attempting toestablish a society based on the principles of scientific socialism. Lacking popularsupport outside the northern part of Angola, FNLA was unable to sustain itsguerrilla struggle, and faded from the scene. The MPLA continued to sufferinternal cleavages, however, and its economic and political policies often metwith public disinterest or opposition. Worker strikes were a persistent problem,and there was much resistance to the state takeover and inefficient managementof large plantations. Relations with the Catholic Church, already difficult, werefurther strained when its radio station was nationalized.

Human rights abuses by both MPLA and UNITA were also reported. MPLAimprisoned a number of individuals for crimes it termed as "incorrect use ofcriticism" and "fractionism", and many persons arrested for political reasons

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"disappeared" in custody. MPLA government abuses were especially pro-nounced following an abortive coup attempt by Soviet-backed ultra-leftists inMay 1977. UNITA reportedly also engaged in torture and beating of prisoners,and both sides were reliably reported to have engaged in extrajudicial executions.UNITA guerrillas were also responsible for the abduction of numerous unarmedcivilians who played no part in the armed conflict.

The victims of minings include great numbers of innocent peasants who soughtno conflict with either side. This young amputee is recovering in a hospital runby UNITA. The cover photo shows amputees at a government rehabilitationcenter.

USCR/T Brennan

As civil war in Angola supplanted the war for liberation, the locus of the conflictshifted away from northern Angola to the central and southern areas of thecountry-the homelands of the Ovimbundu and the smaller ethnic groups whowere the main source of UNITA's support. By 1979, security in northern Angolawas sufficient for many of the Kongolese in refuge in Zaire to return home. Butwithin central and eastern Angola-the traditional breadbasket of the nation-the situation grew increasingly unstable. Mines were laid in agricultural fields and

__ 18---------- --

village footpaths, and many UNITA guerrilla raids and government retaliationswere carried out, with civilians often caught in the middle.

Heightened conflict precipitated major additional flows of refugees into Zambiabeginning in 1982, and into Zambia and Zaire beginning in 1984. The spreadingcivil war-combined with misguided government policies, bureaucratic ineffi-ciencies, and inadequate rains-also resulted in drastic declines in agriculturalproduction during this period. The government modified some of its more inap-propriate and unpopular agricultural policies, established a more mixed economyof public and private sectors, and sought unsuccessfully to improve relations withthe United States. Drought conditions precluded any improvement in crop yields,however, and Angola faced severe food shortages in 1984.

During this period, the MPLA government, with foreign support, also had torespond to repeated incursions by South African Defense Forces. These raidswere aimed ostensibly at the Southwest African People's Organization (SWAPO)which, operating from bases in Angola, has been waging a guerrilla struggleagainst South Africa's illegal occupation of Namibia. But South Africa also con-tinued its attempts to destabilize the MPLA govemment-carrying out sabotage,which it sometimes sought to ascribe to UNITA, against important elements ofAngola's economic infrastructure-and intervened several times between 1983and 1985 to help UNITA repel major offensives launched by government andCuban forces.

Toward Catnostepha

In mid-1987, more than 400,000 Angolan refugees remain in Zaire and Zam-bia, including nearly 100,000 who have fled since July 1985. In both asylumcountries, refugees initially settled near the Angolan border, but following anarmed attack from inside Angola on the refugees in Zaire in 1985, the Zaireangovernment decided to move them away from border areas. Similarly, followinga series of incursions into Zambia, that government decided that all refugeesentering Zambia after October 1985 should be moved away from the border tothe settlement at Maheba.

Zaire Some 306,000 Angolan refugees remain in Zaire, about 75,000 ofwhom have arrived since mid-1985. About 34,000 of these recent arrivals havefled into Shaba Province, and the remainder-including some 20,000 who havefled during the spring of 1987 alone-have gone into the provinces of Bas Zaireand Bundundu.

Although most refugees are currently fleeing into Zaire's western provinces, asmall flow still continues into Shaba. Refugees in Shaba are settled in three siteswest of Dilolo along the Benguela rail line. They are peasant families-Lunda,Chokwe, and other groups-fleeing the violence that has overtaken their villagesas the war has intensified in the border areas of eastern and northern Angola.

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Some refugees in Shaba say they were supporters of MPLA and have beenabused by UNITA soldiers; others say only that they fled the war. Newly arrivingrefugees interviewed by the U.S. Committee for Refugees in June 1987 indicatedthey fled to Zaire, rather than to population centers within Angola, because theybelieved that violence would follow those seeking safety in Angola's towns andcities.

Upon entering Zaire, these refugees are processed by the Zairean army andby the state security agency, and members of both services often extort moneyor personal possessions from the refugees. They are then settled in small, dis-persed, and well-organized communities located not less than 30 miles from theborder. These settlements were established on behalf of the Zairean governmentand the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) by WorldUniversity Service of Canada. Some petty harassment of refugees by the Zaireanmilitary occurs within the settlements, and one female refugee recently died afterbeing raped repeatedly by Zairean security police.

Through World University Service, UNHCR provides refugee families withfood rations for a time, but encourages them to become self-sufficient as quicklyas possible using the seeds and hand tools provided. UNHCR also funds sup-plementary medical services provided in the region by the French medical orga-nization, Madecins Sans Frontieres.

The larger current flows of refugees into the provinces of Bas Zaire andBundundu reveal a growing food shortage in addition to intensified violence inAngola's northernmost districts. Most recently arrived Angolans interviewed bythe U.S. Committee for Refugees cited UNITA attacks against MPLA garrisonsas precipitating their flight, but all also spoke of massive disruption of foodproduction in their home areas. Refugee children arriving in these provincesoften show signs of malnutrition. Refugees also commonly reported that agri-cultural fields and paths to fields in Angola had been mined by UNITA, makingit unsafe to return home even if the violence in the immediate area dissipated.As of mid-June, no accurate aggregate count of the new arrivals had been made,nor had any assistance program for them been mounted.

Zambia There are now more than 92,000 Angolan refugees in Zambia, ofwhom approximately 57,000 have settled in Western Province and about 35,000in Northwestern Province. Two settlements, Mayukwayukwa in Western Provinceand Maheba in Northwestern Province, accommodate a total of about 12,000Angolans. The large number remaining are self-settled in scattered communitiesalong Zambia's western border, where they share ethnic affinities with Zambiannationals.

Zambia also provides asylum to refugees from other countries in the region-Zaire, South Africa, and Namibia-and is experiencing a large and steady influxof refugees from Mozambique. At a time when Zambia is facing significant

20

economic difficulties, the well-publicized refugee influxes present Zambian authoritieswith additional political difficulties, and there is evidence that some segments ofthe population are increasingly resentful of the refugees' presence.

Since late 1985, flows from Angola have been largely into Zambia's North-western Province, where refugees continue to enter at the rate of about 1,000per month. The presence of these new arrivals in border areas has raised theconcern of the Zambian government that Angola's war may spill over into Zambia,and it has decided to move these refugees away from the border. UNHCR hasagreed to expand the existing Maheba settlement to accommodate up to 10,000of the new arrivals.

Angolan refugees outside settlements in Zambia generally subsist by workingas agricultural laborers on the farms of local nationals-often kinsmen-or arethemselves farming marginal lands provided by the community. Their cultivationof marginal lands, however, yields most refugees only a bare subsistence, andnutritional levels are often unsatisfactory. Moreover, the remoteness of the ref-ugees from the capital of Zambia, and their distribution over wide areas, hasconstrained the ability of the Zambian government and UNHCR to deliver reliefsupplies to needy refugees in a timely manner.

Angolan refugees, nevertheless, expressed to the U.S. Committee for Refugeestheir reluctance to move to established settlements. They want to return to apeaceful Angola, and prefer to look upon their present situation as only temporary.They see moving to a settlement as a further step away from their homelandand a tacit acceptance of the semi-permanence of their exile. The governmentof Zambia has agreed to allow those refugees who entered Zambia prior toOctober 1985 to remain in their present communities, but insists that later arrivalsmust move to a settlement. Recent reports in the Zambian press suggest thatsome of the more recent Angolan refugees have gone into hiding to avoid movingto Maheba settlement, and Zambian officials have threatened to force suchrecalcitrant refugees back into Angola.

Angola Although self-settled Angolan refugees in Zambia lead a somewhatperilous existence, their compatriots in Angola clearly fare much worse-for thelaying of mines, in farmers' fields and in village footpaths, has been a crucial andcontinuing aspect of the conflict there. The MPLA government has repeatedlyaccused UNITA of planting the mines in order to destroy Angola's economy.UNITA, on the other hand, claims that MPLA is doing the mining to discreditUNITA and to force UNITA supporters into government-held towns-drying upthe water to catch the fish. Other evidence suggests that both sides may haveresorted to this form of terrorism. In any case, the victims of minings includesoldiers and supporters of both the government and UNITA, as well as greatnumbers of innocent peasants who sought no conflict with either.

In central Angola, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) trains

21

and assists local teams tomanufacture prosthesesand to provide thephysiotherapeutic rehabilitation required by thevictims. In UNITA-heldareas of the south, simi-lar assistance has beenprovided by the Frenchorganization, OperationHandicap International,and an ICRC team spe-cializing in war surgeryperforms medical oper-ations on seriouslywounded victims. Butalmost 20,000 Angolanshave already lost at leastone limb, and eachmonth additional scoresof individuals areafflicted. DedicatedAngolans on both sideswork long and hard tohelp solve the immedi-ate problems of theamputees, but neitherside can fully meet the ~~~ 1~~

amputes, utTraineed and dedicated Angolans on both sides of the

sid ca fuly eetthecan fu r eet their desperate needs,

desperate needs.

Armed conflict and the grisly effects of the mines have forced many of Angola'speasants gradually to abandon their fields and seek safety in the country's townsand cities, thus also crippling the nation's economy. By official count, approxi-mately 700,000 Angolans are internally displaced, but those uprooted prior toApril 1985 are no longer included in totals, making the actual number of displacedAngolans much higher. A clearer sense of the enormity of rural displacements inAngola is possible by comparing urban and municipality populations at inde-pendence and in 1987. Luanda, for example, which had a population of about500,000 in 1975, now provides cramped accommodation for roughly 1.2 millionAngolans; Huambo has grown from less than 100,000 to nearly 1 million in thesame period; Benguela's population has grown from 55,000 to about 350,000;and hundreds of crossroads communities, which at independence had Africanpopulations of only several hundred, in 1987 have as many as 25,000. In adozen years, about three-and-a-half million civilians-roughly 40 percent of the

Digitized from Best Copy Available

entire population-havefled the war-torn coun-tryside of Angola for thecomparative safety of itstowns and cities.

Expatriate nongov-ernmental organizationsthat often assist govern-ments with relief anddevelopment programsare few in Angola. Assis-tance to internally dis-placed civilians is pro-vided chiefly throughICRC, which, despite aroller-coaster relation-ship with MPLA andUNITA during the pastdecade, has managed topreserve its neutrality andpresence in Angola. Inaddition to its role inupgrading medical facil-ities and personnel, ICRCdistributes blankets and

M , J seeds to newly displaced

ICRC/Y Muller populations, and pro-vides food to malnour-ished communities.

As farmers increasingly have clustered around municipalities, less land hasbeen planted, and that land has been cultivated too intensively and depleted ofits nutrients. The result has been a sharp decline in soil fertility and crop yields,and Angola, once a net exporter of food, is no longer able to feed itself. Preliminaryestimates of the 1987 spring harvest indicate that Angola has produced only halfof its annual grain requirement of 650,000 metric tons.

Other sectors of the economy have also been affected seriously. Coffee pro-duction, once a mainstay of the economy, is down from 4 million to 200,000bags a year, and diamond mining has also been drastically reduced. Only petro-leum, most of which is pumped in the Cabinda enclave by American firms,continues to provide Angola significant foreign exchange.

But the most devastating effects of the continuing conflict have been on theyoung, on vulnerable infants and children under the age of five. The destruction

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of health posts, the decreased mobility of health personnel, the semi-permanentdisplacement of a substantial portion of the rural population, and the correspond-ing reduction in food production have all combined to inflict upon Angola oneof the highest infant mortality rates in the world-approximately 55,000 childrenin Angola died from war or war-related causes in 1986. With another majorbuild-up in armaments already underway, it can be reasonably expected that1987 totals will be even higher for Angola's children.

UNITA obtains substantial military support from South Africa, and South Africamaintains about 2,000 troops in southern Angola. U.S. military assistance to anyfaction in Angola was prohibited by Congress in 1976, but following repeal ofthat law in 1985, the Reagan administration has acknowledged providing at least$30 million in aid to UNITA, with large, additional covert infusions almost certain.Substantial assistance to UNITA by several Middle Eastern nations-apparentlyat the request of U.S. authorities seeking to circumvent congressional restrictionsprior to 1986-has also been reported.

MPLA has received military assistance primarily from the Soviet Bloc. TheU.S. State Department estimates this aid to have exceeded $2 billion in valuesince 1975, and, in May 1987, another major infusion of armaments was under-way. Roughly 2,000 Soviet and East German advisors, technicians, and pilotsalso assist the MPLA government, and Cuban military strength in Angola hasgrown since independence to about 37,000 soldiers.

These high levels of international military assistance have compounded thestruggle within Angola, and, as the conflict has grown more violent, so the peopleof Angola have suffered more severely and have died in greater numbers. In1987, rural civilians continue to lose their arms and their legs, their homes andtheir families; and they continue to flee their villages to seek safety in towns andin neighboring countries.

UNITA's stated goal is a negotiated power-sharing arrangement with MPLA,while the government insists upon maintaining a one-party state. Although UNITAoperates throughout most rural areas of Angola, it controls only a small amountof territory in the country's southeast. But, both UNITA and MPLA are now farmore effective fighting forces than at independence, and the military situation inAngola appears intractable to most analysts.

The government's strategy apparently is to contain the guerrilla movementuntil such time that opposition to apartheid in South Africa weakens the resolveof that country to come to UNITA's aid. But South Africa's immediate interestsare served by continuing conflict in Angola, since the civil war facilitates SouthAfrica's illegal occupation of Namibia and provides cover for South African attacks

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Rail and road links have been destroyed in the war; and ICRC must often movefood relief to isolated communities by air, a perilous and expensive undertaking.

ICRC/Y Muller

against SWAPO bases in Angola. Thus, it appears improbable that South Africawill abandon UNITA in the near future.

In light of recent build-ups in armaments in Angola, the most likely prospectfor the foreseeable future is prolonged fighting and an escalating level of violence.Such a prospect implies a mounting toll of death, destruction, and displacementin Angola and the deepening involvement of the Soviet Union, Cuba, SouthAfrica, and the United States in Angola's civil war. The further involvement ofthe United States is a matter of continuing debate within both the Congress andthe Reagan administration, for U.S. aid to UNITA is seen by many as directsupport for South Africa's program of regional destabilization.

In addition to its influence on events in Namibia, there are other regionalaspects to the conflict in Angola. Savimbi has alleged that Zambia has been usedas a staging point in carrying out MPLA attacks on UNITA, and reports in Zambiasuggest that UNITA has provided support to armed dissidents in that country.The use of Zaire as a transit point for United States aid to UNITA has also becomepublic, angering the MPLA government and further straining relations between

Luanda and Kinshasa. Thus, in addition to the likelihood of prolonged andescalating violence in Angola, there is also a distinct possibility that the conflictcould widen into neighboring countries.

Coclusions ad Rco dtins

The civil conflict in Angola is deep-rooted and intractable, but the suffering ofits people is immediate and could be ameliorated by an elimination of destructiveforeign involvement in that country. In any event, however, the present crisis-which is the focus of this report-can and must be dealt with now. The truth isthat none of the major actors in the drama that is playing itself out in Angolaevidences adequate concern for innocent civilians. Within Angola, millions ofuprooted people find themselves in an increasingly perilous situation and, eachmonth, thousands of hungry and bedraggled refugees flee to Zambia and Zaireto escape the ravages of war. The plight of these victims of conflict has at timesbeen used to political advantage by one side or the other. More often, the welfareof the people has been largely neglected by the contending forces in Angola, bytheir foreign supporters, and even by the media, which have focused chiefly onthe political and military aspects of the civil war.

But Angola has now reached a crucial juncture. The cumulative effects of 26years of conflict and population displacement in Angola are rapidly turning atragic crisis into a true humanitarian catastrophe. In the hope that an immediateand concerted effort by all concerned parties may yet avert the worst conse-quences, the U.S. Committee for Refugees offers the following recommendations:

1) In order that grain and supplementary foods reach as many hungry peopleas possible: a) the government of the People's Republic of Angola should imme-diately declare a food emergency in Angola and request the United Nations toissue an international appeal for assistance; b) the United States and other Westerndonors should respond promptly and favorably to Angola's food needs throughthe International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the World Food Program,and UNICEF; and, c) donor nations should also make substantial financial con-tributions to ICRC to support the relief effort.

The magnitude of Angola's grain needs-the gap between production, stocks,pipeline shipments, and commercial imports on the one hand, and minimumconsumption levels on the other-has been known for some time to be about200,000 tons. Food is already scarce in some areas of Angola and food analystsbelieve most stocks will be exhausted as early as October or November. Movingquantities of grain to Angola from sources in Europe or North America-andeven from other countries within southern Africa-is unfortunately a very time-consuming process. The massive destruction that has been inflicted on thetransportation infrastructure within Angola will also tragically impede distributionof relief commodities. Clearly, it is already too late to meet the needs of some

26

victims-infants and young children die first in such a crisis-but inany can besaved if action is taken now.

Several credible and professional humanitarian organizations-4CRC, the WoidFood Program, and UNICEF-have established mechanisms for identifying andassisting those most in need. These organizations are already active in Angola,and they have developed delivery and monitoring systems to assure that donatedcommodities reach the intended recipients. Government-to-government dona-tions, on the other hand, are often reported to be diverted for other uses. It willbe necessary for each organization to increase its area of operations as well asits staff to cope with the impending emergency, however, and plans and assign-ments should accordingly be made now

ICRC currently carries out relief operations mainly in the central highlands,scene of the most prolonged and intense conflict in Angola. Operating under theRed Cross flag, and with agreement from both sides in the conflict, ICRC hasbeen able to reach the most severely affected victims in the area. But rail androad links have been destroyed in the war, and food relief must often be movedby air to isolated communities, an expensive undertaking. Food donations shouldbe matched by generous financial contributions to ICRC to help pay the hightransport costs it must incur to reach increasing numbers of people.

Meeting the food and related needs of Angola's desperate civilians is compli-cated by the absence of the normal network of effective nongovernmental reliefand development agencies in the country. Both the government of the People'sRepublic of Angola and concerned nongovernmental agencies must act to remedythis problem.

2) The government of the People's Republic of Angola should permit the human-itarian aspects of the conflict in Angola and the impending emergency relief effortto be the focus of increased and less restricted media attention.

The violence directed against civilian populations-the mining of agriculturalfields, burning of villages, and destruction of food stocks-is a subject of greatcontention among Angolans and among independent observers. Increased andunrestricted media coverage of such events in Angola may never reveal the truthof past incidents, but the threat of exposure could well minimize further suchabuses.

Similarly, wide media coverage of relief operations in Angola could help preventdisruptive incidents and loss of life among relief agency personnel who, despiteformal agreement from both sides, have already incurred casualties trying toserve the war-afflicted.

3) The governments of Zambia and Zaire should continue to pursue policies thatencourage recent refugees to settle away from border areas. The Zambian gov-emment should also affirm that no refugee will be forcibly repatriated to Angola,

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while the government of Zaire should act to reduce abuses of refugees by itssecurity forces.

Both Zambia and Zaire have been generous in providing asylum to refugeesfrom many countries. The government of Zambia has agreed to allow establishedAngolan refugee populations-those arriving before October 1985-to remainin scattered communities not far from the border. But Zambia's concerns regarding.a possible spillover of Angola's war are genuine and well-founded, and it under-standably does not want its border refugee population to grow. UNHCR iscorrectly promoting the movement of newly arrived refugees away from borderareas by providing them material assistance, and by educating them to the benefitsof settlement life and the concerns of their host government. This is a laudableapproach and should be continued.

Recently, however, public statements by Zambian officials have suggested thatAngolans who hide themselves to avoid moving to settlements will not be regardedas refugees and will be forcibly repatriated to Angola. Such statements areextremely disturbing. Forcible repatriation, or refoulement, is a fundamentalviolation of internationally accepted principles of refugee protection, contrary tothe UN Convention and Protocol on Refugees and to the Organization of AfricanUnity Convention on Refugees, to each of which Zambia is a signatory. Zambianauthorities should make clear they intend to adhere to their international obli-gations, and public statements by Zambian officials to the contrary should bediscouraged.

In Zaire, the government's policy of welcoming and according asylum toAngolan refugees is being compromised by abuse, including pervasive extortion,of the refugee population by some Zairean security personnel. The governmentof Zaire should act forcefully to apprehend and punish those who inflict additionalmisery on already suffering refugees and who tarnish Zaire's image in the process.

4) Both the MPLA government and UNITA should permit the InternationalCommittee of the Red Cross to visit all prisoners detained in relation to theconflict in Angola.

The ICRC is a neutral humanitarian institution and the founding body of theRed Cross. On the basis of the Geneva Conventions, ICRC seeks to protect andassist the victims of international and civil wars. In addition, the Committee isresponsible for monitoring conditions of prisoners of war and for notifying theirfamilies of their welfare. ICRC has not always been allowed to perform thisfunction in Angola, and reports of torture and extra-judicial executions of prisonersare widespread.

Most Angolan refugees in Zambia have settled in border areas. Their cultivationof marginal lands yields many refugees only a bare subsistence, and nutritionallevels are often unsatisfactory. uscarr Brennan

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UNITA has permitted ICRC unmonitored visits with some prisoners, but it isnot clear that access to all prisoners has been granted. Even more worrisome,ICRC has been so far refused access to any Angolan citizen, military or civilian,detained by the MPLA government. Routine denial of basic human rights inAngola, by whichever side and for whatever reason, should be deplored by allconcerned with the welfare of that nation and its people. Both sides in Angola'sconflict must yet demonstrate that they share those concerns.

A humanitarian catastrophe now looms large in Angola, and the predicamentof the people of that country must no longer be ignored. Much valuable timehas already been lost, and innocent people will most certainly suffer and die ofstarvation as a result. But how quickly and in what manner the contending forcesin Angola, world leaders, and the international community respond to the growingcrisis will determine how many others will live. A catastrophe in Angola is immi-nent, but it need not happen.

Selected Bibliography

Adelman, Kenneth L. "Report from Angola," Foreign Affairs, 53, No. 3, April1975, 558-574.

Amnesty International Report. Political Imprisonment in the People's Republicof Angola. New York: Amnesty International, March 1984.

"Angola: Intervention or Negotiation," Hearing before the Committee on ForeignAffairs, U.S. House of Representatives, November 12, 1985.

Bender, Gerald J. Angola Under the Portuguese: The Myth and the Reality.Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.

Birmingham, David. The Portuguese Conquest of Angola. London: OxfordUniversity Press, 1965.

__ . Trade and Conflict in Angola. The Mbundu and Their Neighbors underthe Influence of the Portuguese, 1483-1790. Oxford: Clarendon Press,1966.

Breytenbach, Cloete. Savimbi's Angola. Aylesbury (U.K.): Howard TimminsPublishers, 1980.

Ebinger, Charles K. "External Intervention in Internal War: The Politics andDiplomacy of the Angolan Civil War." Orbis, 20, No. 3, Fall 1976, 669-699.

Egerton, F. C. Angola in Perspective. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd.,1957.

Hambly, W D. Ovimbundu ofAngola. Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History,1938.

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Hammond, Richard J. "Some Economic Aspects of Portuguese Africa in theNineteenth and Twentieth Centuries." In Colonialism in Africa, 1870-1960,Vol. 4: The Economics of Colonialism, edited by Immanuel Wallerstein, pp.91-106. New York: Wiley and Sons, 1966.

Henderson, L. W Angola: Five Centuries of Conflict. Ithaca: Cornell UniversityPress, 1979.

Hodges, Tony. "The Struggle for Angola; How the World Powers Entered a Warin Africa," Round Table (London), No. 262, 1976, 173-184.

Legum, C. and Hodges, T After Angola. New York: Africana Publishing Co.,1976.

"Marcum, John A. The Angolan Revolution, I: The Anatomy of an Explosion(1950-1962). Cambridge: M.I.T Press, 1969.

-_.The Angolan Revolution, II: Exile Politics and Guerrilla Warfare (1962-1972). Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1978.

. "Angola: Background to the Conflict," Mawazo (Kampala, Uganda), 4,No. 4, 1976, 3-25.

Miller, Joseph. Kings and Kinsmen: Early Mbundu States in Angola. Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1976.

Nevinson, Henry. Modem Slavery. New York: Harper and Bros., 1906.Okuma, Thomas. Angola in Ferment. Boston: Beacon Press, 1962.The Christian Science Monitor. April 20, 1987.The New York Times. November 24, 1974; January 16, 1975.The Washington Post. January 13, 1975; February 17, March 15, 1987.The Washington Times. October 30, 1986; February 20, 1987.Winter, Roger. "Refugees and Displaced Persons from Angola and Uganda,"

Testimony before the Subcommittee on Immigration and Refugee Affairs,United States Senate, June 30, 1987.

The U.S. Committee for Refugees is a public information and advocacy pro-gram of the American Council for Nationalities Service. Publisher of the annualWorld Refugee Survey, USCR has since 1958 encouraged the American publicto participate actively in efforts to assist the world's refugees.

Other papers in USCR's Issue Paper series include:

Flight to Uncertainty: Poles outside Poland, April 1982.

Cambodian Refugees in Thailand: The Limits of Asylum, August 1982.

Afghan Refugees in Pakistan: Will They Go Home Again? December 1982.

Vietnamese Boat People: Pirates' Vulnerable Prey, February 1984.

The Asylum Challenge to Western Nations, December 1984.

Iranian Refugees: The Many Faces of Persecution, December 1984.

Afghan Refugees: Five Years Later, January 1985.

Time for Decision: Sri Lankan Tamils in the West, June 1985.

Human Rights in Uganda: The Reasons for Refugees, August 1985.

Cambodians in Thailand: People on the Edge, December 1985.

Refugees from Laos: In Harm's Way, July 1986.

Refugees from Mozambique: Shattered Land, Fragile Asylum, November 1986.

Despite A Generous Spirit: Denying Asylum in the United States, December1986.

Refugee Reports. Monthly $28.00 per year for subscription. Focuses on ref-ugees in the United States. It includes information about policy, legislation,programs, resources to assist refugees or inform the public, and research onrefugee resettlement. It also contains articles on international refugee develop-ments and statistics on refugee populations.

The World Refugee Survey: 1986 in Review. 1987 in Review will be availablein February 1988. $6.00 single copy. This authoritative annual report featurescountry reports on refugee conditions, a directory of organizations, bibliography,and definitive statistics. Includes articles by authorities on refugee protection andassistance.

For further information, please fill out the attached card, or write or call:

U.S. Committee for Refugees815 Fifteenth Street NW, Suite 610

Washington, D.C. 20005Tel: (202) 667-0782

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