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NEWS STORY
Roy Carroll February 21, 2003 Officially, they are not losers. They are not a defeated, ragtag bunch of malnourished guerrillas with no homes, no jobs and no future. The Unita rebels are "partners for peace" who will help build a new, democratic Angola from the ashes of war. So goes the rhetoric of the triumphant government, the international community, and Unita itself. Exactly one year after bullets ended the life and violent times of Unita's leader, Jonas Savimbi, his movement is said to be reborn as a political party. It is a fiction. One look at Matungo, a settlement camp for 27,000 former rebels and dependants deep in the wilderness of Cuando Cubango province, shows the reality: an abandoned, unloved force on the wrong side of a 27-year civil war. Once, Unita was feted by apartheid South Africa and Ronald Reagan's White House as a bulwark against the Marxist, Cuban-backed government, a mighty fighting force which scented victory - but today its footsoldiers are unsure of their next meal. Facing retribution The stakes are humanitarian and political. Aid agencies warn that starvation, disease and retribution threaten an estimated 400,000 Unita rebels and their families. Diplomats warn that democracy and stability will elude Angola unless the rebels are integrated. Savimbi's ghost hovers. His dynamism and ambition kept the movement together even as he rejected one peace deal after another and the war turned against Unita, culminating in an ambush by government troops on February 22 last year which left him dead. His exhausted successors sued for peace soon after and the government appeared magnanimous, appointing some Unita officials as cabinet ministers, allowing the movement to open offices in the capital Luanda, and promising elections. The ceasefire has held, elections are on the horizon and there have been no reprisals, but otherwise little has gone right for the former rebels. Some have returned to ruined villages to seek out families they have not seen in years, sometimes decades, only to be accused of butchery and pillage. "There are initial reports that some returned ex-Unita personnel have been rejected by their own communities," said an Oxfam report. Around 100,000 remain in camps like Matungo, collections of grass and bamboo huts in the bush with insufficient food, medicine and water. No guns are visible. "Go home? I've been fighting since I was 16, now I'm 47. What home would you be talking about?" said Raul Wilson. "The younger guys, the ones in their 20s, maybe they have somewhere to go." Another veteran, Joao Epalanga, was equally pessimistic, despite repeating the "partner for peace" mantra. "We don't think Unita lost. Both sides understood there was no longer a need to fight. But I do feel abandoned." There were no uniforms in Matungo, but the queues for food were orderly and there was a chain of command. "We're organised but we have nothing, and this girl will die without drugs," said the hospital doctor, indicating the coughing, sweating form of Rosalina Kasinda, 11. A football match in the town of Mavinga was telling: the team in yellow was big and had proper kit, the one in blue was skinny and skidding around for want of boots. Government garrison troops versus former rebels; the government won, 2-0. Crouching in nearby fields, wearing visors and prodding the earth, were the lucky rebels, those employed as mine detectors after a crash course. "It's much easier planting these things than digging them up. I wish we'd kept maps," said one man. Unita leaders want Savimbi's body exhumed from a run-down city cemetery and given a dignified burial in his home village of Lopitango but the government, which is allowing a religious service in his memory in Luanda tomorrow, is wary of the legend's posthumous appeal. Jeronimo Mbayo, the guerrilla's personal physician for 30 years, burnished the myth by saying Savimbi took his own life after realising they were surrounded. "The soldiers shot the corpse to make it look like they killed him," said Dr Mbayo. Since being put up at government expense in Luanda's Tropico hotel, the guerrilla leaders have fleshed out their new suits - but analysts say Unita is struggling to become a political party. Squabbling between factions has been compounded by rumours that the government has bought off several officials. A big test of credibility will be Unita's party congress in May or June, when Abel Chivukuvuku and Isaias Samakuva battle for the leadership. One diplomat said that despite its gruesome history, the movement was the only viable political alternative to the ruling MPLA which has proved, in the absence of any organised opposition, to be corrupt, venal and indifferent to the plight of Angola's poor. "It is vital that Unita evolves into a political alternative, but the signs are not good," the diplomat said. In contrast to the petroleum-funded government, Unita's wealth has in recent years come from its diamond reserves, but government troops are now occupying its former heartlands. In Matungo, dozens of former rebels scrabbled in the riverbank for stones with a telltale glint while they still could. Breaking from a queue for food back in the camp, a scrawny man named Pinto approached two foreign visitors. He opened his palm, showing 19 tiny gems, and asked $2,000 for the lot. Told that they were worth perhaps a tenth of that, Pinto shook his head. "You don't fool me. It has to be worth more." story url
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