UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi died as he had lived — by the sword. But it was hardly a glorious passing. The man who had once represented his country’s thrust for freedom from Portuguese colonial rule and, then, its opposition to a Soviet- and Cuban-backed Marxist government in Luanda besmirched his reputation when he shied away from political peace.
In 1991, it seemed that agreement between UNITA and the Angolan government of the MPLA was on the cards and a coalition government was possible. But though UNITA’s political wing won seats in the 1992 election, Savimbi narrowly lost in his bid to win the presidency. Thereafter, he and his military commanders did not spend long in the capital. Distrustful of the MPLA, they preferred to maintain their power base in the east of the country, where they controlled most of the diamond production. United Nations Peacekeeping troops, seeking to facilitate a 1994 peace agreement for a conflict which had already cost 300,000 lives, quickly found themselves confronted with renewed violence. After five fruitless years, they were withdrawn. The war resumed in earnest and a further 200,000 lives were lost.
Savimbi had made a serious miscalculation in abandoning peace. His political and military supporters began to drift away. UNITA, which had once been an efficient military machine with its own schools and hospitals, began to degenerate into a rabble over which Savimbi exerted increasingly despotic control. His death probably means the end of the insurrection. But peace is by no means guaranteed. Individual UNITA units will almost certainly continue to operate as bandits, terrorizing the countryside. The long-term problem is that the MPLA government of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos is itself corrupt and incompetent. In power since independence in 1975, it has become a self-perpetuating oligarchy that has wasted and misused Angolan oil wealth. No longer able to claim the UNITA insurgency as an excuse for the dismal poverty in what ought to be one of Africa’s most prosperous economies, dos Santos will be hard pressed to find new political ideas and new political blood to put his country back on the path to recovery.
He must capitalize upon this pivotal moment of change in his country, to inject a feeling of hope, to offer all his countrymen a fresh sheet on paper on which to map out their destiny. The problem, of course, is that the MPLA will see its killing of Savimbi and the breakup of UNITA as its final victory. The temptation will be for Angola’s rulers to sit back and enjoy the fruits of that victory. They should realize, however, that the seeds of future discord could be sown by such triumphalism. If in the coming months, the euphoria dissipates to reveal that nothing really has changed, men of good will will see that the MPLA was every bit as responsible as UNITA for blocking change and reform.
There is enough weaponry in Angola and people who know how to use it for a new armed struggle to break out, as those who despair of change within the MPLA take up arms against it. Savimbi’s death should herald the demise of the whole old political order and the introduction of new blood and genuine new opportunities for a pluralist society.
