Washington, DC — The assumption that once the civil war in Angola ended democracy would start up was always naive. Instead the ruling MPLA party has asserted itself as the dominant political force, President Jose Eduardo dos Santos has havered on his apparent decision to leave his post, and the erstwhile rebel movement Unita is still licking its wounds.

It has only been in the violence-ridden enclave of Cabinda, ironically, that there have been signs of an effective democratic movement beginning.

The civil rights activist Raphael Marques has just co-authored a new report on the human rights situation there ['Cabinda 2003 - a year of pain', Ad-Hoc Commission for Human Rights in Cabinda, November 3, 2003] in which murders, disappearances, detentions and torture are enumerated. "The logic of war dominates the quest for a solution," writes the Bishop of Cabinda, Paulino Fernandes Madica, describing how the Cabindan political situation has deteriorated over the past few years. He has watched over the past year, he writes, as the government launched its "cleansing operation" against FLEC guerrillas.

But Marques, in an interview with SouthScan and allAfrica.com, cited with optimism the success of a meeting earlier this year, which brought together over 1,500 people from civil society groups in Cabinda (SouthScan v18/21). Yet it is not possible currently to organise a similar gathering in Luanda, he explained.

Cabinda situation

The government had sent in 30,000 troops to Cabinda while the guerrillas are "barely there". In Marques' view, "hit and run attacks do not justify that level of action". Flec, the rebel group, is now reduced to isolated pockets of resistance that on their own decide to carry out operations without a command structure.

In contrast, Cabindan civil society was "extremely strong, well organised and with great backing from the Catholic Church there", said Marques.

After the Cabinda conference in July Dos Santos invited Ranque Franque, one of the Flec leaders in exile, to talks. It was not a serious move, says Marques, but a way of "shaking off the pressure that was coming from Cabinda."

Cabinda has become a major political battlefield because whatever happens there will have major impact in the rest of the country and will be "a source of inspiration" for the rest of country. It represents a way of bringing people together and overcoming differences fuelled by politicians, he said. Next year the 'Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa' will take groups of Cabindans to Angola and vice versa.

In Marques' view, the key issue relating to Cabinda is not secession but poverty - this is an oil-producing territory in which there were large queues for fuel and where people often had to buy fuel smuggled back in from the Congos.

The US oil company Chevron remains isolated within the country - its staff are picked up by helicopter and never cross Cabinda city and even their food comes from Texas. Cabindans are now demanding that Chevron builds an office in the city but "these demands fall on deaf ears as Chevron has the full backing the government to do what it pleases." Despite the fact that Angola has ratified the treaty to ban the use of land mines Chevron has mines around its compound. However, it has now put up warning signs - "already a development".

Chevron should "do a bit more for the local population" so that people could start seeing oil as a benefit not as a curse, says Marques.

Last week Dos Santos gave a strong hint that he would seek to remain in power at the next elections - despite having earlier indicated a willingness to stand down. "The question of the candidacy of the citizen Jose Eduardo dos Santos is an open question within the [MPLA] party," he told reporters.

In 2001, Dos Santos said he would leave office at the next general elections. His term of office, as well as that of the parliament elected in 1992, expired in 1996 but the renewed war with Unita intervened.

Marques believes that Dos Santos has not set himself an exit strategy and so cannot stand down in 2005, when the next elections are scheduled. If he exits without a plan "he will have to answer for his deeds. Dictators do things without ever thinking they will have to stand down."

Instead Dos Santos continues to believe the international community will support him. The government is thus spending far more on lobbying on companies in US and Europe than in trying dialogue with the people, says Marques.

In any event, if Dos Santos goes this will open the way for mass demands for the reclamation of land illegally taken by his generals, his ministers and by the president himself. An attempt to pass a new law on land tenure "to legitimise what they have already done" did not pass in the assembly.

While many in the country are starving good farmland, without land mines, is not being used to produce food. Instead the generals are waiting for foreign investors to appear, says Marques.

Unita as opposition?

In this situation there is no effective political opposition, he believes. Unita is in an extremely weak position - militarily defeated and dependent on what MPLA dictates for own survival. In Unita strongholds its flags are being burned by supporters of the ruling MPLA. It is being prevented from organising in its strongholds, and in a city like Huambo people are unwilling to talk openly about problems because they fear being labelled Unita supporters. "This is not only in Huambo but in most of the provinces - if they talk too much they receive warnings or when they go back to work since most jobs are provided by government or by companies dependent on government for survival."

In Marques' view Unita has become the main partner of the government in "some sort of forced marriage". For a Unita member to have a house or medical treatment he must knock on a government door. Unita had been a state within a state with teachers, doctors and nurses but there still has not been an integration of these people into civilian life. It is dependent on the state budget and probably on diamonds and other resources to feed its people - it is "a sort of social service". All this makes it difficult to develop democracy by transforming Unita into a political party.

"We lack an opposition," says Marques, and adds that civil society, which had been strong in demanding peace, also has "come to a halt".

Many thought that peace meant that the government and society would be able to come together to discuss the future. Instead government refused to do that on the grounds it had legitimacy and international support to do what it wanted.

Civil society problems

Last year civil society was pressing for dialogue to end the war, though at first the international community did not recognise a role for those who did not use weapons. Even the UN's special representative, Ibrahim Gambari, said that civil society was "a bunch of loose cannons" and there was pressure from the UN to drive civil society organisations out of the process. It was only when government in its turn drove the UN out of the process that the UN started to talk to civil society, says Marques.

But with the end of the war, civil society groups have been left with little room to press for reforms. It is an environment that can turn explosive - in March an attempted eviction in a Luanda district led to a four-hour battle with heavy weaponry and later to a new call by the government for the disarming of civilians. (This week Amnesty International issued a report condemning mass evictions. It said over 5,000 households were evicted in Luanda and their homes were demolished in three mass evictions between 2001 and 2003.)

There have been public protests - a month ago there was a march against corruption in government where the protesters veered away from the route set by police. The police did not challenge them because of the threat of violence. Nor can the government rely thoroughly on soldiers and police who are also poorly paid - " If tension rose what would happen? No-one really knows."

The government's legitimacy at home is at its lowest now because of recent corruption scandals, such as that involving Pierre Falcone (SouthScan v18/18; 20). This can be measured in the streets, said Marques - before Savimbi's death newspapers focused on the two sides in the war; now they all have one thing in common - targeting the government. Those that do not do so do not sell.

Overall the possibilities for organisation in Angola proper seem more difficult than in Cabinda. First an "agenda for democracy" is missing. There is no clearly defined political process leading to elections and endless bureaucratic obstacles are put in the way of registering civil associations.

But in September last year there was an attempt to put together a coalition of 32 organisations. It was set up but a new leadership was "forced" by the government on the association.

"It is not a question of leadership - it is very easy to separate people in Angola because of corruption and repression," says Marques. However, in the case of Cabinda there is more resilience and women are more vocal than the men are. And there is also more unity because Cabindans see the government as foreigners.

"Whatever the government does, it hardly infiltrates into that core group to destabilise it, while in Luanda many of the civil society actors are employed by the state. To have access to health or education they have to rely on the state, so it is much easier for civil society to be manipulated," Marques says.

(http://southscan.net v18/23 14 Nov 03)