Washington, DC — The Catholic Church of Angola and the international human rights organization, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, are spearheading a new campaign for peace. Speaking at a Luanda meeting launching the campaign Saturday, Archbishop D. Zacarias Kamuenho, President of the Catholic Bishops Council, declared: "An Angola without war is the message that we take to those who have weapons in their hands... it is time to end this lifelong tragedy."
Angola's brutal 25-year-long civil war has cost 500,000 lives. Children have been especially hard-hit by the combat and the poverty that accompanies it. One third of them die before reaching the age of five.
The campaign plans to pressure both the rebel Unita fighters and the government to seek a negotiated peace. Without guns, the group believes their strength lies in popular support for peace.
"Most of the people in Angola do not want war," says Raphael Marques, an Angolan freelance journalist who also represents the Open Society in Luanda. "Any leadership with common sense would ensure that this carnage stops, to serve the interest of the people."
Marques is on the government's list of enemies. Last year, after publishing an article in an independent weekly, portraying Angola President, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, as a dictator, he was jailed and convicted of charges of defamation. He was arrested again in September, and held for a few hours. "But that does not stop me from trying to live in a different Angola," he says.
The campaign seeks to present in concrete terms a united public voice in opposition to continued war. Says Marques: "We say essentially that the war does not depend on the will of the President and [Unita leader] Savimbi, but on the will of the people."
At Saturday's meeting, held at Luanda's Hotel Tropico, each of the 250 participants were given a paper ballot that asked two questions: "Do you support continuation of the war in Angola?" and "Do you believe that war is a solution to the conflict in Angola." Only one person voted "yes."
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The campaign intends to repeat the balloting at churches and other public gathering places around Angola. It hopes to become a mass movement led by those most affected by the war.
The indiscriminate killing that has occurred in Angola's long war will underpin popular support for the campaign, the group believes. "In the so-called cleansing operations in which some take pride," Archbishop Kamuenho told the meeting, "people are dying who never belonged to any political faction or who innocently sympathised with one or the other party."
