Washington, DC — With peace finally a reality for Angola, there is a "mutual attraction" between the United States and that southern African nation, according to investment banker Rodney Goodwin, executive director of HSBC Equator Bank and chairman of the U.S. Angola Chamber of Commerce.
The Angolan government signed a peace accord with the Unita rebel movement in April, two months after its leader Jonas Savimbi was killed in battle. This month Angola is marking its 27th independence anniversary, the first it has celebrated without war.
In January, Angola will join the United Nations Security Council for a two-year term and last month took over the chairmanship of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community. U.S. interest in the country is fueled by its oil, which accounts for about seven percent of U.S petroleum imports, as well as by its rich diamond fields.
Rodney Goodwin, whose bank has actively invested in a number of projects, said more U.S. companies should take a look at what Angola has to offer. The country "has the resources to contribute to its post-war development," opening the way for attractive business opportunities. However, thus far, both U.S. companies and the American government are "way behind others in getting involved."
Angola's deputy foreign minister, Jorge Chikoti, speaking last week along with Goodwin at a seminar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, said that peace will allow the country's political process to mature and economic reforms to take root. "We are discussing a new constitution that will lead to new elections," he said, a process intended to engage a range of groups in addition to Unita and the ruling MPLA. Twelve political parties are represented in the current Parliament, and the country has an increasingly active civil society.
Chikoti acknowledged the challenges facing Angola, which he said needs investment and assistance to recover from a quarter-century of fighting. Over four million people, about a third of the population, have been displaced by war, and much of the country's infrastructure has been destroyed. The war claimed two million lives and created 800,000 orphans and 100,000 amputees. Parts of the country are littered with landmines.
In the midst of this humanitarian tragedy, which is being worsened by spreading famine, the United Nations is finding it "very difficult to mobilize funds" needed for basic assistance, as well as for rehabilitation and for the demobilization of combatants, says Agostinho Zacarias, a senior UN adviser. One reason is a desire on the part of donors to see significant Angolan resources allocated to human needs and economic improvement.
Currently, some 80,000 former Unita soldiers and their families are housed in reception areas, where they receive assistance from international agencies. But the Angolan government is preparing to close these camps, Chikoti confirmed, raising concerns for the welfare of the 300,000 people affected and sparking fears that some of the fighters will turn to crime to support themselves.
To tackle the massive reconstruction required, Chikoti said, significant outside assistance is required. "The American government today is one of the best partners," he said.
The United States has a long history of involvement in Angola, dating from support for Portuguese colonial rule prior to the country's independence in 1975 and backing for Savimbi and Unita for more than a decade. According to Witney Schneidman, an Angola expert who served in the Clinton administration, "U.S. interests transcend oil and make it imperative that we be involved in the country's rehabilitation."
Angola requires assistance "to ensure that families are reunited, that people learn skills that will enable them to find jobs, that the small and medium business sector will grow, that basic conditions of housing, health and nutrition are met, and that infrastructure is rehabilitated," he told the Woodrow Wilson session. But the current level of U.S. aid, totaling less than $7.5 million, is smaller than all but five countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including Liberia and Somalia, said Schneidman, a former deputy assistant secretary of State
In addition to increased aid, he proposed that the Bush administration work to help Angola qualify as a beneficiary of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, send Peace Corps volunteers to the country, and broaden an Aids-prevention campaign, spearheaded by the U.S. Angola Chamber of Commerce and American oil companies, to encompass jobs and skill acquisition.
One key to attracting both new investors and the financing needed for expanded trade and economic reconstruction is an agreement between the Angolan government and the International Monetary Fund. In a session convened a few days ago by the U.S. Angola Chamber and the Corporate Council on Africa, Paul Hare, a former U.S. ambassador and current Chamber president, described the recent relationship between the government and the IMF as "rancorous" and said "nobody knows" if the latest round of talks, which began last week in Luanda, will lead to a resolution.
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One issue that has complicated Angola's IMF discussions and contributed to the wariness of investors outside the oil sector is the country's reputation for rampant corruption. The London-based NGO Global Witness, in a March 2002 report subsidized by American financier and philanthropist George Soros, accused the Angolan government of "wholesale state robbery" and calculated that nearly one-third of an estimated $3.5 billion in oil revenue remains unaccounted for in 2001.
Asked at the Woodrow Wilson forum to address the corruption issue, Chikoti said the government is "taking corruption seriously" and has established a Court of Accounts to monitor how public funds are spent. The process will take time, he conceded, complicated by the demands of a transition from a planned economy to a free-market system.
