Angola became independent from the Portuguese in 1975 after a costly and long running liberation war with three independence movements based on different ethno-linguistic, ideological constituencies that were as antagonistic towards each other as to the colonial power. Angola is now in its fourth year of peace with no immediate reason why war should resume. This comes after 27 years of civil war between União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA) rebels under their charismatic, dictatorial and ruthless leader Jonas Savimbi and the governing Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA). The former were US and apartheid South Africa-backed, although with a rhetoric of representing the poor ’real’ rural Africans of the interior and based on the Ovimbundu – the largest ethnic group. The latter was based on the coastal elite which is urban and mestizo, with a rhetoric of broader nationalism, socialism, and anti-imperialism in a conflict overlaid by the Cold War and its malign agencies.
In 1991 there were changes from a Marxist-Leninist state with an inefficient command economy towards a supposed multiparty democratic state and market economy. Few freedoms were realised although there were free and fair elections won by the government in 1992 – the ’excuse’ for UNITA to renew the war. The state remained heavily centralised with the president and elite able to control extra-budgetary revenues for their own accumulation and clientilist purposes. It has massive oil production revenues and potential. Much of the infrastructure, agriculture and rudimentary health services were destroyed by war with millions of landmines being laid – with knock-on effects on agriculture, transport as well as people's lives. War also meant excess mortality of one million deaths – roughly a tenth of Angola's population, displacement/urbanisation with about half of all Angolans, perhaps seven million people, living in cities and towns, one-third in Luanda. The agrarian system collapsed as did the health and education services – only 37 per cent of primary-aged children were enrolled in school whilst most of the health budget goes to hospital-based curative services, including elite spending in South Africa and Portugal.3
Peace broke out in April 2002 when rebel leader Jonas Savimbi was killed, leaving the MPLA-controlled government as the undisputed victor, but espousing reconciliation4 – for which civil society can claim some credit. The country in theory faces a triple transition from war to peace, from devastation to reconstruction, and from a state/elite patronage system to a transparent market economy. The first two are better advanced including a greater commitment to infrastructural (re)construction. Many in civil society express concerns over delays in and government commitment to reform. Inflation has been brought down although no major structural reform has occurred. In particular there is unlikely to be a challenge to the key nature of the bazaar economy (Cadongo) in trade and services which is controlled upstream by commercial tycoons and army officers able to accumulate resources by using special powers, granted them by senior politicians, to import goods. There has been increasing political and economic inequality including in land, and especially in relation to the massive inequality suffered by women.5
Angola can use high oil prices and (expensive) oil-backed loans to play the Chinese card against the US one, avoiding any international pressure for reform. It also has hegemonic regional aspirations rivalling those of South Africa to the south.
Transition or steady state?
There is an assumption that Angola is in transition and that its current sdysfunctionality will change – but is it true? Conversely we can see the current situation of the ’politics of disorder’ as a functional 'steady state’ for the Angolan elite. It holds a number of cards, although is dependent on a number of conditionalities such as high oil prices and the state's ability to attract concessional oil-backed loans such as those from Standard Bank and the $2bn from the Chinese Eximbank in 2005.5 Is this a reversion to the ’normality’ of a protected Cold War state although intriguingly with the sides having changed (the US having previously used UNITA to counter ‘Soviet expansionism’)?
What is the current situation and problems and are we talking transition or ‘steady state’? Currently Africa's second largest producer is one of the continent's fastest growing economies with some of its poorest people.6 In 2005 oil production was 1.3 million barrels a day and several large deep-water finds were set to further boost output to two million barrels of crude per day by 2008. A new law aimed at the creation of private local companies to exploit this new field has been implemented and while much of this revenue is already mortgaged, much will also go to a small number of wealthy Angolans with little reaching its citizens.7
Angola earned an estimated $6.88 billion total oil revenues for 2005, pumping over 1 million barrels of oil per day with new major projects8 coming onstream to increase future production.9 Diamonds were expected to increase to 150,000 carats. Increases in coffee production were expected in the year, although low world prices and possible overproduction might affect progress. Little diversification occurred elsewhere. There has been very little trickle down given the problems of a three-tier society – the capital and coastal regions benefited to some extent from oil, but the hinterland continues to struggle. The government budgeted for 16 per cent growth although the IMF Staff Report projected annual growth at 18 per cent a year over 2005-2007.10 In fact, it looks more like 20 per cent with double digit growth widely predicted to continue over the next few years.
The country had a UNDP Human Development Index of 0.445, giving it a ranking of 160 of 177. There was neither a formal agreement with the IMF in 2005 or a donors’ conference despite it being heralded on many occasions. Donors appeared reluctant to commit fully to a donors’ conference for a rich booming country (or rather a poor country with a rich elite) in relation to humanitarian appeals.11 Angola is also the fourth or fifth largest diamond producer – historically like oil, another enclave sector with little regulation or accountability. There were accusations that as well as continued smuggling (despite expulsions of 127,000 foreign nationals involved in the illegal diamond trade between April 2004 and February 2005), human rights violations – including forced labour, ill-treatment and disappearances were common occurrences in the informal diamond sector. Such allegations led to Angola withdrawing its candidacy for the vice-chair of the Kimberley Process (KP) during the Moscow meeting in November 2005. A peer review visit with experts from Russia, Canada, the Central African Republic, Global Witness and the World Diamond Council took place in October 2005 to verify Angola's implementation of KP; results have not yet been disclosed.
Diamond production was expected to be around $900m which, along with decreased smuggling, would assure the government of much greater revenue. However, a report from Partnership Africa Canada12 stated that despite some positive changes, the diamond industry needed to do more to develop the country – particularly in the artisanal sector so that more people could access the industry and benefit from it (a diamond polishing centre opened although without creating much employment).
Infrastructure continued to be repaired with the concessional oil-backed loan of $2bn in 2004 from the Chinese Eximbank.13 The agreement between them revolved around China providing infrastructural development, cars, and transmission line equipment, helping rebuild Luanda's government buildings, local rail network, improving the electricity supply and providing agricultural equipment. Local civil society and economists continued to express concerns that the deal only looked to contract 30 per cent to local firms, which meant that the Chinese were largely without competition.14 There were also questions about whether it would be the elite-linked firms that got the 30 per cent non-Chinese component. The opaque nature of the deal runs counter to the rhetoric of the Angolan government opening up its books to scrutiny.
But despite large GDP growth, a current account surplus, and the lowest inflation rate ever,15 the challenges remain: a fragmented national economy, a history of financial embezzlement and misappropriation of funds, a lack of international confidence and donor coordination, poor administrative capacity, a large child population at risk from disease, and a largely weak (or at least fragmented) opposition and civil society unable to affect social and political developments.
Angola was ranked 133 out of 145 on Transparency International's Country Corruption index. In recent years, over one million Angolan people remained dependent on UN-funded food aid, and one child died every three minutes of preventable causes – 480 per day. The underlying problem is the ’resource curse’ of oil-based economic enclaves with greater external than internal linkages, meaning a lack of reciprocity between domestic rulers and the ruled in all spheres.
Angola like many oil-producing countries has the paradoxical link between exploitation of oil, gas and minerals and high rates of poverty indicators of child malnutrition, low health care spending, low school enrolment rates and poor adult literacy (and war) – although these are projected to increase in actual terms and as a percentage. The effect of oil wealth (’Dutch disease’) is to cause economic contraction and inflation through high local prices, expensive exchange rates and depressed levels of manufacturing in other sectors plus a lack of national accountability, especially with increased world demand, tightening supply and in 2005-06, continued high prices. As an oil enclave economy which has few forward and backward linkages, the industry (overwhelmingly offshore) employs only 10,000. Oil accounted for 90 per cent of exports and 80 per cent of tax revenues and economic diversification to combat such indicators is still awaited. Does the elite want diversification (even if they can see the necessity) given their control over import and export? The elite would certainly want to control any diversification programme rather than allow an unfettered free market.
The World Bank described the government's oil-backed borrowing as the ’core obstacle to the country's development’. However, there was a conference on transparency in May 2006 on the use of oil revenues, although typically the government only allowed civil society into selected sessions.16
Yet undoubtedly there have been changes. Transparency has improved in areas of revenue (if not expenditure) through publication of an oil diagnostic undertaken by outside consultants KPMG with some moves towards a declaration of signature bonus payments. Although these have not been incorporated into law, the latest signature bonuses were made public. Although allegations of corruption persist with high-ranking government officials implicated in private business deals related to their public office, the Accounting Court successfully prosecuted a number of senior officials in 2003-04. In July 2004, Angola signed up to the African Union's Peer Review Mechanism – although NEPAD staff confirmed that it is still far from meeting the Mechanism's conditions.
Angola faces the task of moving from a state of non-war to a ’Civil/Social Peace’. There remains a need to end corruption and tackle poverty, allow the development of a genuinely independent private sector, create an open and transparent tendering process and transform the political system into a pluralist democracy. Equally, to maintain stability and create justice, civil society called for action on disarming the estimated one-third armed Angolans (although this appears not to be a government priority), clearing an unknown number of landmines, and addressing the exclusion of the poor and marginalised, especially women. This, civil society hopes, would then lead to a widely-agreed and owned electoral process and thereby legitimise the institutions of government, without legitimacy since 1996. There is need for institutionalising constitutional reform in guaranteeing citizens’ fundamental rights such as the Constitutional Law Review Court and the work of the Ombudsman Paulo Tjipilica, former Minister of Justice, who was elected in April 2005. There is also a human rights commission at the national assembly, but it appears not to be functional.
But can the government just more or less ignore these problems and maintain the present situation for its own stability and security? There are a number of reasons to think so. Resumption of war is highly unlikely while high oil prices and fields for development look set to continue. There is also likely to be availability of oil-backed loans from, for instance, the Chinese and Standard Bank (and a French one forthcoming); these are not as cheap as multilateral funding, but are more under government control (private bank loans have higher interest rates but do not have the extra conditionalities deriving from IFI/IMF loans). Internationally, continued instability in the Middle East combined with US hegemony over the Gulf of Guinea/ the ’American Lake’, means that the US is relying more to African rather than Arabian oil and expects around 25 per cent of its supplies to come from the continent. This means that the increasing market share for Angolan oil going to the US and other states means unsurprisingly that security considerations weigh far more heavily than transparency or human rights ones.
Angola is a strong state with no obvious internal or regional threats. Co-option, division and occasional repression work well to negate any possible internal threats. The Angolan elite remained largely immune to what international pressure there was for good governance and transparency, and avoided a deal with international financial institutions through its loan from and cooperation with the Chinese. There appeared lessening outside capacity or the will to induce an equitable distribution of the large oil profits or push issues of transparency. The West is aware of the need to engage with a booming economy and is keen to compete with China which is getting the lion's share of contracts for infrastructural (re)construction.
What pressure there is for change (mostly from Western financial institutions and INGOs) is directed more towards questions of transparency and a secure and inviting climate for foreign investment (FDI) rather than democracy and poverty alleviation. The Chinese loan was earmarked for a small number of large projects in a seemingly transparent process, but comes under a new ’reconstruction cabinet’ under presidential control.
This is against the background of declining world oil production which is believed to be over the ’Bell curve’. Regionally, excluding Zimbabwe and (parts of) the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the region has been stabilised – in part by Angolan interventions in neighbouring states to ensure there were no UNITA rear bases but also by such governments’ compliance with Luanda. Angola is able to use the rhetoric of sovereignty and anti-imperialism which resonates well in the southern African region – as shown in the case of Zimbabwe. This is despite the more partial view of sovereignty enunciated by the AU as opposed to the absolutist OAU version.
Luanda has proclaimed that there is now a ceasefire and a Memorandum of Understanding (Namibe agreement of 1 August 2006) to end the Cabindan conflict – a separatist issue that is distinct from but interwoven with the nearly 30 year civil war; Cabinda holds 60 per cent of Angola's oil wealth. According to the government, a series of meetings with the Cabindan Forum for Dialogue (CFD – a grouping of the resistance, human rights groups and the catholic church) led to a decrease in military activity, and then acceptance that Angola was a unitary and indivisible state, but that the 'specific characteristics of Cabinda Province made a special status necessary for the province, in terms of a provencial government and local administration’17. However, the kind of special status is very unclear with a rejection of the deal by parts of the liberation movement, Frente Libertação de Enclave de Cabinda (FLEC). Additionally, the Cabindan human rights organisation, Mpalabanda Cabinda Civic Association (MACC) which is part of the CFD, was banned on 20 July 2006, which seems to suggest that Luanda is prepared to grant some form of limited autonomy for selected people, as long as it is in control of the process. Those who doubt there will be real autonomy point out that the military commander in charge of the process of integrating FLEC forces into the army and of the ceasefire is General Uala who killed Savimbi.
The government has little shame in making promises (’doing it for the English’ in the Portuguese phrase) that they seem to have little inclination to keep; only when economic trends go against them do they seem to move – moving slowly and only making cosmetic changes. Additionally, rather than seeing forthcoming elections whenever they are as an opportunity, the population being only too aware of what happened in 1992, seems as much fearful or apathetic. Local churches and NGOs seem to be in a three-way relationship with outsiders and the local state – each can attempt to play off the other with advantage normally favouring the state.
The governing MPLA can pay off and play off other parties.18 Whilst it has its own factions, the president runs a parallel state and seems to be in control of the party as with his reversal of not standing as its presidential candidate. Through frequent government reshuffles he also ensures existing and potential opponents such as the chief of external intelligence agency General Fernando Miala (who paid the price for becoming too popular) are nullified.19 UNITA, the major opposition party formally reconciled its three factions after 2002, but there are divisions and complaints about their leader Isaias Samakuva rearing their head.20 Other parties seem more concerned with getting their snouts in the trough rather than representing distinct interests and policies.
Political disorder & its uses
Angola can be seen then as an example of the use of ’disorder as a political instrument’ whereby non-transparency, non-accountable authority, and a weak legal framework provide dynamics for elite accumulation. Historically there has been a ’Bermuda triangle’ of resource flows between the Presidency, Sonangol and the national bank – bypassing formal organs such as the Ministry of Finance (although the latter is gaining greater control). As well as vast corruption in the past detailed by many reports including from the IMF, Global Witness and Human Rights Watch, practices continue as shown in the reports from Brazil of illegal financial dealings linking the Angola Minister of Finance, and the Governor of the Central Bank.21
The nation's rulers – described by Angola-watcher David Sogge as ’a constellation of politician-rentiers, petroleum sector technocrats and military officials’ – run the state in their interests. He sees most citizens as having become irrelevant due to citizen-state reciprocity being virtually non-existent given the lack of any politico-social contract by which citizens consent to meet legitimate demands (such as payment of taxes, compliance with rule of law, etc.) in return for state responsiveness, within its capacities, to respect citizen rights broadly and fairly. Few citizens have access to basic services of reasonable quality in water, health, education, public order, justice, energy, and infrastructure and where there is access, it is allocated not by right or need but according to spending power and political connections.22
Despite some cosmetic improvements, change has been slow on closing the gap between the political class and citizens. A personal presidentialist style of rule parallel to the formal governmental/cabinet structure characterises the country, working through patronage networks and political co-optation of opposition parties and journalists with the former receiving state funding. Government accountability to the Angolan population remains weak, with citizens given few opportunities for legal redress against perceived injustice or abuse and localised corruption still endemic. A number of provisions made in the Constitution remain unfulfilled, including structural features such as the existence of a Constitutional Court which would enable citizens to claim their rights more easily. Angola's legal system is a contradictory coexistence of colonial laws (e.g. The Penal Code of 1886), Marxist-Leninist laws (e.g. the Law of the Attorney-General), and democratic laws (e.g. the Constitution). This situation is aggravated by the lack of political will to setup a constitutional court, as required by the Constitution, to intervene on these matters. Angola still ranks considerably below other sub-Saharan and low-income countries in comparative governance and ethics indicators. Sogge further notes that the domestic Angolan political economy
In this sense Angola's problems of domestic governance ’are at the same time problems of global governance’ in which the constrained forms of global citizenship ’practised by institutions offshore set limits to citizenship for ordinary Angolans onshore’.Elections: Paths to democracy or ensuring the right result?
A promised electoral process has been delayed despite promises since the end of the war in April 2002.23 The parliamentary and presidential elections which were announced unconvincingly in 2005 for September 2006 and 2007 respectively seem now to be put back until there are infrastructural improvements – for which the government would gain electoral advantage and increased control over the process.
There was a review by government, with the opposition alternatively taking part and boycotting the process, of Electoral Law and the creation of the National Electoral Council (CNE) on 19 August 2005, but work remained outstanding on the population census and electoral rolls although an electoral budget of $125m was approved. Delays and lack of information on the election timetable despite government denials appeared to confirm doubts over the timetable's realism. In September 2005, Minister for Territorial Administration (and coordinator of the Inter-Ministerial Commission for the Electoral Process [CIPE]), Dr Virgilio de Fontes Pereira estimated voter numbers as seven million of a fourteen million population with six million lacking identity documents. Even by that month, the government had not decided whether the presidential and legislative elections should be held simultaneously. All those over 18 would be eligible to vote, although the diaspora will only be entitled to vote in the legislative elections. International observers would be invited and there would be a civic education initiative. Unanswered questions included the effectiveness of CNE, how to overcome two-speed democracy – with little happening yet outside Luanda. Issues of reconstruction of transport, infrastructure and de-mining were vital for the elections as well as restoration of normal life.
The European Union stated (during 2005) that it would contribute to parliamentary elections if there was ’a proper and conducive environment’ which seemed to mean a commitment to transparency, dialogue and pluralism. The government held an international seminar on organising elections in August 2005, but nothing concrete transpired.24 Western diplomats in Luanda noted government's failure to establish a regular forum for consultation except on emergency and humanitarian aid between it and the international community.
For unexplained reasons the electoral law on presidential elections was referred to the Supreme Court by the President, although officially it was to ensure consistency with the constitution and give a legal basis to the elections.25 Nor were the political implications and possible effect on the registration process, provision of identity cards, and thereby the election date fully explored. The general population seemed either fearful or apathetic in terms of the elections and expected little change in their lives; many were reluctant to return to home areas until after peaceful elections. Abstentionism, which appears likely to be high given the experience of 1992, worried the government into stressing the need for civic education. With elections promised there was an initial expectation of greater commitment to development and poverty alleviation, although in fact the elite appears to be using incumbency to maximum advantage.
In preparation for the elections, all parties tried to get rid of their ’deadwood’. UNITA saw allegations that leader and presidential candidate Isaias Samakuva was operating a patronage system under pressure of a possible leadership challenge from Abel Chivukuvuku (leader of one of the previous factions). Samakuva expelled Jorge Valentim, a former minister of tourism and suspended Eugenio Manuvakola, former president of UNITA-Renovada.
Within the ruling party MPLA, President Dos Santos maintained and strengthened control as the party's seemingly now undisputed presidential candidate despite denials in previous years that he would again stand. An internal struggle between old hardliners and technocrats allied to those interested in democratic appearances saw the latter gaining the upper hand. Whilst the MPLA does not yet see itself as no longer synonymous with the state, there has been some small movement away from the classic national liberation stance of it being the only legitimate expression of all Angolans. The MPLA continued its recruiting drive among ex-UNITA fighters, with the state media giving large publicity to those joining.26
Over 150 political parties continue to exist, many with identical platforms, undemocratic internal practices and with little parliamentary initiative from those parties represented in the National Assembly. Little happened in the establishment of coalitions between opposition forces or promulgation of alternative policies or monitoring of government policies. The dependence of opposition political parties on state funding did nothing to help them work out their positions, policies and monitoring capacity. The MPLA held 129 seats in parliament where it controlled the Government of National Unity and Reconciliation. The main opposition party UNITA, had 70. Police claimed in 2005 they were still investigating the assassination in the previous year of Mfulumpinga Lando Victor, leader of the Democratic Party for Progress and National Alliance (PDP-ANA) – a longstanding vocal critic of the MPLA government.
Civil society: Small, autonomous but with some resistance
At least a third of Angola's population resides in musseques (shantytowns) where most live atomised lives.27 Collective action to solve common problems does not take place spontaneously. Semi-formal groupings do however spring up, occasionally coalescing around demands. Much depends on who is trying to animate whom for what ends. Most non-profit social enterprises, that is, NGOs, commonly try to ’act upon’ or on behalf of ’the community’. Such approaches can occasionally get results, but donor agendas as elsewhere often interfere.
Open, horizontal community-based organisations and neighbourhood committees to resolve disputes and manage local public improvements have had some successes e.g. in Luanda and Lubango. Elsewhere in Angola dormant institutions, such as the onjango (communal meeting place for adult leaders), hold significance for people, and have been revived with encouragement from sensitive development practitioners, such as the major Angolan NGO, ADRA (Association of Justice, Peace & Democracy).
Many forms of mutual aid have been transformed or dissolved under pressures of war, forced urbanisation and competitive scrambles for existence. Given the widespread damage to the social fabric, the strength of vernacular institutions should not be over-estimated.28
No significant dialogue over elections seems to occur between government and civil society although the ruling party did attend international NGO events on electoral education. Discussions took place on the need for increased media freedom, access to information and lessening of the state monopoly of the only daily newspaper and the only TV station/news agency which resulted in some rethinking inside the ruling party on the need to loosen its control over state institutions and functions.
Angola finalised its Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper in November 2005. NGOs, amid civil society worries that the administration lacks the capacity to design, implement and manage the grassroots programmes needed to effectively tackle poverty and that large scale infrastructural projects were easier for the government to undertake, especially given the Chinese input into them. After increases in social spending in the previous budget, the proportions looked to decline in 2006.
A new press law was passed in which the government expressed willingness to provide training for the state and private press in Angola, although it still did not allow the Catholic radio station, Radio Ecclésia, to switch on its provincial transmitters. The government in 2005 announced efforts to increase the broadcasting range for television and radio, and engaged in discussions on a new press law to allow for greater private participation, restating its commitment to the principles of inclusion, pluralism, transparency and permanent dialogue. New broadcasting laws, according to the government, would see Radio Ecclésia and other broadcasters playing a role in giving all citizens access to information. The government and the media looked to outside donors as well as returning diaspora to help train Angolan journalists in awareness of electoral issues, and political parties’ awareness of the media.
Challenges facing the media included high rates of illiteracy, limited circulation and the government monopoly on television and controls over radio. According to Radio Ecclésia, it had greater freedom than before but problems still remained – largely political rather than legal. The authorities seem to have abandoned repressive tactics in favour of co-option of critics into the state-run media. Progress towards a new constitution faltered and appears unlikely – certainly before any elections. The alienation from and profound distrust of the government seems to suggest few overt signs of opposition or resistance. There are very few demonstrations against the government despite the poverty and little alternative leadership and vision, although recently there have been protests over the violence used by police in forced removals29 in some neighbourhoods in Luanda. State coercion is always possible both with these removals and the risk of arrest of human rights activists such as the SOS-Habitat coordinator, Luis Araujo. The army is well-trained and large.
Street protests are put down promptly and with force, but small opposition parties, human rights NGOs and independent media continue to push out the boundaries of a small political space (at least in Luanda) by framing their efforts in terms of legal norms. Some of the key questions about which civil society organisations have raised concerns include the continuation of José Eduardo dos Santos as President, transparency and corruption in government, debates around land law and the new constitution, the DDR process (demobilisation, disarmament and resettlement), police and military impunity, freedom of expression and political action, and Cabinda. At the same time, many others, in particular rural churches and NGOs, continue to focus their work around humanitarian assistance and basic service provision, working closely with government agencies. In Angola, NGOs are not ‘neatly-bounded, structured things but fluid processes’.30
Domestic human rights and media activism have yielded modest achievements. However, the pace and quality of change stemming from citizen pressure have been limited by the fragility or absence of public systems and institutions – part of the general disorder that has served elites well for many years. On occasion this critical mass of activists and intellectuals has connected with poor people under threat, but such linkages are few and full of risks. It is a kind of low-level equilibrium trap.
The Inter-Ecclesiastic Committee for Peace in Angola (COEIPA) and other NGOs took part in a number of electoral education initiatives throughout 2005 and 2006 (although local NGOs suggested on my recent visit that COIEPA is in crisis). The main theme was to go beyond the election process for a wider process of national reconciliation and monitoring campaign pledges such as promises on providing clinics and schools. These were attended by high-level delegates from the government and parties. Civil society continued a broad range of initiatives aimed at strengthening local analysis and capacity in resolving potential and local actual conflicts. Eunice Inacio of Development Workshop's Peacebuilding Programme became one of the Nobel ’1000 women for peace’ receiving an additional award from the government.
Findings from a joint assessment carried out in 2005 by the UN and the government revealed that although some four million internally displaced persons (IDPs) had returned since April 2002, more than 91,000 remained. The humanitarian situation facing IDPs living in camps saw a high proportion of poor, food-insecure families, limited local administrative capacity, lack of infrastructure and basic services remained bleak, especially as donor support for humanitarian assistance progressively reduced. In Cabinda where the ’massive presence’ of Angolan armed forces was the chief deterrent for would-be returnees, most of the displaced were receiving no assistance. The World Food Programme (WFP) Vulnerability Assessment for 2004-5, said that 1.5m people were still exposed to food insecurity, with most of the 13.5m population living in dire poverty. It fed 750,000 people through the year despite the donor shortfall which saw it compelled to reduce the cereal rations it provided to vulnerable groups, mainly refugees and those internally displaced. UNICEF also had a shortfall in its appeal. Levels of political intolerance and violence between non-displaced communities and formerly displaced persons rose as in March 2005 in Kuando Kubango. The process of demobilising former opposing sides into a single army ran into problems as in Bié where former UNITA, unlike former MPLA combatants, were not returned to the home area.
In terms of the ’Education for All’ programme promising free compulsory and quality education by 2015 and full gender equality, building began on a number of schools. There was a rise in the 2005 budget for social, health and education spending to overcome the collapse of education, but this was set to proportionately decline in the budget for 2006.
Angola has only 1,600 registered doctors of whom 85 per cent are in Luanda which translates into one doctor per 20,000, one nurse per 1,000 and one midwife per 20,000 inhabitants. In April 2006, Angola signed the last two protocols on the rights of the child.
The Government has made some attempts at addressing HIV/AIDS and associated vulnerabilities.31 Previous statistics had indicated a prevalence rate of 5.5 per cent, highest in border areas and rising in urban areas to 10 per cent, but there were regional variations and the figures were probably considerably underestimated with increased movement of population likely to speed the pandemic's effect. In rural areas access was difficult. The President inaugurated a new institute to fight AIDS on 23 September 2005.
It has been a mixed picture on improvements in human rights observance with the report from the UN Special Representative on Human Rights being denounced by the Angolan Foreign Minister.32 Independence of the judiciary saw little improvement as judges for the constitutional court were still being appointed by the president and subject to executive dictat. In November 2005, local NGO APJD published a report on problems in the judicial system, and the army was criticised for its handling of the mass repatriation of Congolese involved in the diamond trade in Angola.
The uncertain economic situation was compounded by continued crackdown by the fiscais police on the informal sector, allegedly as a ’danger to public health, street crime or impeding traffic’. This is where most small-scale traders make their living and Luandans saw this initative as serving the interests of politically-connected larger traders, objecting to being undercut by smaller ones.
Land & land reform: Who gains?
Despite Angola's size and relatively low population density there is a lack of abundance of land for all – for geographical/climatic reasons as well as political/ economic ones. The result of this is that land (tenure and use) is one of the main potential flashpoints for future disputes and tensions especially if there were to be large-scale population return to rural areas.33 In the early 1990s, following an ideological shift within the MPLA, the government embarked upon a huge land privatisation programme. A new land law was drafted resulting in the large state-owned companies being divided up and their constituent farms privatised and sold off to would-be commercial farmers. However, the new private ownership laws did not consider customary or communal rights to land and a few wealthy individuals gained control over vast natural resources; it was, in effect, a ’land grab’ which benefited well-connected families of the ruling elite at the expense of small peasants. This proliferation of ranches and commercial farms is concentrated in the areas of the country with the highest quality land.
As the majority of the Angolan population relies on subsistence agriculture for survival, land is many families’ chief asset and the only source of family income; hence, tenure and use of land is heavily contested. Because of low soil fertility in many areas, the size of the smallholding needed to sustain a family is larger than might be expected – an issue in the context of the return movements of displaced and refugee families. Customary land law implemented by traditional chiefs states that a man may leave his land for over a generation and return to claim it. In the meantime land may be temporarily reallocated. As rates of return increase this may no longer be possible. In addition, there may be conflicts between implementation of customary law and state land law, which remains unclear. Customary law discriminates against women as the right to return and inheritance applies only to men. Furthermore, in practice, women and female-headed households have been allocated smaller plots than men.
The passing in November 2005 of the land reform law allowed communities to access and legally register their land as property leading to hopes of greater security for an estimated four million people and improvement in Angola's agricultural production, even with lessened donor support; However, observers doubted it would eliminate the possibility of conflict over land. The new laws contain no implementation clauses, meaning that although some foreign-funded local NGOs and the longtime international NGO Development Workshop have been attempting to register land for local communities, the process is difficult and NGOs working in rural areas say that many in local government know little about the law. The UN/ FAO began training communities to prepare land delimitations, for example, in Huila province. There was hope for improvement in the treatment of workers and small farmers on fazendas (estates) after a court case near Lubango on illegal detention and torture of farmworkers.
In August 2005 as part of the land reform programme, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development announced a 25 per cent increase in agricultural production due to the return and resettlement of displaced people and refugees. This resulted in an increase in the area of land cultivation and maize production from 700,000 tonnes to 880,000, leaving 800,000 needing to be imported. According to official figures, agriculture accounted for 12 per cent of GDP in 2005, a 4 per cent increase from the previous year. With three consecutive years of improved harvests Angola still has pockets of food insecurity due to regional disparities in crop production as well as transport system difficulties in moving food from surplus to deficit areas.
Women: Peace burdens follow war burdens
Those with least access to resources and decision-making power in Angola are women. Women suffered enormously during the war, not only because of the direct effects of violent conflict, but also because of the indirect effect of poverty on families and communities. Eighty per cent of internally displaced persons were women and children, suffering high levels of mortality, malnutrition, illiteracy, poverty and HIV/AIDS. Women and girls are particularly affected by lack of access to health, information, education and water. Angola has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, low literacy amongst women and lower school matriculation, attendance and completion amongst girls than boys.34 In rural and urban areas, women and girls take responsibility for water collection and this alone impacts negatively on health. Women as primary carers are responsible for sick family members. In urban areas, the lack of (male-dominated) formal employment possibilities has resulted in women becoming primary family breadwinners through informal commercial activity, in addition to remaining primary carers.
Current government attempts to crack down on informal commercial activity will have the effect of further increasing poverty levels amongst poor urban women and their families. Women are again particularly affected by these issues, especially lack of access to services and resources, and tensions that have led to abuses. Women are under-represented at all levels of state administration, political life and at decision-making levels in churches and NGOs. Tensions and conflicts at a local level have manifested themselves in abuses of power relations in the home – including violence against women.
There was for the first time a report to CEDAW in 2004 which acknowledged the unequal burdens borne by women, but the need for resources to promote gender equality in structural, legal and traditional discrimination against women in areas of property, inheritance and sexual violence still remains.
What international pressure?
Activism on rights and governance on the international plane, driven by knowledge-based activist organisations abroad, has been much less inhibited and has achieved a great deal in raising issues and setting agendas in corporate behaviour. The ’Publish What You Pay’ campaign on transparency of payments continue to target oil companies in relation to Angola and other countries. The Angolan government's negotiations with George Soros’ Open Society Initiative, in which transparency would be rewarded by Soros leveraging increased investment in Angola, appeared to have foundered after April 2004 as oil prices rose. Angola also appeared a long way away from signing up to the EITI (Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative) despite earlier promises.35
Angola is ranked 133 out of 145 on Transparency International's Country Corruption index. The IMF found that between 1997 and 2001, $8.45 billion of public money was unaccounted for (an average of 23 per cent of GDP). The Angolan government still has no transparent system for managing its oil money with uncertainty on how much oil revenue is in the central bank. The Cabinet/Council of Ministers having announced agreement with the provisions of KPMG's Oil Diagnostic Report on revenues deposited in the central bank, did not specify which it agreed with. International oil companies were, as usual, contractually not allowed (even if they so wished) to publish what they pay to the state, meaning that ordinary Angolan citizens had no information so as to, inter alia, call their government to account over use or misuse of state funds.
During 2005, Angola said it was ready to enter into an IMF programme to restructure its debt, but did not want new loans as the amount it could access would be tiny compared to Chinese and other loans. Finance Minister José Pedro de Morais suggested that the IMF did not have an accumulated knowledge of Angolan economics as the reason for years of failed talks – interpreted locally as being unwilling to understand the needs of the elite. To help fund its post-conflict reconstruction, Angola continues to rely on expensive oil-guaranteed loans despite its promises to the IMF earlier in the year. According to De Morais, with estimated external debts of $10 billion, Angola wants IMF approval of its would-be homegrown programme through a Policy Support Instrument (PSI) that would help it tackle its $1.5bn to $1.8bn Paris Club debt arrears. This would give a seal of approval for creditors wanting assurances before discussing debt rescheduling. The IMF response was that a staff monitoring programme only was possible.
IMF visits in 2005 and 2006 produced some praise for progress in transparency over oil revenues, external debt, Sonangol's (the state oil company) transactions, and macro-economic management – including publishing of the Oil Diagnostic, but noted deficiencies in fiscal information, monitoring and control of public expenditure. A promised first-ever audit of Sonangol appears not to have happened. The loan agreements, high oil prices with increased oil production and bilateral lending appeared to give Angola greater leverage in its dealings with the IMF – a double-edged sword for the poor.
According to Global Witness, a syndicate of European banks led by French bank Calyon are organising a $2.25bn oil-backed loan to Sonangol36 to both refinance existing debt and for $800 million in new money for undisclosed use. A Chinese company would be the buyer of the oil. The budget for 2005 was of a proposed $1.89bn deficit – 8.9 per cent of GDP, forecast to grow by 11.6 per cent through rising oil taxes and greater lending; inflation came down (see introduction). The budget for 2006 announced in October 2005 included reducing defence and social spending expenditure, although doubling spending on agriculture.37 The kwanza remained stable throughout the year against the dollar and euro due to the ’hard kwanza’ policy of intervention in money markets to defend the currency (oil prices are pegged in US dollars).38
Stabilising the neighbours without invasions
Angola appears concerned to counter images of its corruption, although without necessarily giving up hegemonic notions in Central Africa to rival/complement South Africa's further south such as an increasingly warm relationship with fellow oil producer, Equatorial Guinea. With Portuguese assistance, Luanda indicated a wish for a larger peace and security role in Africa for its large and relatively well-equipped armed forces. Although lacking a peacekeeping background, Angola offered its assistance given its ability to deploy without pre-funding from the African Union or United Nations.
Angola, as the third largest provider of crude oil, remains aware that its fortunes are linked to international oil consumers– its military and economic assets giving it bargaining power. It continues to forge agreements with the Chinese, busy extending their influence in Africa. Howver, the long-projected donors’ conference did not occur due to insufficient confidence in the government's capacity and commitment to the development process as one of the preconditions set by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank (this was for more transparency in the management of oil resources). Angola appeared a long way away from signing up to the EITI despite some promises and its observer status. Indications were that the West was keen to invest in infrastructure but less interested in investment in the social sectors.
As a contestant to African regional leadership, Angola positions itself as a key player in efforts to maintain and restore peace and security, spending around 10 per cent of its GDP on its military. Reflecting moves towards a more united SADC, Angola continues to draw closer to South Africa with whom it previously had difficult relations, signing a number of cooperation agreements on agriculture and trade. Warm relations with Brazil, Israel and Russia are likely to continue.
The interest of the US in the Gulf of Guinea – ’the American Lake’ – and Angola in particular as alternative sources of supply to the Middle East also continues gaining a growing share of the US market (although oil exports to China overtook those to the US); the latter continues as Angola's chief trading partner, political patron and major aid donor and gives it preferential African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) treatment. The US ‘spoke positively’ about Angola's cooperation in combating terrorist links to conflict diamonds and engages in joint training exercises as well as providing aid in civic society support work, training for journalists and de-mining.
In October 2005, the Commission of the European Union denied presidential allegations of it cancelling the proposed donors’ conference,39 suggesting the Angolan government should request it.40 The European Parliament and the European Commission expressed doubts about Angola's adherence to oil accounting transparency citing its qualification of its commitment to join the EITI, in saying that the move would only take place after the conclusion of a reform programme with the International Monetary Fund.
As well as continued good relations stemming from the loan the previous year and assistance on rebuilding other forms of infrastructure, the Chinese began construction of a new airport for Luanda with virtually all work being done by the Chinese. Beijing is also building a centre near Luanda for the Forcas Armadas Angolanas (FAA) for training elite troops as well as providing communication equipment. Japan is Angola's second biggest donor after the US and opened its first embassy in early 2005.
Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio, visiting in November 2005, offered an alternative proposal to the international donors’ conference with a conference in Lisbon on multilateral investment in Angola. Visiting Portuguese Defence Minister Luis Amado Lisbon offered continuing assistance in training to the Angolan military and a $29 million agreement on health and education was also signed.
Relations improved with Bern after resolution of ’Falconegate’ (Angolagate) in which French businessman, Pierre Falcone, was suspected of embezzling funds from the restructuring of Angola's debt to Russia. Following an agreement negotiated by the Russian deputy minister of finance, an agreement (in December 2005) with the Swiss led to the release of Angolan funds frozen in Swiss bank accounts of $17m for humanitarian purposes (although $37 million held in a Luxembourg-based bank account owned by a Panama-based company called Camparal, which belongs to Dos Santos allegedly vanished into tax havens). The funds are supervised by Switzerland's Directory for Development Cooperation and can only be spent on humanitarian projects. Relations with France continue to be cool due to the investigations into corruption by French and Angolan officials in an arms deal. The French oil company, Total, suffered collateral damage in this row and is being frozen out of lucrative contracts.
Conclusion
The ruling MPLA has for many years with some justification been able to blame the war for its repressive and unaccountable policies. Subsequently, it has also with some justification been able to point to the need to move from a war economy and polity into transition. But we do not have to believe the rhetoric over transition and how difficult a process it will be. Rather, Angola is in a 'steady state’ with its economic and political policies marked heavily by the structures established both by war and from a command economy. It is able to use its oil wealth both for elite accumulation and for overcoming any resistance to its rule. Who is going to make it change this pattern? As its oil wealth and ultra deep oil exploration possibilities increase, it is also increasingly able to ride out any internal and mild international disquiet over its policies – accessing available, if expensive, oil-backed loans and able to put its resources where it wishes (whilst proclaiming a rhetoric of development and transition). Clientilism has replaced more repressive measures. There are some constraints in the present and future – such as wanting to present itself as not so corrupt to attract FDI, a lack of skilled personnel such as engineers and capacity, a desire to deal with its debts and its dependence on the maintenance of high oil prices – but not sufficiently to disturb the equanimity of the elite and its accumulation strategy despite some cosmetic changes. Any opposition can be marginalised, bought off or in the last resort got rid of.
Key questions including the date of elections remain largely unanswered, although the movement into a post-conflict (re)construction situation under government control continues. Little has happened in terms of the need for the government to spread growth beyond the capital-intensive oil sector to create the conditions for labour intensive poverty-reducing growth and to allow a genuine private sector to develop. This would have helped free up revenues available for social investment and for the increase in delivery of social services. Despite rhetoric on increased transparency, accountability and democratisation, little has yet been accomplished to overcome the gap between ruler and ruled. Nor was there much to overcome the needs or instability in rural areas or musseques.
Questions remain on what impetus there is to launch Angola towards widespread economic recovery and poverty reduction? How can the poor (i.e. the majority of Angolans) make their voice heard? Apart from some NGOs it seems there is little help they can expect in terms of support pressure from the international community who, despite claims otherwise, are as Sogge has pointed out, happy with the restricted form of citizenship and participation followed by Luanda. This is due to the increased autonomy of the elite in a context of high oil prices and vulnerable supply, and significant shifts in international and regional alliances in the face of the ’Chinese threat’ and the war against terror. The election date is still uncertain but little can be expected from the process with the elite seemingly well in charge.