Glimmer of hope that `pardon politics' heralds an end to Angola's war

There are nervous whisperings about the possibility of peace in Angola, with President Jose Eduardo dos Santos admitting that…

There are nervous whisperings about the possibility of peace in Angola, with President Jose Eduardo dos Santos admitting that he may summon the strength to pardon his greatest enemy, the 65-year-old rebel leader Jonas Savimbi.

Speaking to a small audience of traditional chiefs, local government officials and civil society representatives this week, Angola's head of state said: "We advocate a policy of forgiveness for all who seek the path of reason, for all who repent . . . Maybe," he added seconds later, "even Savimbi himself."

Opinion is divided between those who believe "Zedu", as the president is called locally, has finally accepted that war against UNITA rebels will never bring peace; and the sceptical who say he is simply playing with language to appease critics. The confusion is inevitable.

Since independence in 1975, Angola's history has been marked by protracted periods of conflict, broken only briefly by four failed peace accords.

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The Alvor agreement, in 1975, was supposed to ensure that the anti-colonial groups, of which there were three, would cease fighting after the lid of Portuguese rule had been lifted. It failed. The Gbadolite accords, in 1989, called for a ceasefire between the two main warring parties, UNITA and the MPLA government. It too, failed. Then came Bicesse in 1991.

The Bicesse accords temporarily ended a phase of conflict that had killed up to 350,000 people in battle. Shakily, this agreement led to Angola's first nationwide elections the following year. UNITA, which won slightly fewer votes than the MPLA, rejected the results. Within a month "the Third War" had begun. At the height of the fighting, in 1993, up to 1,000 people were dying each day.

The next stab at peace came in 1994. But from the start, the Lusaka accords seemed destined to failure too. Dr Savimbi, who refused to sign them, sent a delegate to the Zambian capital. What followed was four years of neither peace nor war. Despite endless talks, words failed to flatten the desire of the two leaders, Dr Savimbi and President Dos Santos, to conquer the other.

On December 4th, 1998, the national army launched an attack on the rebels' headquarters in the central highlands. Neither side has looked back since.

Until, that is, this week. " `Zedu' has had to accept that he will never defeat Savimbi," is how one seasoned Angolan journalist analyses the President's latest statement. "He has no choice but to negotiate." A crescendo of calls for peace from an increasingly brave civil society and surprisingly critical Catholic Church may also have forced the president to rethink his long-stated view that "war is the only way to peace".

However, words have a history of proving worthless here. UNITA's representative in Italy, Mr Adalberto Da Costa Jnr, has already said that, "Angola's head of state should move to actions in order to prove that he is really willing to search for peace and reconciliation". The same might be said of Mr Da Costa Jnr's leader, Dr Savimbi.

It is indeed telling that few Angolans outside of the academic, political or media world have blinked at the president's recent rhetoric. Nearly four million of them have been displaced, 1.5 million rely almost entirely on UN emergency food aid for their survival and many more have lost several family members during the last 25 years of war. For these people, it will take more than whispers of "pardon politics" to end their present existence of complete despair.