Angola's Woes - Part XIV

Continued from Part XIII

The Turbulent 90s

A Joint Political-Military Commission (CCPM) supervised the peace process. The UN Angola Verification Mission II (UNAVEM II) followed on the heels of an earlier UN group that had verified the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola. UNAVEM II included several hundred military, police and civilian observers. During the second half of January 1992, representatives of the government and 26 political parties met in Luanda to discuss the transition to multi-party democracy.

UNITA declined to attend the meeting, but in February, it held talks with the government, at which agreement was reached on various points of electoral procedure. It was agreed that the elections would be organized based on proportional representation, with the president elected for a five-year term, renewable for three terms. The legislative assembly would be elected for a four-year term. On 2 April, dos Santos announced that the elections would be held on 29-30 September. Two days after this announcement, the people's assembly adopted electoral legislation providing for an assembly of 223 members (90 to be elected in 18 provincial constituencies and the remainder from national lists). Provision was also made for the creation of a national electoral council to supervise the elections. Despite concerns about delays in voter registration, some 4.8 million Angolans had been registered to vote in the elections by the deadline on 10 August. In August 1992, a constitutional revision took effect, removing the remnants of the country's former Marxist ideology. The name of the country was changed from the People's Republic of Angola to the Republic of Angola. On 27 September 1992, FAPLA and the UNITA forces were formally disbanded, and the new national army, the Forças Armadas de Angola (FAA), was officially established.

However, the process of training and incorporating FAPLA and UNITA troops into the new 50,000-strong national army had been hindered by delays in the demobilization program. It became evident that only a small percentage of UNITA soldiers had been demobilized, and that UNITA retained a heavily armed and disciplined force. UNITA had deliberately slowed the process of demobilizing its soldiers, in protest at the formation of a new government paramilitary unit, the emergency police, recruited from the MPLA's own Special Forces. Increased tension and outbreaks of violence before the general elections seriously threatened to disrupt the electoral process. Tens of thousands of troops remained in politically aligned camps on the eve of the elections.

To be continued...