AFRICA : Angola Rebel Leader’s Victory Fails to Open Path to Peace

In an important symbolic victory, guerrilla leader Jonas Savimbi captured the highlands city of Huambo in the southwest African nation of Angola last week after a 55-day battle with government forces that left thousands of civilians dead.

But the rebel leader, an increasingly unpredictable and unpopular figure who refuses to accept his party’s second-place finish in national elections last September, didn’t ride his victory into a new round of peace talks, as many had hoped.

Instead, he issued an urgent call for guerrillas disbanded in the peace accords to return to their units “to continue with the battles for the sake of bringing dignity to the Bantu people in their land of origin.”

“I am issuing a general appeal to all UNITA armed forces,” Savimbi said on rebel radio. “We have uniforms, arms, ammunition, bombs and food. . . .”

BACKGROUND: The 1991 peace agreements that offered such hope for Angola now lie in tatters with the full-scale resumption of the 15-year civil war between Savimbi’s National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the government of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos.

Dos Santos’ ruling party scored a decisive victory in the parliamentary elections, which the United Nations and other foreign observers declared free and fair. Savimbi also lost the race for president, although Dos Santos failed to win a majority, necessitating a runoff.

Some analysts have blamed the collapse of Angola’s hopes on the rush toward democratic elections, which left key elements of the peace accords not fully implemented. The most important of those was the clause calling for both sides to disband their armies and create a new, unified national force.

Savimbi had promised to abide by the election’s results. But when the verdict was in, he claimed fraud. And, even as he assured foreign diplomats of his willingness to negotiate with the government, his army began taking territory in the country by force.

OPPOSING FORCES: UNITA has made significant military gains in recent months, seizing, by some estimates, 70% of the country. Savimbi’s troops destroyed the main water pumping station for Luanda, the government-controlled capital of 1.5 million people. They also took the rich diamond-producing area of Lunda Norte and overran Soyo, a key city controlling a large number of foreign-run offshore oil wells that pump $3 billion a year into Angola’s economy.

The most important battle of the renewed war was in Huambo, Savimbi’s home city. No one knows the scale of destruction in the cutoff city of 400,000.

But the city, the second largest in a nation of 11 million people, has been without running water or electricity for months. Entire neighborhoods have been flattened by the shelling, and helicopter pilots say the stench of rotting corpses rises 5,000 feet above the city.

OUTLOOK: U.N.-sponsored peace talks in January in Ethiopia offered some hope, but UNITA failed to show up for a second round.

After the government conceded defeat to UNITA in Huambo last week, Savimbi offered to return to the table--but on the condition that the United Nations remove its special representative in Angola, Margaret Anstee, and change the venue to Geneva. Anstee has blamed UNITA for the breakdown of peace talks.

The government has called Savimbi’s conditions “a joke.” It wants a cease-fire in place before negotiations resume and is losing patience with UNITA’s strategy of offering to talk while still waging war.

In the long run, analysts say, the government has the stronger military hand. UNITA, which has only 35,000 troops, cannot hope to completely control the areas it has taken. And Savimbi’s traditional arms sources--the United States and South Africa--have dried up.

UNITA held the city of Cubal, 120 miles west of Huambo, for three months until mid-February, when the government retook it. Now the government is reported to be pouring troops and weaponry into Cubal.