Angola: Promises and Lies

Angola’s civil war has been the longest and bloodiest in Africa. In 1992 the country, once the battleground for a proxy war between the Cold War superpowers, was supposed to become a symbol of a peaceful new world order, a model transition from armed confllict to democracy. The MPLA government, backed by the Soviet Union and Cuba, and the UNITA rebels, who enjoyed American and South African support, would under UN auspices exchange their bullets for ballots - but it all went wrong … In the name of the Ovimbundu people, UNITA’s Jonas Savimbi rejected his defeat in the country’s first ever elections and plunged Angola back into war. The international community could do little more than wring its hands, eventually negotiating a new though fragile peace agreement. For millions of Angolans, however, the effects of two decades of violence have proved to be more enduring than the taste of peace.