Freedom in the World 1999 - Angola

1999 Scores

Status: Not Free
Freedom Rating: 6.0
Civil Liberties: 6
Political Rights: 6

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Angola receives a downward trend arrow due to further repression of the press and ongoing atrocities committed by both sides in the war.

Overview

The situation in Angola deteriorated considerably during 1999 as fighting that had resumed in December 1998 between the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the rebel National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) intensified. At one point, 70 percent of the country's population was living under siege by UNITA in government-held provincial capitals. At least 1.7 million people, or more than 10 percent of the population, have been displaced as the humanitarian situation worsened to levels described by aid workers as "catastrophic." Assistance has been hindered by deteriorating security in the countryside. Seven humanitarian workers were killed in 1999 in direct attacks on well-marked aid vehicles.

In February 1999, the United Nations Security Council voted to end the UN peacekeeping mission in Angola following the collapse of the peace process and the shooting down of two UN planes. Neither the MPLA nor UNITA has ever fully complied with the 1994 Lusaka Accords, which were meant to end nearly three decades of devastating warfare in Angola. But by September, the UN had decided to send in a small mission to begin replacing the one it had withdrawn.

The government of President José Eduardo dos Santos announced a major offensive against Jonas Savimbi's UNITA early in the year, saying "We must make war to have peace." The army made considerable gains against the rebels, and pursued them to their rear bases along the borders of neighboring countries. But more regional instability could follow, adding to the problems created by the war in the nearby Democratic Republic of Congo. Fighting from Angola has spilled into Namibia and threatens to do the same in Zambia. More than 20,000 Angolan refugees have fled to Zambia since October 1999, adding to the 160,000 already there. Another 10,000 have fled to Namibia since September.

The Angolan government's procurement of weapons this year matched levels in 1994, with Russia as the prime source of arms. They were paid for through bank loans, oil revenues, and mining profits. UNITA continued to fund its weapons purchases through the illegal sale of diamonds, which is estimated to have earned the rebel group $4 billion during the last eight years alone. South African diamond giant De Beers maintains that it does not buy from UNITA and announced in October that it had placed a worldwide embargo on the purchase of diamonds from Angola.

Angola has been at war since shortly after independence from Portugal in 1975. During the cold war, the United States and South Africa backed the rebel UNITA movement while the former Soviet Union and Cuba supported the Marxist Dos Santos government. The conflict has claimed at least half a million lives since it began.

Economic conditions have worsened with a drop in world oil prices. Petroleum accounts for 90 percent of government revenue, but state corruption and a lack of transparency have prevented the average Angolan from benefiting from the wealth. The country accounts for about ten percent of annual global diamond production. Nevertheless, in the 1999 UN Human Development Report, Angola fell four places to 160, which categorizes it as one of the 15 poorest countries on earth.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties

Angolans freely elected their own representatives for the only time in the September 1992 UN supervised presidential and legislative elections. The vote was described by international observers as generally free and fair despite many irregularities. But Savimbi rejected his defeat to Dos Santos in the first round of presidential voting and resumed the guerrilla war.

The MPLA dominates the 220-member national assembly. Although 70 UNITA members continue to sit in parliament, their movements are restricted and four were held in prison, accused of maintaining secret contact with Savimbi. New elections have been provisionally scheduled for the year 2000, but it is not certain that the Angolan people will yet be free to change their government through the ballot box.

The resumption of war has galvanized Angola's civil society. It has been involved in efforts to renew the peace process by urging the inclusion of the Angolan people, not just the warring parties. Nongovernmental groups have also helped pressure the government to account for its use of oil revenues.

Serious human rights abuses by both government and rebel security forces have been widespread, including torture, abduction, rape, sexual slavery, and extrajudicial execution. Both sides conduct forced recruitment of civilians, including minors. Local courts rule on civil matters and petty crime in some areas, but an overall lack of training and infrastructure inhibit judicial proceedings, which are also heavily influenced by the government. Many prisoners were detained for long periods in life-threatening conditions while awaiting trial.

Despite constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression, the media have suffered a serious clampdown characterized by severe and sometimes violent measures. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said the Angolan government in 1999 was "among Africa's worst offenders against press freedom." At the beginning of 1999, the government ordered a ban on coverage of the civil war. The independent media largely ignored the ban, and as a result was accused by the state press of "facilitating" UNITA's war efforts. Angola's minister of social communication, Hendrik Vaal Neto, had warned of a violent crackdown against journalists deemed "unpatriotic" or allegedly "inciting treason."

In September, the government imposed a ban on the transmission of foreign news programs. In January, two journalists with the independent Radio Morena in Benguela were arrested following the rebroadcast of a news program from Portuguese state television that featured an interview with a UNITA official. Mauricio Cristovao, of the Radio 5 sports channel on the state-owned Radio Nacional de Angola, was gunned down in August by unidentified gunmen in an attack that the Journalists Association of Angola described as an assassination. Also in August, police raided the studios of Radio Ecclesia, a Roman Catholic FM station, while it was rebroadcasting a BBC interview with Savimbi, the UNITA leader. Police arrested nine journalists. The station was accused of having violated "the internal and external security of the state" under Angola's Law on Crimes Against State Security. The law cannot be challenged because there is no functioning constitutional court.

Labor rights are guaranteed by the constitution, but only a few independent unions are functioning and those exist in the cities. The vast majority of rural agricultural workers remain outside the modern economic sector, and their livelihood has been further jeopardized by the war. Despite legal protections, de facto societal discrimination against women remains strong, particularly in rural areas. Religious freedom is generally respected.