THISDAYonline

The death of Jonas Malheiro Savimbi, 67, last Friday marked a fresh opportunity for peace which has eluded Angola since her independence 27 years ago. The implications of his tragic end for the future of Angola are what should bother all the well-wishers of an African country richly endowed with natural resources, including oil and diamond ,but which has been rendered prostrate in developmental terms by a civil war that Savimbi ensured never ended until his demise.

The anxiety in the air is about if the death of the warlord, Savimbi will automatically bring an end to the war which has prevented Angola from realising its development potentials.

Savimbi died in a battle as he had once wished after he had jettisoned several ceasefire agreements. The war began before 1975 when the ruling Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) came to power following the independence from Portugal. The liberation movement led by Savimbi since he was 32, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) was founded in the late 1960s as one of the liberation groups in the struggle for the independence of Angola. Ironically, UNITA came into being proclaiming noble ideas of democracy and African nationalism. Savimbi would even be remembered for the ideological posturing of a Maoist because of his strong base in the rural areas. The other two rival liberation movements are the MPLA and the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA).

At independence, the proposed arrangement for shared power in a transitional government among the three liberation movements crumbled. Savimbi's UNITA had taken up arms to realise its power ambition. Savimbi also reneged on peace agreements reached in 1974, 1989 and 1991.

In the days of the cold war Angola was one the theatres of the super-power rivalries between the United States of America and the defunct Soviet Union. While the MPLA government was backed by Soviet Union, UNITA enjoyed tremendous support of the US and apartheid South Africa. Savimbi was then a useful instrument in the war to ward off the influence of "communism" especially in Southern Africa.

The war was further fuelled by the control of Angola's natural resources. While the MPLA government was in control of rich deposits of mainly off-shore oil in the coastal areas, Savimbi's UNITA had a firm grip in the central highlands where diamond is found in abundance. Hence, the tragedy of Angola in almost three decades has been that the money from oil has been essentially used to counter the Savimbi's war sustained by the money from blood diamond, all on Angolan soil.

Angola is one of the most mined territories in the world. The population of the amputees and displaced people are all evidence of the humanitarian tragedy of the war.

Today, although Angola is a growing oil producer, it is one of the impoverished nations on the globe with one of the lowest life expectancies on the African continent. About 500, 000 lives have been wasted in the war. No fewer than 180, 000 depend on emergency food aid. Another 300, 000 are displaced living in the bush and remote villages. They are cut from the access to humanitarian supply.

By 1992, when another ceasefire agreement was put in place to pave way for elections which was duly monitored by international observers, Savimbi rejected the results of the elections, although some UNITA candidates won as parliamentarians. There are still UNITA members in the Angolan parliament.

Savimbi was widely acknowledged as the main factor that almost single-handedly prolonged the Angolan debacle. Now that he is gone for good, what are the prospects for breaking the cycle of violence that has kept Angolan post-colonial development in a suspended animation for so long ?

We urge the Government of Angola to seize the opportunity of the opening offered by the departure of Savimbi to work towards sincere national reconciliation. It should be stressed that the cleavage in Angolan society has ethnic dimensions among others. UNITA has a strong base among the Ovimbundu ethnic bloc. The UNITA guerrillas scattered over a vast swathe of the country have enjoyed the support of the Ovimbundus in the rural areas. The political solution of national reconciliation must therefore be intensified by the government. The lesson from Savimbi's end is that ultimately there is no military solution to the Angolan problem.

Those who remain in UNITA should know that with the exit of their ruthless leader it is time to make peace. They should work towards transforming UNITA into a viable political force that can legitimately seek power in a purely democratic and peaceful atmosphere.

The end of Savimbi should be the end to the war that has prevented the resources of Angola from being used for the welfare of the people.