| | The following Briefing is a joint statement from Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA/UK), the Washington Office on Africa (WOA) and the Komitee Zuidelijk Afrika (the Netherlands): Since the signing of the Lusaka Protocol in November 1994, Angolans have been living between war and peace. They are grateful for the cease-fire and peace process that ended the previous two years of unrestrained conflict. But they are concerned at repeated delays in implementation of the agreement. Despite many reasons for hope that things will be different, the spectre of 1992, when UNITA's leaders plunged the country into war after rejecting the results of the internationally monitored September election, has not yet been exorcised. Signs of hope include the higher level of UN engagement than in 1992, the high-level and energetic attention to the process evidenced in recent US policy, the willingness of donors in Europe and elsewhere to provide funding for necessary reconstruction projects, and the recent momentum gained by the Angolan government's flexibility on several disputed points and the quartering of the first substantial number of UNITA troops. |
