From Peace to War and Back (1991–2002)

Abstract

As Angola emerged from the ideological morass of the Cold War, competing strategies of guerrilla warfare were eclipsed by debates concerning appropriate techniques of conflict resolution. External actors who had deployed combatants and intensified hostilities were replaced by foreign troops who arrived to monitor a cease-fire and support a peace process. As the Popular Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA) and UNITA/FALA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola/Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola) tentatively cantoned their forces and discussed the creation of a new national army, a multitude of Angolan political parties emerged, expressing views that broadened the political discourse previously defined by dos Santos and Savimbi. However, the optimism of the post- Cold War era soon dissipated and doubts were raised about the capability of United Nations peacekeeping forces. International observers voiced increasingly serious concerns that neither the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) nor UNITA were committed to free and fair elections. Moreover, neither party had abandoned military options in the event of a new political crisis. Independent Angola’s first national elections, in late 1992, ushered in a new round of civil war, abruptly shattering the peace so enthusiastically anticipated only 18 months earlier. The ensuing hostilities proved to be very different in their tactics and more devastating in their impact than the battles waged in the late colonial or Cold War eras.