Formal Borders Research Articles

Renewed war in Angola

With UN-sponsored peace talks at an impasse, Angola is close to a renewal of full-scale civil war between the forces of President José Eduardo dos Santos' government and Jonas Savimbi's National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). Such a war would almost certainly become entwined with the growing conflict in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DROC). The regime in Luanda has sent troops to help DROC President Laurent Kabila against the Tutsi-led rebellion, and Savimbi is seeking an alliance with the Tutsis. The whole of central Africa therefore risks becoming a single zone of conflict, in which formal state borders cease to have any real meaning on the ground.