SECRETARY-GENERAL URGES ANGOLA'S NATIONAL ASSEMBLY TO TAKE CRUCIAL FINAL STEPS TO ENSURE PEACE PROCESS IS TRULY IRREVERSIBLE
Press Release
SG/SM/6190
SECRETARY-GENERAL URGES ANGOLA'S NATIONAL ASSEMBLY TO TAKE CRUCIAL FINAL STEPS TO ENSURE PEACE PROCESS IS TRULY IRREVERSIBLE
19970325 Kofi Annan Calls Assembly's First Sitting 'Moment of Transcendental Change' in Political Life of Angola and Its PeopleFollowing is the address by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the National Assembly of Angola, in Luanda, today:
It is a real honour to be with you on this important day for the future of your country. I thank Jose Eduardo dos Santos, President of the Republic of Angola, and Roberto de Almeida, Speaker of the National Assembly, for their invitation to address you.
We are today witnessing a moment of transcendental change in the political life of this nation and its people. You have reached a decisive turning point in the post-colonial history of your beautiful country. Stepping back from the brink of disaster, you have turned away from the calamitous path of violence and fratricide which has plagued this country for more than three decades. You have embarked, at last, on the road to unity and reconciliation.
To join you all here today, for the first sitting of this House since the painful events of September 1992, is for me a rare privilege and honour. I sense your joy, your joy that the goal of peace is at last in sight.
In a few days time, I earnestly believe and hope that the Government of National Unity and Reconciliation will be officially sworn in.
This place will itself become a symbol of reconciliation and of unity regained.
I offer my congratulations to the Members of the 12 political parties here present. You have done much to keep the spirit of democracy alive. I commend, in particular, the members of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) of this Assembly. By taking their seats here, they have made clear and unmistakable their commitment to democracy and national reconciliation in this country.
Peace brings joy, but peace also requires hard work. The prospect of peace prompts sober reflections. The coming of peace brings new responsibilities. When the blast of war no longer blows in our ears, when the guns are stilled, voices previously silenced, or drowned out, begin to make themselves heard. Those voices -- those of the victims of war, the widows, the hungry and the homeless -- can no longer be ignored. They have to be listened to, if the new nation is to be built. A new spirit of inclusiveness is required.
I come as the representative of the United Nations and of the international community. You alone have made the peace. You alone will keep it. But the international community, which did what it could to assist you in peace-keeping and peacemaking, will help you shoulder the new responsibilities, too. So today, let us reflect together on the lessons of recent decades, and on the challenge of the future.
Your independence was won in a war of national liberation of great bitterness which lasted 15 years. Then Angola became -- and I think we must be quite open about this -- a pawn in the cold war. The dynamics of the cold war bipolar struggle were given added sharpness by the involvement of the apartheid regime of South Africa.
As a result, Angola was plunged into one of the fiercest, longest and most devastating fratricidal wars this African continent of ours has ever known. It aroused the compassion, as well as the indignation, of much of the world.
As long ago as 1978, the United Nations began its efforts to bring peace to your country. Security Council resolution 435 of that year sought not only the independence of Namibia but also the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola. Three further milestones are worth mentioning.
The Bicesse Peace Accord, signed on 31 May 1991, was followed by the establishment, under Security Council resolution 696, of the United Nations Angola Verification Mission (UNAVEM). The elections of September 1992, of which you are the fruit, were another key event in recent Angolan history. Finally came the Lusaka Protocol, implemented with the assistance of UNAVEM I pursuant to Security Council resolution 976 of February 1995.
The Lusaka Protocol was based on a careful balancing of military and political steps. Above all, it was agreed that Angola should adopt a system of democratically controlled republican institutions, the hallmark of any modern State based on the rule of law and guarantees for basic human rights and freedoms. By any account, these were ambitious aims. That is why the Security Council gave UNAVEM II a two-year mandate to assist the Angolans in reaching these goals.
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Today, I can report that the United Nations has carried out a great deal of its mandate. The United Nations persisted in its efforts for peace despite the delays and the frustrations. It did so because it never doubted the political will of the Angolan leaders. The United Nations spent time and money: since the early 1990s, over $1 billion on peace-related activities alone, as well as millions of dollars in humanitarian aid.
The solidarity of Angola's neighbours with the refugees who fled the war will always be remembered, and is a credit to Africa. The countries bordering Angola extended hospitality to over 300,000 Angolan refugees. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) now reports that refugees are beginning to drift back, a sure sign of increasing confidence in the peace process.
But still, despite the strong support and solidarity of the international community, and 28 months after Lusaka, the peace process, although entering its final and no doubt difficult phase is still incomplete. Too many of the military tasks remain unfulfilled. I appeal yet again to the parties to quickly move forward in the vital remaining areas.
You must now make strong and permanent today's fragile peace, and move decisively on the phase of rebuilding and reconstruction. National unity and reconciliation must be your sole aim and objective.
What does this mean? Above all, a new spirit in the country. A new approach. A new attitude.
Article 4 of the chapter on National Reconciliation spells out what this means:
a) the agreement of all Angolans, irrespective of party or religious affiliation, and racial or ethnic differences, to live in the same fatherland in a spirit of fraternity and tolerance;
b) respect for the principles of the rule of law, for the fundamental human rights and freedoms as defined by the national legislation in force and by the various legal instruments to which Angola is a party, including relevant provisions of the Bicesse Accords and the Lusaka Protocol. Article 5 adds, in a spirit of national reconciliation, all Angolans should forgive and forget the offenses resulting from the Angolan conflict and face the future with tolerance and confidence.
National reconciliation requires, first and foremost, a psychological change, a shift in the national mood. But it is also an exercise in national renewal. It requires a new approach to government and to the State. For example, it requires you, as legislators, to work together with the executive
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branch of Government, to make decentralization effective. That means that State administration must be extended throughout the country.
National reconciliation means helping the people of Angola to live normal productive lives, allowing them to fulfil their potential as individual human beings. An enormous effort will therefore be required in the field of development.
But most importantly, movement is needed now in certain urgent fields: the demobilization of some 100,000 ex-combatants, the acceleration of demining activities, the rehabilitation of infrastructure and measures for improving the standard of living of ordinary Angolans -- women and men, urban and rural.
All these tasks are urgent and vital if peace and national reconciliation are to become realities and the support of the international community is to be retained. They constitute a challenge for women and men like you -- the elected political leaders of this country. I urge you to lose no time in pressing ahead.
I assure you that, provided the peace process shows continued progress, I am prepared to urge the international community and the donors to act swiftly to support Angola's development efforts.
Peace is now within your reach, never more in the past than today. When peace comes to Angola, then, for the first time in more than a generation, the southern African region will be free from conflict and it will have a symbolic meaning for our continent, as well as for the whole world. I hope that this meeting today constitutes the real beginning of the end of the stereotype of Africa as a continent of strife and conflict. It would help to open a new era of peace for the whole region. It would also demonstrate that the efforts of the international community in assisting the Angolan people to achieve peace were not in vain. The eyes of all Africa are turned on you. I entreat you to show them that the people of Angola and their leaders can make lasting peace.
The Security Council has stated repeatedly that peace in Angola is first and foremost the responsibility of the Angolans themselves. I urge you now to make those crucial final steps, to ensure that the Angolan peace process is well and truly irreversible.
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