PRESS CONFERENCE ON ANGOLA SANCTIONS

Press Briefing

PRESS CONFERENCE ON ANGOLA SANCTIONS

Out of Angola's small population of 11 million people, 1 million had been killed since the beginning of the war more than 20 years ago and nearly 2 million had been internally displaced, Robert Fowler, the Permanent Representative of Canada and Chairman of the Angola Sanctions Committee, told correspondents at a Headquarters press conference this morning on the Expert Panels on Angola Sanctions. Also briefing correspondents was Ambassador Anders Mollander of Sweden, Chairman of the Angola Sanctions Expert Panels.

The figures on the internally displaced, stressed Mr. Fowler, did not tell the entire story -- those people were in the middle of a vicious and pervasive war and were being used as its instruments. The long and useful debate in the Security Council yesterday on "Children and Armed Conflict" had addressed issues such as landmines, child soldiers and damage to civilians. Those issues, which both the Council and Canada were very anxious to pursue, were also present in Angola.

Mr. Fowler told correspondents that the current sanctions in place against Angola were directed at the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). Earlier this week a closed meeting of the Council had taken place on Angola. That was unfortunate because Canada had hoped for an open meeting. He was, however, happy to note that most of the briefings provided to the Security Council on Monday, 22 August, were available on the United Nations web site.

Mr. Fowler said the Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Sergio Vieira de Mello, had given a briefing on Monday on the humanitarian situation in Angola, in all its appalling and horrendous detail. Catherine Bertini, Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), and Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), had also given briefings to the Council. All those briefings confirmed that the situation in Angola was as bad as anybody thought it could be, and it was worsening.

According to Mr. Vieira de Mello, the humanitarian agencies had access to less than one third of the country, Mr. Fowler said. Despite the numbers he had given regarding the dead and the displaced, there were many more numbers. There was very little media access, and "we do not really know what is happening in the rest of the country". "We do know that the war is raging in many of those areas and nobody is there to witness it. Therefore, we can only assume based on what we do know, the kind of damage to people that is occurring."

Mr. Fowler went on tell correspondents that the mission given to him by the Council was to "do what we can within the context of the Sanctions Committee" to limit the ability of Jonas Savimbi, the leader of UNITA, to wage war. That was done in a variety of ways. Sanctions of one kind or another had been in effect for the past six years, he added.

He said the sanctions began by trying to limit Mr. Savimbi's access to arms and munitions. They then sought to limit his representational activities -- his ability and those of his senior officials to travel and raise money abroad. The Council then passed further resolutions which sought to limit his access to petroleum, oil and lubricants, the products which fuelled his war machine. Finally, one year ago the Council passed a vitally important resolution which made illegal the purchase of diamonds offered for sale by UNITA sources.

Mr. Fowler said that while the objective was to diminish UNITA's ability to make war he, like most others, felt that eventually the dispute was one that would have to be settled across a negotiating table. It was clear, however, that neither side was very interested in negotiating right now. After 14 months of intense negotiations in Lusaka, Mr. Savimbi, as the rebel leader, agreed to a process which would allow him to participate democratically.

Mr. Savimbi just did not like the results, so he went back to the war, continued Mr. Fowler. In that regard, the focus of the United Nations was now exclusively on those who refused to abide by the deal that was struck in Lusaka, namely UNITA and Mr. Savimbi. "We are hoping to limit his ability to make war in two very obvious ways. First of all to make it less easy for him to make money by selling diamonds abroad and to ensure that he earns less money from the sale of diamonds." That would be done by forcing Mr. Savimbi into parallel grey and black markets with more unscrupulous dealers who would give him less money for diamonds.

"We are realists", continued Mr. Fowler. Mr. Savimbi was going to continue to sell his diamonds. There was no more concentrated form of value in the world than diamonds, and those little sacks were going to find a market somewhere. The issue was to make it less lucrative for Mr. Savimbi to do that. On the other side, there were the arms and petroleum which he used to fight the war. The focus would be on stopping the sources of arms by making it more embarrassing, more difficult, more dangerous, and expensive for people to sell arms to Mr. Savimbi or to carry them into his part of the country.

"Again we are realists", Mr. Fowler stressed. "We are not going to stop all the arms going in. We just hope to significantly limit them." The two panels that were meeting today would improve the ability within the Sanctions Committee to do its work. None of the eight sanctions committees of the United Nations had anything like an external research capacity. "With Ambassador Mollander's panels, for the first time, our Committee will have such a capacity", he noted.

Mr. Fowler said the panels would be funded initially from the regular budget. If more money was needed, a trust fund had been set up and a number of countries had indicated that they were willing to put money into the trust fund if it was required. That was a new departure for the Council, since nothing like it had ever been tried before. It was an excellent group of panellists and he was confident that "that they will do us proud". The mandate foresaw the panels working over the next six months.

Mr. Fowler said he had made it clear to the panellists, however, that given the day-to-day horrors which were taking place in Angola, there was no need to wait for six month to get a perfectly rounded package to put before the Council. Whenever the panellists had a recommendation or package of recommendations which they thought was properly studied, they could bring it to him for consideration by the Security Council Committee. If the recommendation found favour, then they could be brought forward to the Council for adoption. All 15 members of the Council were anxious to get hold of the problem in Angola and see what could be done to end the devastating civil war.

Mr. Mollander told correspondents that while it was very good to have the present opportunity to present the panels and their mission to the press, it was still too early to say exactly where the panels were going. The press had a role in providing information. It was very difficult to find out what was going on in Angola today. Members of the press, on the other hand, were very often doing things that nobody else would dare to do. Their writing was often useful especially in situations like Angola. In such a situation, "while we are not dependant on the press, we are very interested in collaborating with them and using the information that they have".

"We are also interested in spreading the word on the sanctions", Mr. Mollander continued. Because of the activities of Ambassador Fowler as Chairman of the Committee, awareness had already been raised on the existence of the sanctions. The task now was to continue that. However, there was not much detail available now on the direction of the panels. "We intend to keep the relationship with the press as open as possible during our work", he added.

Mr. Mollander said that in 1992, when he was Sweden's Ambassador to Angola, the war started again after the elections. In 1993, when it was first possible to visit some of the beleaguered cities, he was one of the first foreigners -- non-essential aid workers -- who went to the cities of Malange and Kuito. He still had pictures in his head and on his retina of the suffering of the people in Malange at that time. When he read reports from the press and other sources now on what was taking place in that city, he knew what was happening because he had experienced it.

Mr. Mollander said he had seen children starving and aid workers sorting people into those who could survive on normal food and those who had been starving for so long they could not eat normally. He had been into a hall as big as a soccer field that was filled with people making no sounds because they were all so weak, unable to move and talk and waiting for assistance. "I understand that it is not quite as bad as that now, but we are getting there". It was very strong motivation for those who worked with that to try to stop that situation -- in other words stop the war. That was what the work of the panels was all about.

A correspondent asked whether the panel planned to visit Angola and wanted to know what kinds of measures would be taken to make the sanctions more effective. Mr. Mollander said the panels would visit Angola. Mr. Fowler had already done so. It would be inconceivable for the panel to carry out its work without working with the Angolan Government. Regarding the measures to enhance the sanctions, he said guidance could be taken from 19 recommendations which had been sent to the Security Council by Mr. Fowler. Those recommendations had been noted by the Council and given to panels for them to work with. The recommendations covered everything from diamonds through arms to financial matters, and sanctions on the movement of individuals.

Mr. Mollander said contact had already been made with major diamond companies who assured Mr. Fowler that they wished to be part of the solution to the problem of smuggled diamonds from Angola. It was in their corporate interest to do so. As such, those contacts would continue. Regional organizations such as the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) were also behind United Nations efforts and had pronounced themselves very strongly in favour of the action to be taken by the panels.

A correspondent wanted to know the level of sophistication of the weaponry that was being received and used by UNITA and what level of warfare was being talked about. Mr. Mollander said it was too early to talk about that. "We are going to collect the information which is available now from different sources and have our experts look at that". As seen through the media, however, it seemed that there was more sophisticated weaponry being used now in Angola in the present conflict than ever before.

Mr. Fowler said the weapons in Angola were not just assault rifles. There were persistent stories of tanks, very modern sophisticated cannons mounted on armoured personnel carriers and multiple launch rocket systems, as well as a whole variety of artillery including the very heavy kind. While he could not say what the edition of the weaponry was, those types of arms were there nevertheless. Artillery was a large part of the kind of war that was currently being fought in Angola.

A very large portion of the population in Angola lived in the cities, continued Mr. Fowler. The Government controlled most of the major cities and many of them were in turn besieged by UNITA. That meant that UNITA tended to herd people into the cities where the Government then had to feed them. The UNITA then proceeded to shell the cities, damaging the people that they had herded in. The Government was then forced to care for the wounded people as well as feed them. People were very much used as an instrument of war. Heavy artillery was a vital element in the whole process.

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