From: barnhart@gagme.chi.il.us (Mr. Aaron Barnhart)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Subject: IPS: ANGOLA: INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE SOFTENED SAVIMBI,
Date: 13 Oct 92 03:53:00 GMT
Organization: Evanston, Illinois, U.S.A.
Originator: barnhart@gagme

Copyright Inter Press Service 1992, all rights reserved.  Permission to re-
print within 7 days of original date only with permission from 'newsdesk'.

Title: ANGOLA: INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE SOFTENED SAVIMBI, ANALYSTS SAY


lisbon, oct 5 (ips) --  portugal, the united states and south
africa played an important role in getting rightwing angolan
presidential candidate jonas savimbi, virtually defeated in
general elections in angola, to moderate his charges of electoral
fraud, analysts here agreed monday.

in an interview broadcast saturday by the radio of his party,
the union for the total independence of angola (unita), savimbi
cried foul and threatened to take up arms once again against the
ruling angola popular liberation movement (mpla), which his rebel
group fought for 16 years.

some 4.8 million angolans went to the polls on sep. 29 and 30
in the first direct elections under universal adult suffrage
since the country gained independence from lisbon in 1975.

two-thirds of the votes have already been counted and judging
from results from these as well as projections for the remaining
third, the mpla obtained a 32 percent lead over unita, obtaining
a comfortable 56.8 percent of the votes.

this means that angolan president jose eduardo dos santos, the
mpla's leader, polled 400,000 votes more than savimbi.

portuguese analysts of african affairs agreed that washington,
pretoria and lisbon went into action to avoid savimbi from taking
drastic measures and breaking a peace agreement signed in may
1991 in portugal.

portuguese prime minister anibal cavaco e silva, u.s.
under-secretary of state herman cohen and south african foreign
minister roelof ''pik'' botha, issued separate statements urging
savimbi to respect the election result.

unita waged a civil war against the marxist, one-party mpla
government with u.s. and south african support. during the
16-year conflict portugal, the main foreign investor in angola,
maintained a neutral position.

the experts believe that, without the backing of washington
and pretoria, savimbi would hardly be able to conduct an armed
campaign against an mpla legitimized by the elections.

the electoral result showed that ''ethnic reason overcame
ideologies'' in all angola's political forces, except the mpla
which ''emerges as the only truly national party, uniting
representatives of almost all the peoples who make up angola,''
said analyst jose eduardo agualusa.

the clearest example of this was unita's success in the
provinces of huambo, benguela and bie, where most of the people
belong, like savimbi, to the ovimbundu ethnic group, while the
mpla obtained a comfortable victory in cosmopolitan luanda.
(more)
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the national front for the liberation of angola (fnla), the
party with the third highest number of votes, was the choice of a
mere 2.5 percent of the electorate.

it obtained almost all its votes in zaire province, which
borders on the country of the same name and where fnla leader
holden roberto enjoyed the support of the old families of the
bakongo aristocracy, to which he belongs.

agualusa said that uije province, which also has a bakongo
majority, penalized the fnla ''because it never forgave holden
roberto for abandoning his main guerrilla commanders.''

while they fought against portugal between 1961 and 1974, the
fnla leader, a son-in-law of zairean president mobutu sese seko,
sought refuge in kinshasa, the zairean capital.

the social renovator party (prs), whose members come from the
lunda and tchokwe ethnic groups ''was practically unknown until
the first results began to come out and now appears to be the
second party among the lundas, after the mpla,'' the analyst
said.

the prs obtained excellent results in the province of moxico,
where most of the inhabitants are chokwes, one of the few angolan
peoples who did not suffer from portuguese slave trafficking and
has always remained independent from successive central
governments.

even the mpla ''functioned in part as a movement with an
ethnic base: the mbundu, who speak quimbundu, and the so-called
'creole'group -- which groups people whose mother tongue is
portuguese, whether white, black or mulatto and have an urban
tradition -- voted massively for jose eduardo dos santos,''
agualusa explained.

with over a million votes still to be tallied, the exact
composition of angola's parliament is still unknown. however,
''one thing is certain: that parliament will represent cultures
more than ideas,'' agualusa concluded.
(end/ips/trd/so/md-ego/kb/92)
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