1990s in Angola
Namibia's declaration of independence, internationally recognized on April 1, eliminated the southwestern front of combat as South African forces withdrew to the east.
American journalist Karl Maier wrote, "In the new Angola, ideology is being replaced by the bottom line, as security and selling expertise in weaponry have become a very profitable business.
[4] Michael Johns, The Heritage Foundation's primary Reagan Doctrine advocate and a key Savimbi advisor, described the Soviet Union and Cuba's diplomatic initiatives as "a perilous moment" and urged the U.S. to maintain military pressure on Angola's government through escalated support to UNITA in an effort to ensure the withdrawal of Soviet and Cuban troops and the establishment of free and fair elections.
The Heritage Foundation's Michael Johns wrote that, "If there is 'new thinking' in Soviet foreign policy and if Gorbachev is, as he claims, very different from Leonid Brezhnev, then Moscow will call off the Angolan offensive.
[8] Senators Larry Smith and Dante Fascell, a senior member of the firm, worked with the Cuban American Negro Foundation, Representative Claude Pepper of Florida, Neal Blair's Free the Eagle, and Howard Phillips The Conservative Caucus to repeal the Clark Amendment in 1985.
"[8] In December 1990, Savimbi returned to Washington, D.C., meeting with President George H. W. Bush and several of his key American advisors,[2] the fourth of five trips he made to the United States.
President dos Santos met with Savimbi in Lisbon, Portugal and signed the Bicesse Accords, the first of three major peace agreements, on May 31, 1991, with the mediation of the Portuguese government.
The accords laid out a transition to multi-party democracy under the supervision of the United Nations' UNAVEM II mission with a presidential election in a year.
The agreement attempted to demobilize the 152,000 active fighters and integrate the remaining government troops and UNITA rebels into a 50,000-strong Angolan Armed Forces (FAA).
On April 13, 1993, The New York Times reported that, "Nearly six months after the elections that were supposed to cement the peace in Angola, the rebel leader who lost in the vote has resumed the civil war and scored such enormous advances that there is talk he might engineer an outright military victory.
"[14] UNITA regained control over Caxito, Huambo, M'banza Kongo, Ndalatando, and Uíge, provincial capitals it had not held since 1976, and moved against Kuito, Luena, and Malange.
The government engaged in an ethnic cleansing of Bakongo, and, to a lesser extent Ovimbundu, in multiple cities, most notably Luanda, on January 22 in the Bloody Friday massacre.
[18] The protocol's provisions, integrating UNITA into the military, a ceasefire, and a coalition government, were similar to those of the Alvor Agreement which granted Angola independence from Portugal in 1975.
Many of the same environmental problems, mutual distrust between UNITA and the MPLA, loose international oversight, the importation of foreign arms, and an overemphasis on maintaining the balance of power, led to the protocol's collapse.
[19] In January 1995, United States President Bill Clinton sent Paul Hare, his envoy to Angola, to support the Lusaka Protocol and impress the importance of the ceasefire onto the Angolan government and UNITA, both in need of outside assistance.
[22][23] The United States Department of Defense and Central Intelligence Agency's Angola operations and analysis expanded in an effort to halt weapons shipments,[20] a violation of the protocol, with limited success.
[21] The government deported 2,000 West African and Lebanese Angolans in Operation Cancer Two, in August 1996, on the grounds that dangerous minorities were responsible for the rising crime rate.
The Security Council expanded the sanctions through Resolution 1173 on June 12, 1998, requiring government certification for the purchase of Angolan diamonds and freezing UNITA's bank accounts.
Dos Santos told the delegates the next day that he believed war to be the only way to ultimately achieve peace, rejected the Lusaka Protocol, and asked MONUA to leave.
[15] The Angolan military launched Operation Restore, a massive offensive, in September 1999, recapturing N'harea, Mungo and Andulo and Bailundo, the site of Savimbi's headquarters just one year before.
By December, Chief of Staff General João de Matos said the Angolan Armed Forces had destroyed 80% of UNITA's militant wing and captured 15,000 tons of military equipment.
[29] UNITA's success in mining diamonds and selling them abroad at an inflated price allowed the war to continue even as the movement's support in the Western world and among the local populace withered away.
De Deker's brother, Ronnie, allegedly flew from South Africa to Angola, directing weapons originating in Eastern Europe.
A large scale battle took place between FLEC and police in Malongo on May 14 in which 25 mortar rounds accidentally hit a nearby Chevron compound.
