Waiting on empty promises:

The human cost of international inaction on Angolan sanctions

1) The imperative for action

Angolans are now suffering their fourth war since the struggle to win independence from Portuguese colonial rule in 1975. Two generations of children have known nothing but conflict. Angola is now officially ranked as the worst place in the world to be a child. Nearly one in three die before their fifth birthday because of war and war-induced poverty. A potential economic powerhouse of Southern and Central Africa has been left decimated.

And yet their suffering is largely forgotten by the world. At just the time when the plight of the Kosovan refugees was pressing daily on the global media and political agenda, the fact that nearly two million Angolans had fled their homes in this new war barely caused a murmur. Nor did the international community's betrayal of its undertakings to ensure peace, as the UN allowed UNITA to re-arm right under its nose, impinge on the world's conscience.

But - at long last - there are now signs that things are changing and there is the possibility of a more clear-headed and decisive international approach to helping find an end to the Angolan conflict. Critical to this has been a shift of approach by the United States. Vital, too, has been the vocal stand of British Foreign Office Minister Peter Hain, who in a benchmark policy speech to the ACTSA Annual Conference in November 1999 declared:

I do not want discussions only: we need action. With UNITA weakened by FAA's military success, and the increasing surveillance of supply channels, if we lose this opportunity to move decisively now, the international community will deserve to be indicted for hypocrisy and inhumanity. Let us work together to end the plague of destruction, pain and death forced on Angola and its long-suffering people.

A critical test of this new approach will be the findings and recommendations of the important UN report of the Panel of Experts on Angola Sanctions, instituted in January 1999 by the energetic new Chair of the UN Sanctions Committee Robert Fowler and due to be presented to the UN Security Council in mid-March 2000, and, even more importantly, what further international action then follows.

2) Angola: The Fourth War

In December 1998 Jonas Savimbi and his well-armed, 60 000-strong UNITA rebel army for the second time turned their back on a UN-backed peace process and returned to all-out war in a bid to take the country by force. Extensive weaponry was acquired in defiance of UN sanctions and under the effective shield of a `see-no-evil, speak-no-evil' UN mission that was supposed to ensure the implementation of the 1994 Lusaka peace accord signed by the Government and UNITA. The rebels quickly re-captured territory and swept in from their rural zones of control towards the cities. Hundreds of thousands fled into the already crowded towns ahead of the UNITA assault. The hunger and human suffering of these people came on top of the already precarious position of the previous waves of internally displaced people. UNITA shot down two UN planes and murdered relief workers.

In January 1999 the UN announced it was pulling out of Angola saying there was "no peace to keep". Declared UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan:

the root causes of this deeply regrettable state of affairs are well known. They lie in UNITA's refusal to comply with basic provisions of the Lusaka Protocol which demanded that it demilitarise its forces and allow state administration to be extended throughout the national territory.

In March the UN formally lowered the flag on its MONUA observer mission. But the UN Secretary-General's clear and open statement on the responsibility for destroying the peace process was by then too late. The international community had repeatedly failed to take resolute action - in particular to impose and, more importantly, implement sanctions on UNITA's ability to make war. In the face of UNITA's continual failure to comply with its obligations under the Lusaka agreement from 1994 onwards it had allowed UNITA to rebuild itself for another war.

Too often international policy-makers confused their(often justified) criticisms of the Angolan government, over corruption or inadequacies in health and education provision, with the question of responsibility for blocking peace - which has overwhelming been UNITA's. For too long western governments advocated a 'balanced', rather than objective, view of the conflict that presented both parties as equally responsible for the war while refusing to weigh up the detailed evidence on the ground. It is a profound indictment of the international community that it has taken yet another war, and death and suffering for thousands more Angolans, to get the world to start to take action.

Human cost

By April 1999 hunger stalked the thousands of people increasingly cut off from international food aid in the central cities of Huambo, Malange and Kuito - shelled and besieged by UNITA, in a terrible repetition of their 1993 tactics. And by September 1999, the UN declared that two hundred people were dying a day from a war-induced "forgotten emergency". While one aid worker contrasted how the international community was "moving mountains" in its relief efforts for the Kosovan refugees, the UN appeal for Angola - facing Africa's worst food crisis at the time, according to the FAO - was two-thirds undersubscribed.

During the first months of renewed fighting in Angola, nearly two million people fled their homes, half of these children. Many sought refuge in government-held, but besieged, towns where they were shelled daily. In Malanje, one of the worst affected towns, malnutrition rates varied between 20 and 30 per cent during 1999.

Aid agencies often faced a difficult task trying to reach civilians. Roads were insecure due to UNITA attacks on vehicles and landmines and UNITA attacks on aircraft, even UN planes, increased making at least half the country inaccessible. At certain times, up to 70 per cent of people in need of aid were unreachable.

Years of fighting and population displacemnet have severely disrupted food production in Angola. Support for reconstruction and rehabilitation, as well as emergency aid is still urgently needed.

Government counter-offensive

A government military counter-offensive in September 1999 was far more successful than most international commentators had predicted. UNITA forces were pushed out of their central highland strongholds - most significantly their key military base at Andulo, Savmibi's political headquarters in Bailundo and its historical rear base in Jamba. For the first time in decades these areas are now under government control. In its hurried retreat UNITA lost or abandoned large quantities of military equipment.

UNITA's capacity to act as a well-equipped conventional army has been significantly undermined - forcing it to return to acting as a more typical guerrilla force. In many areas this seems to characterised by roving groups of 10 to 15 men spread across the countryside able to carry out sporadic, but still damaging, actions against roads or villages. For example, 150 civilians were reported to have been murdered in the village of Chcandula in mid January 2000, according to survivors who fled to the Bie provincial capital, Kuito.

In some regions - most notably at present in the Cazombo salient in the east of the country bordering Zambia, Cuando Cubango and in the Lundas in the North - UNITA is thought to have larger scale units; and it is in these areas that the most intense military exchanges continue. UNITA has lost most - perhaps all - of its airstrips so critical in the past to its arms, fuel and logistical supply lines.

However, though weakened, Jonas Savimbi's UNITA cannot be dismissed as a spent force. It still maintains a national presence and, according to recent military sources, is believed to sustain some form of integrated military communications across the country. UNITA is also trying to re-organise its supply lines to its forces from outside the country - including through experimenting with airdrops, according to recent reports. By mining roads, mounting ambushes and terrorising villages, UNITA can continue to ensure that most towns and much of the country's population are still only accessible by costly air transport, that the millions of displaced people find it hard to return to their homes and that prospects for economic recovery remain remote.

And it is important to note that while the desperate humanitarian conditions of last year have eased after the government recaptured towns and territory, considerable suffering continues amongst those who have had to flee to the urban centres. It is vital now that aid agencies and donors sustain support for relief efforts, including air transport. But it is also critical that they now start to build up the next phase of rehabilitation, if people are to be helped to sow crops in the next planting season and start to end their dependence on food aid.

Angola is now at a critical juncture. The UN peace process lies in tatters, and the country is again at war. The suffering of its displaced people continues. And yet there is hope. The military capacity of Jonas Savimbi's UNITA is now more weakened than for many years. With the government recently announcing planned elections in 2001, cross-party constitutional reform discussions taking place and strenuous efforts by the government to separate their military drive against Jonas Savimbi's forces from those elements of UNITA and their supporters who are prepared to abandon force, there is a new window of opportunity to find an end to the Angolan conflict.

It is thus critical that the international community - that has so badly betrayed the hopes of the Angolan people for peace - should now finally take decisive action. There are important signs of willingness to do so. The international community's readiness to step up real action to ensure the proper implementation of sanctions against UNITA is critical to squeezing Savmibi's capacity to re-group and prolong the war.

The three sets of UN Sanctions

The Fowler process: From words to action

Under the first sanctions package a UN Angola Sanctions Committee was established to monitor implementation. But this remained impotent and there was little political will from Security Council members to ensure action despite the scale of UNITA sanctions-busting. Beyond some action over UNITA's overseas offices (and this itself was patchy), only after the collapse of the peace process did the implementation of sanctions start to be seriously addressed. A key part of this was the appointment of Robert Fowler, the Canadian Ambassador to the UN, as the new Chair of the Angola Sanctions Committee in January 1999 - reflecting pressure for the international community to take more decisive action on the moribund sanctions in the light of UNITA's return to war. Fowler has injected new energy into the embargoes, through early recommendations about how they might be made to work better and by investigative visits to Southern Africa as well as the diamond dealing and arms trading capitals of Europe.

One of his key initiatives was to establish two Expert Panels to investigate UNITA's sanctions-busting and to recommend detailed, practical action to block it. The first was charged with looking at UNITA's sources of revenue (notably its illegal diamond trading), financing and fuel supplies and the second to focus on military support, weapons and mercenaries. Given a year to do their work, the report of their investigations is due to be presented to the Security Council by the middle of March 2000.

3) UNITA sanctions-busting: Arms and Fuel

When UNITA launched its assault on the city of Kuito at 5am on the 16 December 1998, it was carrying out a critical step in its long campaign to take over Angola by force. Kuito had a proved a stubborn obstacle to UNITA's ambitions, with government forces having resisted rebel attacks during a 21 month period in 1993-94. In that siege an estimated 30,000 people died, and virtually every building in the town was destroyed beyond repair.

This time, UNITA's General Altino "Sapalalo" Bock was determined that victory would be swift, and launched a fierce attack using UNITA's newly acquired panzer division. UNITA advanced rapidly, and were only stopped close to the outskirts of the city.

The Angolan army, FAA, was caught off guard by the ferocity of the attack, but managed to regroup just in time. Markers of UNITA's new armoury remain near the town. Women carry their firewood past a Ukrainian-made T-55 tank halted when it hit an anti-tank landmine by a road. Two burnt-out BMP-2 armoured vehicles appear out of the bush - destroyed in retreat by a hand-held anti-tank missile near Kunje. Other UNITA tanks were abandoned because they reportedly ran out of fuel.

The scale of this heavily-armed attack came as a shock not only to FAA, but also to the United Nations who were supposed to have disarmed the rebels under the Lusaka peace agreement. FAA Chief of Staff, General Joao de Matos stated on 17 December 1998 that, "UNITA is better equipped than ever before".

Before the 1994 peace accord, UNITA had been a heavily armed organisation, having received much of their weaponry from apartheid South Africa and from the United States. Other weapons in their possession had been seized from the Angolan army over the previous two decades. In 1993 UNITA bought a significant quantity of arms on the open market and smuggled them through the then Zaire.

But the fighting that built up during 1998 was of a different order. Whereas UNITA had previously captured a few T-54's, December 1998 was the first time that it had used tank divisions, which attacked Kuito and Huambo simultaneously. Mobile, long-range artillery was used against Kuito, Huambo and Malange, which were quickly surrounded. One senior Angolan military source told ACTSA frankly: "This period was undoubtedly one of the most difficult we have faced. The fighting was very intense - with heavy losses. There was no doubt that Savimbi was on the road to take power. Only by March 1999 were we confident we could block UNITA's advance."

Building a new arsenal

These events on the battlefield were the end result of what many had been documenting for some time - but which the UN and international community had preferred not to see: that UNITA had not only not given up any significant portion of its existing weaponary, but had undertaken a diamond-funded multi-million dollar re-armament programme in defiance of the 1993 UN sanctions.

Following the signing of the Lusaka Protocol in November 1994 the United Nations sent "blue helmets" to oversee the disarmament of UNITA's military wing, and to observe that the provisions of the protocol were adhered to. However, it soon became apparent that UNITA was keeping its best equipment, handing over thousands of largely worn out Kalashnikov rifles. Following heavy international pressure, UNITA did eventually hand over 770 tonnes of weapons and munitions from their military base at Jamba on 27 July 1996. The arms included ammunition, anti-aircraft guns, rockets and multiple rocket launchers, several field artillery pieces, shells and grenades, and one T-55 tank. And significantly, according to the UN Military Commander in Angola, General Philip Sibanda, the arms and munitions turned in were new. But this handover was to prove an isolated event.Two years into the peace process, UNITA was still heavily armed with equipment including D-30 artillery, BM-21 multiple rocket launchers, and 75 mm and 76 mm field guns.

However, from 1996 onward, as the peace process was supposed to gather pace, UNITA turned its attention to buying new, even more deadly arms, on the international arms market. UNITA's decision to build a conventional army, capable of challenging the Angolan army in a head-on collision, came at a time when the arms market was awash with former Soviet bloc weaponry. Organised crime in the former socialist countries had access to a huge quantity of weaponry waiting to be dumped on the international market as some countries re-equipped their armies with NATO standard equipment.

Much of UNITA's recent supply originated in Ukraine, for artillery, and Bulgaria, for infantry weapons. Although - as indicated below - a much wider array of Western European and African traders, intermediaries and transport suppliers have been involved in ensuring these arms get to UNITA. Two key arms traffickers who have been supplying to UNITA are the Ukrainian Piotr Godunov and the Bulgarian Vasil Zhikov, according to Angolan military sources.

Particularly strategically important was the upgrading of UNITA's mechanised capacity and heavy-duty firepower needed for its planned assaults on the main urban areas - and ultimately Luanda - which they had failed to capture in the previous war of 1992 to 1994. During this new period UNITA imported T-62 and T-55 main battle tanks, and BMP-1 and BMP-2 armoured vehicles, according to intelligence sources. They also imported South African-made SAMil-100 armoured personnel carriers, according to a statement made by captured UNITA Colonel Boaventura Vito Cangundo in January 1999. Some sources suggest that SAMil armoured vehicles were imported from South Africa by the Zambian Ministry of Defence, which were subsequently passed on to UNITA.

UNITA also reportedly purchased the Uragan (Hurricane) multiple rocket launcher system (BM-22). Whilst the BM-21 fires forty 122mm rockets, the BM-22 fires sixteen 220-mm long-range rockets, each weighing 360 kg. The rockets are 4.8 metres long, and have a range of 40km. The rockets can be used to deliver high explosives, fuel-air explosives, or even chemical weapons. The rockets are fired from the back of an all-terrain vehicle, based on the Zil-135 truck, weighing almost 23 tons and 9.3 metres long. A similar truck is needed to reload the Uragan. The Zil-135 is also used to transport the FROG-7 ballistic missile - which some South African researchers have claimed UNITA acquired; but this is not corroborated elsewhere. The rebels have acquired a supply of SPG-9 tripod-mounted anti-tank guns which fire 73 mm rocket propelled projectiles, accurate at a range of up to 1 km and bought many ZU-23 anti-aircraft guns.

UNITA also used the period of the peace process to train its troops in the use of this equipment and to restore older heavy equipment by bringing in spare parts - also in contravention of the UN sanctions. Speaking of this period, recent UNITA defector General Jacinto Bandua told Ambassador Robert Fowler in an interview for the sanctions enquiry in Luanda in January 2000:

UNITA brought in a lot of material and many devices - tanks, mortars, mortar grenades, cannon, launching pads for missiles, ammunition and UNITA also bought a lot of tank accessories. The accessories made it possible for UNITA to rehabilitate the tanks its had captured over the sixteen years of war...Anti-aircraft guns, long-reach guns, all this equipment, throughout the peacetime, was being rehabilitated by UNITA. If you add this to the material being imported, merely increased the potential of the mechanised assets for the force that UNITA was organising. In other words, with what UNITA bought, with what it had hidden, and with what it rehabilitated, the number was big.

Equipment captured

Since the Angolan government launched its major counter-offensive in September 1999, it has retaken some of UNITA's key bases, particularly at Andulo, Bailundo and Jamba and uncovered a number of major arms dumps.

During these military operations a huge arsenal was seized from UNITA, helping corroborate earlier reports about arms sanctions-busting operations. Robert Fowler flew to Andulo in January 2000 to see first-hand a selection of the captured material.

According to the Angolan army, around 15,000 tonnes of material were recovered which it says includes:

• 16 million rounds for light infantry weapons
• 600,000 projectiles of all types for artillery and mortars;
• 15 BM-21 systems;
• 25 D-30 cannons;
• 60 ZU-23 anti-aircraft gunds;
• 20 130mm cannons;
• 30 anti-aircraft missiles;
• a large number of anti-tank missiles;
• 2,450 anti-tank mines;
• 8,742 anti-personnel mines;
• Thousands of infantry weapons.

The army also claim to have captured 27 tanks and 40 armoured personnel carriers.

Amongst the equipment captured from UNITA were gas masks and chemical weapon protection clothing. Whilst no evidence of chemical weapons was found, the equipment could be a sign of UNITA readiness to consider such weaponry.

Also amongst the captured equipment was a range of military communications equipment - including a batch of British-made Racal 921 combat transceivers. Angolan military sources claim these had been acquired by UNITA relatively recently. Though an old model, the robust, inexpensive and easy-to-maintain equipment has proved 'very popular in African conflicts', said an industry source - and are still in active service in a number of African countries. It is alleged that the military communications equipment came to UNITA via South Africa - though it is not clear whether this was before or after the imposition of sanctions in 1993.

The networks of supply

Amassing such an armoury and keeping it fuelled and maintained has required one of Africa's largest ever sanctions-busting operations, especially when it is considered that much of it - from diesel to armoured cars - has been brought in to UNITA by air. And that a continuous flow has been needed to keep such a sophisticated army fighting. This also underlines the potential impact of enforcing sanctions has on military capacity on the ground.

In some cases arms were flown directly from the country of manufacture. One intelligence report, for example, logged that in August 1997 eight DC-8 flights carrying arms and ammunition were made to Andulo from Sofia and Burgas in Bulgaria.

But for the most part UNITA's arms and fuel sanctions-busting operations has involved an evolving network of supply chains - from Europe via a range of African intermediary countries, negotiated and arranged by a series of key individual arms brokers and illicit transport fixers contracted by UNITA.

Financial channels to fund these operations have broadly followed those of supply, and been heavily influenced by UNITA's diamond trading operations (see below). International financial channels - themselves subject to the latest set of UN sanctions in 1998 - are perhaps the most shrouded in mystery. However, UNITA is alleged to hold accounts with a range of major European and South Africa-based banks in countries including Switzerland, Cote d'Ivoire, Portugal and South Africa. Cote d'Ivoire and Morocco, though less prominent for trading, appear to have played vital financial roles as places regarded by UNITA as safe to hold money and investments. The diversity of routes has enabled UNITA to source the range of military supplies it wants, bring them in to its different areas of control and avoid over-reliance on one channel.

Several African countries have played a role in providing bases for transhipment of arms and fuel to UNITA. Sometimes this has been with official support - or at least complicity - driven by political allegiances to UNITA, regional strategic alliances (most notably due to the military roles of UNITA and Angolan government forces in the DR Congo conflict) and commercial advantage. In other cases, it has been despite government hostility to such trading.

UNITA's main transhipment point after the fall of apartheid South Africa was Zaire, during the regime of Mobutu Sese Seko. (South Africa has continued to be a significant base for sanctions-busting arms supply to UNITA as businessmen and former apartheid-era military with connections with UNITA continued to ply their trade.) However, when Mobutu fled the country in May 1997, UNITA had quickly to switch the focus of their supply routes - initially to Pointe Noire in Congo-Brazzaville. This route was subsequently closed down in October 1997 when Denis Sassou-Nguesso took power following the intervention of the Angolan army.

UNITA then switched its major smuggling operations to Uganda, Rwanda and - particularly - Zambia. Most recently, as sanctions pressures and military set-backs have mounted for UNITA, Burkina Faso appears to be increasingly important. Cote d'Ivoire and Togo have also played a role - though less so recently - as have Tanzania, Botswana and Swaziland.

The Zambian connection

In Zambia several top officials have been implicated in the trade. Zambian newspapers reported on 2 February 1999 that an aircraft belonging to Crego Air had been operating illegal flights into Angola under the colours of the Aero Zambia. The Director of Civil Aviation, Eustern Mambwe, admitted that Crego Air was flying in and out of Zambia using Aero Zambia colours, but was not registered as an airline in Zambia, and said that the authorities were looking into the matter. According to a letter from the Angolan government to Ambassador Fowler, Aero Zambia chairman David Torkoph constructed an airstrip at Mwansabombwe in Luapala province, Zambia.

The vice-chairman of Aero Zambia, Moses Katumi, owns Chani Fisheries. One of the directors of Chani Fisheries is President Chiluba's son, Miko Chiluba. Furthermore, the South African-based Mail and Guardian reported on 14 January 2000 that the murder of lawyer Edward Shamwana "may have been an assassination aimed at covering up Zambian support for UNITA". According to this unconfirmed report, Shamwana was defending Aero Zambia in court, and was to have implicated government officials in his defence case.

In March 1999, the Zambian newspaper, The Monitor, accused the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Keli Walubita, of aiding UNITA. It alleged that the only petroleum filling station in the Zambezi border area with Angola is owned by Walubita. The publication's source stated that: "Mr Walubita could be an innocent man, but he certainly does know who his biggest customers for fuel supplies are, it is UNITA and he should not condone that for monetary gains." Keli Walubita has strongly denied the allegations.

Zambia's then Minister of Defence, Ben Mwila - who has had long links with UNITA including family ties - and Vice-President Christon Tembo have also been accused of helping UNITA. Indeed Mwila played a key role in making the airstrip at Ndola in central-northern Zambia available for forwarding UNITA supplies, reportedly after a direct appeal from Jonas Savimbi following the loss of UNITA's logistical centres inside Zaire after the fall of Mobutu. And while the Ndola route had to be closed off after it became publically revealed, in September it was simply shifted to Zambezi in western Zambia.

According to the letter from the Angolan government sent on 9 March 1999, Mwila and Tembo helped with arms smuggling through the Zambia Intelligence and Security Services (ZISS). The letter also claims that Mwila set up a runway for large transport airplanes at Zambezi Lodge, about 90 kilometres from Angola. Access to the area was strictly controlled and special authorisation signed by Mwila was needed to gain access.

An investigation by Human Rights Watch showed that the Zambezi Lodge motel was leased to N.N Air Services of South Africa, co-owned by Pretoria-based businessman Nicolas Acton and Chipili Member of Parliament Ntondo Chindoloma. The report states that: "The Zambezi Motel closed down on March 16, 1999 after it main clients, people linked with trade to Angola, stopped using its premises following the publicity over its alleged use as a lodging and meeting place for gun runners".

The London-based journal Institutional Investor, also alleged in March 1999 that two further former ministers were dealing with UNITA. An article on corruption in the Zambian government alleged that former commerce and trade minister Enock Kavindele was sacked because of his possible involvement in providing arms for UNITA. The article also suggested that the late former Finance Minister Ronald Penza, was involved in arms smuggling. It claimed that: "Penza added them [companies he bought cheaply from the privatisation programme] to a murky portfolio of offshore business interests linked to gun running and drug trafficking".

Ronald Penza was murdered in his home in an incident which Southern Africa News Features claims was, "clumsily passed off as an armed robbery, in which police shot all suspects, amid rumours that the former finance minister was trying to expose the activities of colleagues involved in diamond smuggling for UNITA".

During early 1999 serious tensions grew with Angola over Zambia's role as a conduit for UNITA supplies - and over a series of bomb blasts in Lusaka on 28 February 1999 which were attributed to the Angolan security service as a warning to the Zambians (though by others, to UNITA in a bid to speed up a deterioration in relations between the two countries). In April Swaziland helped mediate a Memorandum of Understanding between the two sides.

While this calmed the situation for a while, allegations have persisted that Zambia is still being used to smuggle arms and supplies to UNITA in contravention of sanctions. The strategic importance of this increased still further after the Angolan army successfully drove UNITA away from its positions along the Nambian border - which had provided another channel for supplies, notably fuel. With one of UNITA's strongest concentrations of its remaining forces estimated to be in the Cazombo salient - the Angolan territory protruding into western Zambia - the pressure to squeeze UNITA's supply lines via Zambia has again become intense. New high-level talks took place between the two countries in February 2000.

Uganda and Rwanda

Uganda and Rwanda have also increasingly been used as transhipment points. This is partly explained by the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Angola has given military support to President Kabila, whilst Uganda and Rwanda have backed the rebels.

It has been alleged that on 15 January 2000 a flight from Kigali, Rwanda attempted to carry out an airdrop into UNITA held territory. The lack of any large airstrip under UNITA control had made this a necessity. UNITA diamonds, it is alleged, have been traded via Kigali for some time.

Further afield, UNITA is reported to have stockpiles of weapons which it cannot currently bring into Angola. Stocks are said to be held in Burkina Faso and Togo. Sources indicate that a leading UNITA figure, Ambassador 'Karrica' is in Burkina Faso attempting to arrange transport for the weapons. According to Jonas Savimbi's now-estranged son Araujo Domingos Sakaita: "If Savimbi has a friend in all of Africa it's Blaise Campaore" [president of Burkina Faso]. He said that UNITA carries out diamond transactions in Burkina Faso and that Campaore recently supplied fuel for UNITA. In August 1999, Savimbi was reported to have met with him in Burkina Faso.

South Africa

Although the government of South Africa has taken steps to halt trade from its territory with UNITA, several companies and individuals have been implicated. Flights from South Africa's many unmonitored airstrips were common in the first half of 1998. However, following a crackdown in May 1998, the smugglers shifted their operations. During the crackdown over 20 pilots were expelled from the country.

According to Human Rights Watch, illicit flights to Angola also dropped after the South African Air Force deployed in June 1998 an early warning radar system operating at the towns of Mafeking, Uppington, Ellisras, and Marriepskop. This radar system is backed up with Tactical Mobile Units (mobile radar units) which can cover more space. Nevertheless, reports suggest that regular arms and equipment supply flights from South Africa still occur - including with the involvement of ex-SADF figures.

The brokers and traders

In order to draw the net tighter on UNITA sanctions-busting, it is important to identify not only the routes and countries involved, but some of the individual brokers and traders - especially those who facilitate the all-important air transport into UNITA-held territory.

Britain's Foreign Office Minister, Peter Hain, has spoken out to denounce those who have broken UN sanctions on behalf of UNITA. On 18 January 2000 the Minister said in parliament that:

It is widely known in the region that Jacques "Kiki" Lemaire flies in diesel fuel, landing on UNITA airstrips, in a Boeing 707 or Caravelle aircraft. Tony Teixeira has been supplying diesel fuel to UNITA, again flying it in by plane. Victor Bout, who runs an air transport company, has flown in arms to UNITA. It is also believed that Bout owns or charters an Ilyushin 76 aircraft, which was impounded in Zambia en route to Angola last year.

Victor Bout has been involved in supplying UNITA through his air cargo companies including Air Cess, Trans Aviation Network, and Air Pass. His companies have changed location frequently, having operated out of Belgium, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Swaziland and the Central African Republic. It is estimated that he has over twenty aircraft in operation.

On 17 February 2000 Hain named a further five people and accused people in high positions in several countries of aiding UNITA, during a debate in Westminster. The Minister stated that:

In some countries, including Zambia, Uganda and Rwanda, people in high positions are busting sanctions. It is imperative that those countries' governments crack down on them immediately... Jan Joubert organises the supply of fuel to UNITA. Until recently, aircraft carrying the fuel flew from Gaberone to Andulo while pretending to fly to Francistown in eastern Botswana. Dennis Coghlan, an Irishman resident in Botswana, owns a warehouse in Gaberone that is used to store fuel and other supplies for UNITA until they can be flown into UNITA-held territory.

Tony Teixeira was subsequently stated to be Antonio Teixeira, chairman of the Central African Mining Company. There is heated speculation about the veracity of the allegations against Teixeira, who has vehemently denied them and complained that his business interests have suffered as a result of the allegations. On the same day that Peter Hain named Teixeira, the Canadian-based mining company, DiamondWorks, announced that it was to receive financial support from Lyndhurst Limited, a Guernsey-based company controlled by a consortium led by Teixeira. As part of the deal, Teixeira was to be placed on the board of DiamondWorks.

A report in the South African-based Mail & Guardian on 18 February 2000 stated that Peter Hain handed further names to the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Aziz Pahad during a visit to South Africa in January. According to this report, Hain named Ivan Pienaar as a pilot dealing with UNITA, including the recruitment of Ukrainian aircrew in Zambia. He had also flown via Rundu and Katima Mulilo in Namibia. A Paris-based businessman, Jannie Smith, admitted to the Mail & Guardian that he had hired aircraft to Pienaar, but denied knowledge of where the aircraft went. Pienaar was involved in an operation which went wrong when a Ukrainian IL-76 aircraft detained in Lusaka recently, apparently preparing to fly fuel from South Africa to UNITA.

According to Angolan military sources, Francisco Lopes is another individual accused of smuggling to UNITA. Lopes has been involved in smuggling to UNITA since the days of apartheid, and has been supplying UNITA through the Caprivi Strip, and through Zambia and Botswana. Also named has been ex-Rhodesian and South Africa airforce pilot Tim Green as being responsible for transporting material from Bulgaria between 1993 and 1995, and has recently supplied UNITA through Lusaka.

Two cases where the Angolan government has taken direct action against people smuggling arms and fuel to UNITA, have brought to light the role of a number of other individuals. Mystery surrounds the events following the arrest of eight men who were aboard a DC-4 aircraft forced down by the Angolan airforce at Menongue airstrip on 20 January 1998. The crew admitted that they had been transporting mining equipment to UNITA.

The pilot Peter Britzke, flight engineer Antoine Steenberg "Shukker" and co-pilot Mark Jeffries were released on March 2, 1998. Johnny Perreira, owner of Interstate Airways who chartered the aircraft, "escaped" from custody on 2 September 1998, and is rumoured to be currently pressing UNITA for payments he is owed. Four others were sentenced on 20 October 1998 to jail terms of 23 years. It has been suggested that the three members of the flight crew who were released had cooperated with the Angolan authorities. Peter Britzke is reported to have confessed to being on over 300 flights to UNITA supplying arms and equipment. Human Rights Watch reports that according to "statements made by the crew to Angolan officials, but not independently confirmed, another passenger on the flight, Marnix van der Eecken, also a South African pilot, had worked on previous sanctions-busting flights with Britzke, including twenty-five flights with DC-4 and DC-6 aircraft (registration ZA-NJR and EL-WNH) which delivered one hundred SAMil trucks and other "lethal materials" to UNITA" intended to "destabilise the country." According to South African press reports, Perreira's Interstate Airways had flown mining equipment and other logistical supplies to UNITA in late 1997 and early 1998, including a fleet of SAMil all-terrain trucks thought to be part of a R32 million order for logistical and related equipment.

On 5 February 1998 the Angolan government seized a Ukrainian Antonov-26 and its crew, along with two South African passengers at Luanda airport. Reports allege that the airplane was chartered by a South African company, SG Corporation.

Fuel supplies

Clearly, such a sophisticated arsenal requires a steady supply of fuel. As well as tanks, trucks and other military vehicles, the long range artillery and anti-aircraft guns are predominantly either truck mounted or truck towed. Electric generators to supply power for UNITA's military camps also require diesel. The oil embargo is therefore one of the key elements in containing UNITA's military ambitions.

Over the recent period, UNITA's fuel has been acquired in South Africa, Zambia, Togo, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire and the Central African Republic. It has been transported by air from Zambia, South Africa, Togo, Cote D'Ivoire and Burkina Faso, and by road from Zambia and Namibia.

UNITA had set up oil dumps at its major military bases, but now that it has been dislodged from its static positions, it requires a constantly renewed supply of fuel. UNITA defector General Badua told Robert Fowler in January 2000:

From 1996 when I began to be involved in the purchase of fuel until December 1998, they amounted to 2.3 million litres. That was just imports and acquisitions. And also as we bought we used part. When the fighting erupted UNITA had about half a million litres.

The shift in the focus for arms supply from Zaire to Zambia, was matched by the sourcing of fuel supplies. It was for this reasons that in March 1999 there were rumours that the Angolan military was preparing to strike against the Zambian Ndola oil refinery, which it was alleged to be the source of most of UNITA's fuel. The attack never came, but by coincidence, the oil refinery was destroyed later in 1999 in a fire. Zambia was forced to import its petroleum products, and this is rumoured to have impeded UNITA.

In June 1997 the Zambian government took action against two aircraft belonging to Metex International, who the Zambians accused of supplying unnamed cargo from Ndola airport to UNITA. Metex International was fined $8,000 and expelled from Zambia. According to Human Rights Watch, Metex International's operations director claimed that Metex had been made a scapegoat, and that Chani Enterprises were the ones who were sanctions busting, an allegation in turn denied by Chani Enterprises director Moses Katumi. In connection with the Metex case, two people working for British Petroleum were sacked.

4) Diamonds: Financing the conflict

After UNITA lost the sponsorship of apartheid South Africa and the United States (Washington plied UNITA with $250 million between 1986 and 1991), UNITA used Angola's rich diamond deposits to bankroll its sanctions-breaking re-armament programme and its two new wars against the government in the 1990s. The vast diamond deposits, found in half of Angola's 18 provinces, have funded the killing and maiming of at least a million people and the dispossession of millions more.

UNITA's was the world's largest ever organised diamond smuggling operation, and well known. But no-one, neither the UN, governments, or diamond companies, moved to stop this trade until July 1998, six months after UNITA gave up its richest mines in the Cuango Valley. Eighteen months earlier, it was already public knowledge that UNITA had made at least $600 million from diamonds in 1996 and was already conducting a major re-supply operation, via Zaire.

Even though UNITA's source of funding was common knowledge from the beginning of 1993, diamonds were not included in the package of UN sanctions agreed in September 1993. In the face of ACTSA's vigorous campaigning on the issue over the following years, the then minister responsible, Baroness Chalker resisted the measures on diamonds telling ACTSA it would be 'impractical'. Only in July 1998 did Britain and the Security Council agree to sanctions on UNITA's diamonds. That five year gap allowed UNITA to amass about three billion dollars in diamond money to re-arm themselves for war. If the sanctions had put in place before UNITA left the Cuango the well known diamond smuggling routes could have been rapidly cut off.

Developing the trade

UNITA has traded diamonds for decades. By 1983, international dealers had begun to work with UNITA to market the stolen diamonds, in a devil's bargain, since the other partner in the deal was apartheid's war machine, until 1990 or even later. The SADF itself also traded diamonds for UNITA, along with ivory and tropical hardwoods.

UNITA's more recent, very large scale smuggling operation, worth $3 billion between 1993 and 1997 alone, has been carried out by the rebels since 1992, when after rejecting the results of the UN-monitored elections, UNITA seized the rich and more developed diamond fields of Lunda Norte.

UNITA's diamond trade is directly controlled by UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi, and the full extent of it only is known to three or four people in UNITA, according to ex-Minster of Mines Marco Samondo - himself of UNITA. It is also known, of course, to the diamond companies working with UNITA, and to an extent by De Beers who in the past bought much of UNITA's output on open markets and also monitor world diamond supplies.

The trade after sanctions

Before sanctions, UNITA's diamond trade had been an open secret in the diamond trading centres. By the end of 1998, when sanctions had been in force for six months, the trade had moved more underground. But UNITA have not stopped mining diamonds since the UN embargo and are still finding markets in Antwerp and Tel Aviv for their bloodied product, which their Brussels-based representative has called 'UNITA's economic lifeline'.

UNITA has had many years to hone its diamond trading mechanisms and create links with dealers. These have paid off over time, and still support UNITA now, aiding the rebels in concealing their trade. The real quantities of diamonds traded by UNITA since the sanctions were imposed can only be estimated.

De Beers have suggested figures of $250 million in 1998, and $100 million in 1999. A recent assessment suggests these may be conservative. Using wider trade sources, it is probable that the figure for UNITA's trade in 1999 is at least $150 million, and could be as much as $200 million. Unless checked more rapidly, such a level of trade (together with a possible substantial stockpile) still provides UNITA with extensive resources to enable it to re-arm and re-group once again. This is reflected in UNITA's continued presence as an arms buyer on the market today. Said a military source tracking UNITA's recent international activity: "UNITA still has plenty of money - there's no doubt about that. And it's trying to use its resources to buy ways round the logistical difficulties the recent government offensive has given it."

It is still easy to launder diamonds, even after over 18 months of sanctions and initiatives by governments, including the G8 review of diamond trading. They can be hidden by selling them direct to cutters, to dealers who can afford to stockpile - or by mixing them in with legal diamonds from Angola or elsewhere. They can be laundered through tax-free zones, and their origin disguised.

One Antwerp based dealer, David Zollman, of Glasol, admits to having worked with UNITA from 1992 onwards. He and his brother, Maurice were named in the UK parliament by Peter Hain as buying diamonds worth about $2.5 million a month from UNITA. David was based in Rundu in Namibia, his brother worked in Johannesburg. The Zollmans had previously brought diamonds from UNITA's Cuango operations. Though on 28 February 2000 David Zollman published an open letter to Peter Hain denying his allegations saying: "My brother and I have not breached the UN sanctions by trading in diamonds with UNITA."

Although UNITA's mining operations have been reduced this year by FAA's recapture of UNITA-controlled territory, UNITA still control three major mining areas, in Kwanza Sul - where they have troops close to the river - Malange Province and Kuando Kubango. Both of these latter areas have diamond deposits good enough to have been of interest to De Beers, who had commented they would consider mining the alluvial deposits when conditions permitted.

The Kwanza Sul mine has been run by a consortium of miners who previously worked with UNITA in the Cuango valley. Kwanza Sul was started up at the end of 1997, according to UNITA documents obtained by ACTSA. One of the other partners in the mine is Manuel Roque, a man with a long history of working with UNITA, and with the previous Mobutu government in Zaire. He has been identified as co-owner of Air Excellence, previously flying from Zaire, together with Kungolo Mobutu. Kungolo is a son of ex-President Mobutu, and was the liaison point between the Mobutu government and UNITA, working with the mining companies operating on behalf of UNITA and operating planes into UNITA-controlled regions. These planes moved both diamond dealers and arms supplies.

South Africa link

UNITA's diamonds have a long history of ending up in Johannesburg after being smuggled into Namibia, mainly via Rundu and other towns along the border.

An Antwerp-based dealer confirmed that gems were passing through Namibia, which has no legal diamond buyers, in early 1999. Both South Africa and Namibia have diamond police, who seem to have been powerless to intervene, although the Zollmans are said to have been trading UNITA diamonds in both countries. Flights from Rundu are recorded as going direct to South African airports, among them Johannesburg's Lanseria.

It is not known whether the South African government has yet taken action against any of the network of UNITA suppliers who have been based in this area, among them, South African arms and diamond dealers credibly linked to UNITA by report. Among them are ex-SADF Colonel Fred Rindle, now based in Liberia, Johan Niemoller and other figures from the apartheid past, who ply their destabilising trade in Africa's war zones.

Tel Aviv link

The Israeli diamond trading centre, Tel Aviv is yet another end destination for UNITA's diamonds. The Russian newspaper Izvestia commented in January 2000 that Ukrainian, and Moldavian miners were working for UNITA and the diamonds were being sold direct to cutters in Tel Aviv. The miners are probably based in Cuando Cubango province, where UNITA was trying to recruit miners for small concessions, as early as late 1998.

UNITA's miners

UNITA has used forced labour in its mines, both in the Cuango Valley and in Kwanza Sul. In the massive mining operation in the Cuango Valley, which provided the bulk of the funding to launch the present war, 100,000 Zaireans were sent under agreement with the then President Mobutu to labour for UNITA, guarded by UNITA's mining police. The numbers were confirmed by satellite observation in early 1996. In early 1997, this number increased dramatically as soldiers and others fleeing the wreck of Mobutu's Zaire joined UNITA.

These diggers produced at least $1.2 billion of diamonds for UNITA in 1996 and 1997 alone, and a stockpile that UNITA took from the Cuango at the end of 1997, worth at least $250 million, and potentially much more.

According to a source who visited the Kwanza Sul mines in May 1999, UNITA moved villagers from Kuando Kubango to dig diamonds at the Kwanza mines. The workers were flown in an Antonov from Kuando Kubango province. The shuttle of miners halted only when the ancient plane crashed.

There is no doubt, either, that UNITA has exerted maximum control of its mining regions, from taxation of money goods and diamonds entering and leaving its 'zones of control', to movement of people.

UNITA's miners are paid in a cut of the poorer diamonds they mine for UNITA's military arm, and these are now being sold in towns on the Zambian border. The miners are free to sell to dealers, normally licensed by UNITA. But even here the miners get little for their labour. Diamonds are traded for radios, for clothes for medicines and food, and almost certainly for a fraction of their real value. It is these diamonds that are easy to trace - the routes are not concealed

Trade routes

UNITA's Ministry of Natural Resources, MIRNA, adminsters the sales of UNITA's diamonds, until recently from UNITA's Bailundo and Andulo headquarters, where the party's treasury, documents and diamond stockpiles were based. They traded larger parcels of diamonds for UNITA's military arm. UNITA publicly invited interested dealers to visit them in 1999. UNITA is trying to reorganise its diamonds trading routes, following the fall of their key bases to FAA last year.

Dealers also worked for UNITA's military arm, through Zambia, A dealer, Jan Van Oordt, is alleged to have contacted Savimbi in late 1998 to negotiate to trade up to 100 kilograms of diamonds a month for Savimbi through Zambia - 500,000 carats of diamonds, whose value could easily be of the order of $5 million a month, or more. The dealer had already set up the trading licenses in Zambia.

The existence of a UNITA diamond stockpile was confirmed to Robert Fowler when he visited Angola in January this year. UNITA kept its stockpile in the party treasury, for trading to dealers and as payment for arms supplies. There is little reliable evidence on its current size - but it could be significant and being used to help re-establish UNITA's supply lines.

Diamond trading within Angola

The sanctions have always had a major hole in them: astonishingly it is not illegal to buy and sell UNITA diamonds, only to export any diamonds from Angola, whether from UNITA or other smugglers, without a Certificate of Origin.

UNITA diamonds have also been traded through Angola's legal buying offices, according to diamond buyers interviewed in Angola. The buying offices, all joint ventures with foreign diamond buying companies, were set up specifically to buy diamonds mined by the small scale miners, as a policy to contain smuggling.

UNITA traded diamonds worth between $1-3 million a month, but erratically, not as a regular trade, according to those buying the diamonds. The sellers and the diamonds were not always immediately recognisable as UNITA, though buyers were able to figure out what was going on, sooner or later.

UNITA also occasionally took parcels of diamonds into Luanda during 1999, and possibly 1998, worth about $1 million each. This trade stopped abruptly at the end of October, after the fall of Andulo according to a Luanda buyer.

The total value of UNITA diamonds traded legally through the system was around $36 million a year, according to the official estimates, out of a total about $300 million each year traded through buying offices.

ACTSA research has not been able to uncover evidence of any direct complicity between the government and UNITA in trading diamonds, despite the many rumours circulating. Diamond buyers in Luanda, who tend to be very aware of what is going on in the sector do not know of any parallel, hidden, systems for such trading.

New official diamond system

Angola has now moved to try to control diamond trading within the country, and escape a total embargo on its diamond trading. In early 2000 the Angolan government instituted an ambitious overhaul of the diamond industry aimed at regularising diamond production, increasing the area under exploitation, preventing leakage of UNITA stones into official channels, and increasing tax revenue.

The first step has been to set up a state-owned diamond buying and selling company, Sodiam, to buy all diamonds produced in Angola. All other diamond purchasing companies, such as Dian, Codiam, LKI, RDR, Matos and Jean, and Triotex, have been prohibited from operating independently. Tax revenues have not been effectively collected from private diamond buying companies. Sodiam has entered into a joint venture with two foreign companies to create the Angola Selling Corporation, ASCORP, to sell on the diamonds. Sodiam has a 51% share of ASCORP.

In an amazing development, the Israeli businessman, Lev Leviev, has signed a deal with the Angolan government under which he will buy the entire diamond production of Angola, which may be up to a billion dollars per year.

It is not clear yet what will happen to the diamonds produced by Sociedade de Desenvolvimento Mineiro (SDM) in its Cuango Valley concession. At full production SDM is expected to produce up to $100 million of alluvial diamonds, and SDM is contracted to supply these diamonds to the diamond giant De Beers.

The other buyers of Angolan diamonds have been remarkably quiet on the issue of their formal closure, leading to speculation that they may be subcontracted by Sodiam to buy diamonds at their established offices throughout the country.

The second large change for the industry is the imposition of new regulations which put a limit on the maximum size of diamond concession at 3,000 square kilometre. Any existing concessions above this size will be divided and given to other prospectors. Even concessions below 3,000 square kilometre may be taken away if it is found that a concession holder is not prospecting the whole area. However, this policy is likely to run into very strong opposition from existing concession holders. In theory the idea is to regularise those small diamond producers who are currently digging in concessions which are currently unused by the concession holders.

The third change to the industry is the introduction of numbered and signed Certificates of Origin printed by De La Rue of Britain on forgery-proof paper - which must then be matched by a Confirmation of Import procedure once it has reached its destination. The first new Certificate of Origin was given to ASCORP at the end of January to cover diamonds produced at the Catoca kimberlite mine.

It will take several months before it is seen whether the implementation of the above will dramatically increase tax revenue from the diamond sector. However, in principle it should cut down on opportunities for UNITA to sell diamonds, either through existing national markets or internationally. The question of who will take up the new diamond concessions on offer also remains to be answered.

De Beers

The diamond giant De Beers has recently made much out of its 'ethical' stance on rejecting 'dirty' diamonds, including those produced by UNITA. This was extended when, ahead of the publication of the Fowler report, on 1 March, the company announced a new guarantee on its sales of portions of rough diamonds:

1. No diamond in this box have been purchased in breach of UN Resolution 1173.

2. The intake of diamonds being purchased by De Beers and its associated companies and being sold into the market through the Sight system does not include any diamonds which come from any area in Africa controlled by forces rebelling against the legitimate and internationally recognised government of the relevant country.

The NGO Global Witness applauded its approach, declaring: "De Beers has taken a lead that the rest of the diamond industry must now follow".

But it is important to take a wider look at the role of the company in relation to UNITA-produced stones - and the gaps that have been left in its new policy. While De Beers has stated that it has "never bought diamonds from UNITA", the company was the end buyer for UNITA diamonds for many years, from open market purchases, even though they knew that the diamonds they purchased were smuggled from a country with whom they had a formal contract. As De Beers Managing Director Gary Ralfe admitted openly in October 1997, the company sought to buy up the flood of largely-UNITA produced Angolan diamonds which otherwise "will be threatening the overall price structure":

There is no doubt that we buy many of the diamonds that emanate from UNITA-held areas in Angola, second-hand on the markets of Antwerp and Tel Aviv.

De Beers admitted in 1999 that they were able to recognise parcels of diamonds originating from Angola. Additionally they had the sample parcels from their 1991 government contract to buy the Cuango diamonds, so recognising large consignments of UNITA's diamonds was easy. De Beers could have called the matter of the sales of UNITA-produced stones to the attention of governments, as the world's single most important diamond trading company but did not.

Instead, in a much publicised move, De Beers announced in October 1999 it would stop buying all Angolan rough diamonds, both in and outside Angola. Despite the public credit De Beers received for this move, diamond industry sources pointed out that De Beers in fact largely pulled out of Angola when they heard that they would not be a partner in the new diamond trading system, which had been under discussion since at least September, reflecting a final loss of patience by the Angolan government with the company's approach.

De Beers are also, as part of a wider commercial strategy, changing their operations, shutting down the purchase of diamonds on open markets and concentrating on marketing diamonds mined by their ventures, or bought under contract from governments. If De Beers had received the sales contract they wanted from Angola, it is far from clear that the move out of Angola would have been made.

In 1999, De Beers achieved record sales, selling 'millennium diamonds'. De Beers reduced their stockpile dramatically, trading over $5 billion of diamonds in a record year. World diamond sales are still booming.

Yet, no-one has ever inquired into the sales from the stockpile and De Beers have never accounted for the diamonds sold from it. Until this has been done the world diamond supply must be seen as contaminated with far from ethical diamonds. All the emphasis in their ethical statements has been on the origin of present purchases - which bypasses the critical issue of the origins of diamonds included in (post-sanctions) sales and whether UNITA-origin stones could have been sold from the stockpile given De Beers past buying of UNITA-origin diamonds via other traders. In amongst that stockpile were diamonds produced from the Cuango Valley by UNITA, unless De Beers managed the remarkable feat of selling around $2 billion worth of the world's second most valuable gems before sanctions fell, during a 15 month recession, without depressing diamond prices. It is not clear whether part of last year's record profits come from such tainted sources.

Local economic impact

As well as providing the funds for UNITA's war-making capacity, more generally diamond trading from illicit diggers has helped undermine the economy, as up to $300 million a year, paid in dollars, has fuelled parallel markets and undermined the value of the local currency, the Kwanza.

Diamonds have also led to a 'get rich quick' mentality, in which the illusion of becoming a dollar millionaire overnight warps the value of money. Luanda has become one of the world's most expensive cities, while the diamond producing zones sometimes remain in abject poverty.

Angola's great diamond wealth has brought little good in its train, as yet. Angola should be one of Africa's largest diamond producers, with a possible diamond output of $1 billion - which could help support positive economic and social development as the industry does in other Southern African states like Namibia and Botswana. The legitimate diamond industry has been destroyed over and over again by war, and manipulated illicit diggers have brought chaos and danger to the mining regions.

Attempts since 1996 to re-establish the official diamond mining industry have been successful, though slowly. Angola's first kimberlite pipe at Catoca is fully operational, and three more pipes are in varying stages of development by other companies. The Cuango Valley mines at Luzamba are in production, and could reach a value of $100 million a year.

Professional, well run mining projects with reputable companies produce most of the state's official revenue from mining. But war, greed and chaos has also brought about some far from reputable projects, as 'gangster' capitalism has gained hold in some areas. There are some legal military mines - but these are not high value projects. And there is one illicit military mine at Cafunfo in the Cuango Valley. Other smaller ones have been rumoured. And it is not clear whether vigorous attempts made by the army from a senior level to move out those military figures involved in illicit mining have yet stopped the practice. However, despite oft-quoted rumours, Angola's diamond fields are not a military carve-up between the government and UNITA in which the activities of each are tolerated by agreement.

The diamond areas in fact remain the most heavily contested. They are currently a front line for guerrilla activity by UNITA, and remain highly volatile, with UNITA carrying out raids on diamonds mines as well as attacking villages for food and supplies. Two well publicised attacks took place on Yetwene Mine in November 1998, and the movement of 900 UNITA troops towards the Cuango Valley in November 1999, when Ashton Mining withdrew all personnel from the mines for week. There are at least six other major attacks on mines recorded. A World Food Programme survey report in March 2000 noted particularly increased fighting in the key diamond provinces of Lunda Norte and Sul. The objective of UNITA activity here is to shut down a source of income for the government, but it is likely that UNITA has ambitions to recapture the valuable Cuango Valley mines.

Diamond miners now spend up to $500,000 a month on security to protect their mines. Mines also have now contingents of FAA troops based nearby. Following the increase in security measure, UNITA have been effectively kept away from mining regions.