Human Rights Developments

Defending Human Rights

The Role of the International Community

The Role of the International Community

On April 3, as part of a larger agreement between the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the government of Angola to reform the economy, the IMF and government reached an agreement to monitor oil revenues that would be supervised by the World Bank. Overall, oil revenues comprise 92 percent of Angola's exports, between 70 and 90 percent of government revenues from 1994-1999, and over 50 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This agreement was a positive first step that could help establish transparency and accountability within the government of Angola. (See Business and Human Rights.)

United Nations

The U.N.'s relationship with the government improved, mostly due to the efforts of Canada's ambassador to the U.N., Robert Fowler, to the efforts of the Angola Sanctions Committee he led, and to the release of a much publicized report on UNITA sanctions-busting in March. A second, smaller panel of experts was to have been appointed in May, but was finally formed only in late July following wrangling over nominations.

In February, the government officially approved the status of mission agreement for the United Nations Office in Angola (UNOA) and pledged to support the office. With the end of the U.N. peacekeeping mandate in Angola, the lead responsibility for UNOA within the U.N. Secretariat was transferred in January 2000 from the Department of Peacekeeping Operations to the Department of Political Affairs. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced on July 31 that he had appointed Mozambican Mussagy Jeichande as the head of the up to thirty-strong UNOA. He arrived in Luanda to take up his post on October 1.

The U.N.'s ten-strong human rights division continued to support a number of institutional capacity-building efforts with the government and held a number of workshops. There were also efforts by the division to survey the role of multinational oil companies in the defense of human rights. The Human Rights Division was also measuring human rights awareness and understanding among the population in general. So far, research showed that Angolans knew their rights better than they knew the mechanisms for exercising them. Division chief Nicholas Howen resigned in March and had not been replaced at the time of writing.

European Union, Norway, and Canada

The European Union (E.U.) continued to be divided by sectoral and strategic interests. Commercial interests, particularly oil and trade, remained the prime issues of engagement and eroded the impact of periodic human rights demarches. A common E.U. policy document on human rights in Angola never reached the public domain after discord amongst the E.U. partners and a serious watering down of the draft. Portugal, the former colonial power and a member with Russia and the U.S. of the "Troika" monitors in the peace process, continued to be unable to voice human rights concerns because of the divisive nature of Angolan issues in its domestic politics. Canada continued to engage through its efforts on the U.N. sanctions committee, even after July when Robert Fowler moved to another diplomatic post.

United States

Angola remained the U.S.'s second largest destination for investment and third largest trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa in 2000. Petroleum was the defining issue, with projections that within ten years fifteeen percent of the U.S.'s oil consumption would be Angolan. This strategic relationship resulted in a warming of relations with a string of visits between Luanda and Washington D.C. of senior officials. U.S. policy shifted toward support of trade and commerce while issues such as human rights were downplayed. Although some U.S. interventions on freedom of expression abuses produced results, human rights issues were usually eclipsed by the higher priority given commercial interests. Underpinning the deepening of this relationship was the U.S.-Angola Bilateral Consultative Commission which met several times, focusing on trade and investment.