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VI. PROBLEMS IN THE DEMOBILIZATION AND REINTEGRATION OF FORMER COMBATANTS

The April 4, 2002, Memorandum of Understanding: Addendum to the Lusaka Protocol for the Cessation of Hostilities and its annexes⁹² put an end to the armed conflict in Angola and set the basic standards for the demobilization and reintegration of about 80,000 UNITA former combatants and approximately 300,000 relatives and dependents.⁹³

Though the quartering, disarmament and demobilization process was overseen by the Joint Military Commission, eight U.N. military liaison officers and military personnel from the three observer States of the peace process,⁹⁴ Though this process has achieved more than could be expected under very difficult circumstances, Human Rights Watch is concerned that regional inequities in treatment and the exclusion of women and children from pending benefits established under the MOU may limit the effectiveness of the demobilization program.

Regional Inequities in Treatment

According to the April 2002 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and its subsequent negotiations, former UNITA soldiers must receive demobilization and identity cards, a travel document, five months of salary, and an additional U.S.$100 for travel expenses. Distribution of resettlement kits with non-food items and access to vocational training courses was also a condition of the agreement.

Human Rights Watch has documented that the overall implementation of the demobilization program has been unequal areas across the country, specifically in provinces such as in Kuanza Sul and Cunene Provinces, for example, where some quartering areas had been closed and former combatants sent elsewhere, and in Huambo and Moxico, meanwhile, where some former combatants and family members had not yet received their identity documents as of Human Rights Watch research in April, 2003. Lacking documents, these former combatants and families had no access to other demobilization benefits such as salary, travel expenses and resettlement kits. In general, in the provinces where former combatants have chosen to stay, the process has been more efficient. However, where transportation to other provinces has been necessary, the process has been less successful, distribution of demobilization benefits less organized and less thorough.⁹⁵

Many former combatants interviewed by Human Rights Watch had left the quartering areas and received some of the benefits of the demobilization program. However, they continued to await transportation to their places of origin in transit centers, originally built to host internally displaced persons, or were gathered around airports.⁹⁶ Those that were the last to leave the quartering areas did not receive documents or any other kind of assistance. Some, including high ranking former UNITA combatants, told Human Rights Watch that they felt excluded from the demobilization program.⁹⁷

On some occasions, violence has been triggered by both the decision of provincial governments to abruptly close the quartering areas, and by the harsh methods used to coerce the displaced to leave the camps. In Huambo, authorities threatened to dismantle the gathering areas of the province, which hosted approximately 90,000 people, by October 15, 2002. The Joint Commission responded by bringing the issue to the attention of the national government and the deadline was cancelled after both sides recognized its impracticality. In the Catofe reception area of Kuanza Sul, the FAA burnt the camp market, while in the Amboiva area, troops threatened to burn peoples’ houses. In Moxico, about eighteen families of former combatants were forcibly transported from the Calala reception areas to Luvuei municipality.⁹⁸

Thus far, according to official figures, approximately 300,000 demobilized combatants and their family members have been returned to their areas of destination. Though most of the quartering areas have been closed, Angolan authorities have issued contradictory messages recently regarding the distribution of demobilization benefits. According to the National Executive Committee, all the areas were to be formally closed by the end of the first quarter of 2003. The Ministry of Social Assistance and Reintegration (MINARS), however, had previously stated that the provincial governments would make the final decisions regarding closings based on their level of implementation of the reintegration process.

Discrimination Against Women

The official demobilization process has largely excluded women and child soldiers from its ambit.⁹⁹ Currently, the demobilization and reintegration efforts target male combatants, aged eighteen or older. However, the majority of the population in the gathering areas is comprised of women and children in need of humanitarian aid and other assistance. The women, girls and boys in those areas fall into a number of overlapping categories that include the wives and widows of former UNITA combatants, women who were married or partners of UNITA combatants during the conflict but have now been abandoned, and women and girls abducted during the conflict and forced to join UNITA forces. Child soldiers, too, have not received specific or direct assistance and have not been incorporated in the national demobilization program.¹⁰⁰

For the first part of the Demobilization Plan, most women were not considered eligible for the benefits granted only to men. The extent of women’s involvement within UNITA is subject to some debate.¹⁰¹ However, their exclusion from the demobilization program has made them invisible throughout the process. Women have largely not been treated as former combatants. Yet, because they are often living with former soldiers, they are also not treated as civilian displaced persons. As a result, their particular needs have not been addressed.

One woman told Human Rights Watch,

We, women from UNITA, were fighters too. We even had ranks. I myself was a lieutenant. We helped in the administration of the camps but we were also messengers, carried supplies and provided logistics for military operations.¹⁰²

Policies that exclude women and children from the benefits of the resettlement programs undermine the clear intent of the United Nations Security Council which has emphasized the need to afford women and children special protection. In particular, Security Council called for the establishment of a follow up mission in Angola, charged with the: “facilitation and coordination of delivery of humanitarian assistance to vulnerable groups including internally displaced persons and families in quartering areas, with special concern for children and women.”¹⁰³

This furthers previous Security Council’s objectives on the role of women in post-conflict situations. In particular, the Security Council had called on Member States to “ensure increased representation of women at all decision-making levels in national, regional and international institutions and mechanisms for the prevention, management, and resolution of conflict.”¹⁰⁴

With the approval by the World Bank of the continuation of the Angolan Demobilization and Reintegration Program (ADRP) on March 27, 2003, there is hope that this situation will change. The new approved form of the ADRP ensures that women identified as ex-combatants will receive the same aid and training available to men. Once a woman is identified as an ex-combatant, the World Bank proposal guarantees that the women’s needs will be met both in the camps and later during reintegration. However, based on a survey of former UNITA combatants, the World Bank estimates that only 0.4 percent of all combatants (320 out 78,000) were women.¹⁰⁵ After interviewing a number of women from UNITA, Human Rights Watch believes that this number is likely underestimated. While many of them may not have considered themselves to be soldiers during the war, Human Rights Watch’s March 2003 interviews with women who lived and traveled with UNITA troops, revealed that most, if not all, had participated to some degree in the warfare. This participation included administration of controlled areas, cooking and maintenance of the military units, transporting supplies, weapons and ammunition and preliminary surveillance in areas targeted by UNITA. Some of the women engaged in these activities received military ranks in UNITA. Two women whom we interviewed explained that they had received their ranks of lieutenant in UNITA for their outstanding performance in administrative tasks, rather than field operations.¹⁰⁶

In practice, it is extremely difficult to distinguish between soldiers and non-soldiers within the female population that accompanied UNITA troops. Given these practical difficulties in conjunction with the fact that most women played some logistical, administrative or combat role in supporting troops, Human Rights Watch believes that authorities should extend the same benefits to them as to male soldiers.¹⁰⁷ Angolan authorities should additionally guarantee that training opportunities, access to micro-credit and employment should be made accessible to women, especially combatants’ wives and abducted girls. So far, this has not been the case as women interviewed by Human Rights Watch expressed.

Sandra A., aged thirty, a wife of a former combatant, told Human Rights Watch in an interview held in her plastic tent in Kituma, Uíge province:

I used to live with my husband and five children. In 2000, he left me. Now, I am alone with the children. This man received money and I have to cut wood to feed my children. This man did not give me anything. We don’t have food or clothes. We don’t have anything. We came from the bush and now live in tents that are too hot during the day and too humid during the night. I cry every night, thinking about my children.¹⁰⁸

The statement of twenty-seven-year old Cristina M., a widow of a former UNITA combatant, to Human Rights Watch illustrates the discrimination against women in the demobilization program.

The kits [non-food items] are given to the men who fought. The women that don’t have husbands do not receive the kits. Not even those that fought.¹⁰⁹ I don’t have a man and that is why I do not get the kit. Here [in Kituma] we suffer. We don’t have food or money. We stayed in the bush for too long. Now, nobody recognizes us anymore. In the bush, I had a man to protect me. He died and now I don’t have anyone. We were taken to the bush and it was bad. Now we are taken to the camps and things are worse.¹¹⁰

Responsibility to Protect and Assist Former Combatants

Under the 2002 MOU and the 1994 Lusaka Protocol, the Angolan government has assumed the obligation to demobilize and integrate former UNITA combatants. Both the Angolan government and UNITA stated their commitment to the reception, accommodation, feeding and registration of the personnel of UNITA military and para-military units,¹¹¹ and the Angolan government is committed to the social and vocational integration of demobilized former UNITA personnel.¹¹²

The Angolan government also bears the responsibility for women's independent access to demobilization and reintegration programs. The Security Council called on all actors involved when negotiating and implementing peace agreements, to adopt a gender perspective, including, inter alia:

The special needs of women and girls during repatriation and resettlement and for rehabilitation, reintegration and post-conflict reconstruction;

Measures that support local women’s peace initiatives and indigenous processes for conflict resolution, and that involve women in all of the implementation mechanisms of the peace agreements;

Measures that ensure the protection of and respect for human rights of women and girls, particularly as they relate to the constitution, the electoral system, the police and the judiciary¹¹³

In addition, two other agencies could play an important role in monitoring the demobilization program. The first is the Military Commission, which current mandate includes the monitoring of the reintegration, reinsertion and resettlement of demobilized former combatants as well as the provision of security and distribution of food and medicine.¹¹⁴ Second, because the World Bank has approved funding the continuation of the demobilization program since March 2003, it should ensure that the program is not discriminatory against women or former child combatants.