After four years of relative peace in Angola, open war resumed in December 1998 between the government and UNITA rebels. The renewal of hostilities between the two belligerents started when government forces tried to take a town held by UNITA.

After 25 years of devastating civil war in the oil-and-diamond-rich country, a peace accord was signed in 1994 between the government and UNITA. The agreement, signed in Lusaka, Zambia, was supposed to bring an end to the civil war and convert UNITA from a rebel movement to a political party. Among other things, the accord called for the demobilization of rebel soldiers and for UNITA to hand back all territory under its occupation.

In 1989, well before the peace accord, the United Nations Observer Mission in Angola (MONUA) was appointed to oversee the withdrawal of Cuban troops--which backed the government, whereas UNITA was backed by both the apartheid government in South Africa and the CIA. MONUA's mission was extended to overseeing peacekeeping operations after the signing of the peace accords by the government and UNITA. In 1997, according to Reuters News, when prospects for peace in Angola appeared to be positive, MONUA scaled down its staff from 7,000 to 1,000. Since that time, UNITA has continued to violate the agreement signed in Zambia by refusing to hand back territory under its occupation to the government.

The government's repeated requests that MONUA shut down its Angolan operations have forced the UN agency to end its efforts for peace in that war-torn country. Although many analysts fear that MONUA's departure from Angola will cause the country to slide into full-scale civil war, the Associated Press reports that Issa Diallo, the UN representative in Angola, said "the UN . . . is not abandoning this country, it is just pulling back." According to the Associated Press, the UN will continue to monitor the situation in Angola from New York and will also try to relaunch the peace process between the UNITA rebels and the Angolan government.

Many analysts as well as the Angolan government have blamed MONUA for the breakdown of the peace process. However, according to a United Methodist Church source familiar with the situation in Angola, MONUA should not be entirely blamed because the government as well as the UNITA rebels are power-hungry and have not learned how to come to a negotiating table in order to find a formula for power-sharing. The same source says that neither UNITA nor the government is interested in peace because the former is too busy shooting people, while the latter is very corrupt and starves its people to death.

Since MONUA's operations are in effect shut down, says a Christian source associated with Angola, the UMC and other churches--especially the Catholic church--are expected to fill MONUA's shoes. If the church is to succeed in its search for peace in Angola, it will need to help both warring parties look at the root causes of this conflict, which according to the Christian source are power, tribalism, and corruption.

According to news reports, unknown numbers of people have been killed since the beginning of hostilities in December. Quoting UN sources, Reuters reports that there are "as many as 650,000 internally displaced persons in Angola." Among them are several United Methodist pastors from the East Angola Conference. According to Rosetta Booker Brown, a UMC missionary who was recently evacuated from Angola because of the renewed hostilities, there are only three pastors left to serve the entire East Angola Conference because so many pastors have fled to Luanda.

Despite the renewal of war and the departure of all UMC missionaries, the United Methodist Church continues to be active in Angola. The West Angola Annual Conference, which has not been seriously affected by the fighting, is still fully operational. The conference has used funds from the Millennium Fund for Mission to purchase new vehicles, buy "equipment for the Christian Education Department of the Conference and print materials for use by local churches." The rest of the money has been used to implement a variety of projects needed by the church.

Although the East Angola Conference has been most directly affected by the latest round of fighting, the International Ministries on Women, Children, and Youth has appropriated money in its 1999 budget to help refugees and orphans in Melange City. The ministry has also allocated funds for the West Angola Annual Conference to help street children and to finance youth programs as well as several other projects.

Many of the expatriates evacuated from Angola, including Ms. Brown, say they want to return as soon as possible. "I would like to go back there and finish what I started and hand it to the local people," says Ms. Brown.

March 25, 1999