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then, seriously considered compromise and legitimacy
through elections. However, covert US actions deliberately
are alleged to have derailed this possibility. The
MPLA and UNITA developed competing ideas on
how the state should be managed. The coalition
government of 1975 soon broke down, following
failed FNLA attempts to take military control of
Luanda, while the MPLA and UNITA also engaged
in military confrontation. While the issue of unitary
versus federalist government rule was absent in
Angola's experience, ideological divide exacerbated
the deep-rooted colonial era mistrust between the
`privileged' urban Mbundu-creole e lite, on the one
hand, and the marginalized rural Ovimbundu and
Bakongo tribes (supporters of UNITA and the FNLA
respectively). Instead of seeking unity and reconciliation
at a time when the weak remnants of the colonial
state desperately needed new structures (similarly to
Colombia), the liberators opted for civil war, fuelled
by foreign intervention. No one movement was able to
muster sufficient national popularity to obtain legitimacy.
With the FNLA's dwindling support and
eventual decline (for reasons beyond the focus of
this article), UNITA emerged as the only other
decisive actor in determining and fomenting political
violence and military bipartisan politics. Similar to
Colombia, no one of the two remaining movements
were strong enough to obtain outright victory,
resulting in a prolonged violent conflict. However,
very different from Colombia, the nature of Angola's
bipartisan politics has experienced almost no `lasting
legacy of anti-militarism' among the e lite (Pearce
1990:16). On the contrary, UNITA has never been
willing to fully denounce the military option in favour
of democratic elections. The weak MPLA government
could not afford relying solely on regular general
elections as a means to obtain popular legitimacy and
control. UN-sponsored peace initiatives have repeatedly
failed, while no political solution to the war is
immediately foreseeable. The Bicesse Accords, cosponsored
by the US and the Soviet Union and signed
in Portugal, failed to bring about demilitarization,
democratization and free elections. Neither the MPLA
nor UNITA were ready to answer the people's security
needs. On the eve of the October 1992 elections,
UNITA resembled less of a political party and more of
a rival army waiting to grab power. The MPLA was
not prepared to renounce its criminalization through
abuse for political ends ± its control of state resources.
Similarly to Colombia, subsequent phases of the civil
war have seen the returning logic of war and violence,
with international mediation marginalized in attempts
to turn the tide (Global Witness 1998; Hare 1998;
Maier 1996).
Different from Colombia's experience of intra-class
and inter-party conflict and violence, inter-movement
and inter- politico-ethnic violence have characterized
the Angolan post-independence situation of almost
constant civil war. While the 19th century Colombian
civil wars reinforced political party identification and
allegiance, also among ordinary citizens, the immediate
years of the Angolan civil war reinforced class and
ethnic-based movement identification (Oquist
1980:13; Messiant 1998). However, such identification
was of a far lesser magnitude among ordinary
Angolans than in the case of Colombia. The Colombian
civil wars of the 19th century were not between
small armed groups, but armies of thousands of
ordinary men, seeking both rewards from the e lite
and revenge for loved ones killed (Pearce 1990:20).
The majority of Angolans simply welcomed liberatorsat-large
and initially had no idea that their future
would be determined by a violent and destructive civil
war, putting them on opposing sides of a bloody
barrier (Pearce 1990:149).
New directions of violence
The emergence of perhaps a dozen different leftist
guerrilla forces in Colombia coincided in time with
increased guerrilla violence of national liberation in
Angola (1961±74). The FARC was established in
1966 as the military wing of PCC. The smaller ELN
originated in the 1960s and was inspired by Fidel
Castro's revolution in Cuba (Sweeney 1999:4). Both
sought to establish a Marxist Colombian state by
force. Similarly to Angola, externally charged domestic
resistance subverted the goal of nationhood. As
`successors' to the communist agrarian groups of the
1950s, operating from semi-autonomous isolated
areas characterized by the virtual absence of a strong
central state authority and legitimacy, the leftist
guerrilla movements in Colombia strengthened the
proposition that `he who rules determines the meaning
of [domestic] security' (Buzan 1991:11). Whereas
the state has failed to conclude a mutually beneficial
social contract with the people to foster strong and
sustainable state and nation building in exchange for
shared security, well-being and protection, FARC and
other guerrilla movements did succeed in creating a
support base by organizing the economically deprived
communities politically and militarily, while providing
social services and facilities (Osterling 1989:99).
Realizing the danger of Colombia's fragmentation
into countervailing regions with own power centres
(balkanization), the ruling Conservative Valencia
administration launched military-sponsored antiguerrilla
operations (Keen 1996).
Despite the fact that until the 1980s the FARC had
fewer than 1 000 guerrillas, the central government
was unable to destroy it. Now there are more than
15 000. Again, acute state de-legitimization and
criminalization through, inter alia, fraudulent election
practices, internal divisions and a weak and ineffective
government-opposition equation, brought about its
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