Angola: Promises and Lies

Angola's civil war was the longest and bloodiest in Africa. Once the battleground for a proxy war between the Cold War superpowers, the country was supposed to become a model for a smooth transition from armed conflict to democracy. The government, previously backed by the Soviet Union and Cuba, and the UNITA rebels, who once enjoyed American and South African support, would exchange bullets for ballots - but it all went wrong ... UNITA's Jonas Savimbi rejected his defeat in the country's first ever free elections and plunged Angola back into war. The international community could only wring its hands, eventually negotiating a fragile new peace agreement. For millions of Angolans, however, the effects of a quarter of a century of violence have proved to be more enduring than the taste of peace.

Karl Maier covered the Angolan conflict for almost 10 years as a correspondent for the Independent and Washington Post, and provides a fascinating analysis of the realities behind the conflict as well as a vivid eye-witness account of the devastation it brought. Whether speaking to Cuban troops at the largest battle in Africa since El Alamein, to nurses, black-market traders or aid workers, Maier views Angola's strife with a rare sympathy for the ordinary people caught in the crossfire. Sceptical of both sides' promises and lies, his is a classic account of one of the civil wars that continue to plague Africa. This updated new edition covers the ending of the war with Savimbi's death and the massive corruption and other problems that have arisen since then. Armed conflict has been replaced by an oil boom that has benefited only the country's elite - as Maier observes, the vast majority ofAngolans now face 'a war of neglect by their rulers'.