Building bridges in Angola

Extracted from Bridges: Report of the WARC team visit to Angola, Oct 20-29 2002. The full report is available from the Alliance office.

Ever since the Portuguese arrived in 1482, Angola has been exploited by a few at the expense of many. From 1961 to 2002 the country was in a state of war. Anti-colonial struggles led to independence in 1975, but were followed by a vicious civil conflict between the Angolan People's Liberation Army (MPLA) government and National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) rebels led by Jonas Savimbi.

The civil war, exacerbated and prolonged by foreign interests, ended only after Savimbi was killed in February last year in a government ambush.

Three years ago, the Alliance was invited to send an international team to Angola to "express solidarity, facilitate the relations between Angolan churches, and reflect on the terrible social and political situation in which the country has been living for the past forty years of war". By this time, normal life for most Angolans was almost impossible. An estimated 3.7 million people were internally displaced, and 1.3 million were in need of food aid. The churches too had suffered great losses in people (through death, exile and emigration), buildings, training opportunities, and involvement in the world church.

Some 1.2 million Angolans died in the civil war, 90% of them non-combatants. An estimated 20 million landmines are still planted in Angola, roughly two for every pair of Angolan legs.

Has peace come to Angola to stay? After major deceptions in 1992 and 1994-8, people desperately want to believe this. Thousands of displaced people have begun to go home. Others who were confined to their villages, cut off from the towns, from communication with their relatives and from the capital Luanda, can travel again. Much effort is concentrated on demobilizing the soldiers and receiving refugees emerging from the forests. But the movement of people makes planning difficult: it is hard to assess how many people will be living where and for whom food, health care, education, and employment have to be provided.

In April 2001, a consultation organized by the Evangelical Congregational Church, the Evangelical Reformed Church and the Presbyterian Church gathered 130 participants to reflect on the role of young people in a war-torn country and to commit themselves to work together (see Update 11/3, September 2001).

The Alliance team visit in October 2002 thus took place in a new climate of rapprochement within the Reformed family in Angola as well as an essentially new political situation.

Besides expressing solidarity with the Angolan people and churches, the purpose of the visit was to reflect together with the churches on their ministry and mission and to identify new opportunities for cooperation, both nationally and internationally.

Everywhere we saw the destruction caused by the long civil war between two heavily equipped armies. Towns that were shelled by heavy artillery and bombed by the air force have become ghost towns: dark ruins, no windows left, many roofs fallen, walls crumbled down. These visible scars mirror the trauma caused by long years of violence and mistrust. How can the scars left in hearts and minds heal? How can a society be built in which political, religious or ethnic difference is not a source of conflict but is seen as a gift, a contribution to the rich potential of Angola?

Quem manda manda, quem não manda cumpre (Those who are in command give orders, those who are not, comply!) For many years, the people were a pawn in the struggle between the two warring parties. They had no rights. They were made victims, held in dependency. A major challenge is to restore their confidence in themselves. How to learn to make choices? How to begin writing their own history?

Rebuilding lives will not be easy. Many soldiers returning from the war have been trained only for war. Many are ill, malnourished or infected with HIV/Aids. And the high death toll of men in battle has dramatically increased the demographic imbalance between women and men.

Mission in unity

In the churches too we saw many scars, but were struck by the commitment to a ministry and mission that has the shalom of all Angolans at heart. Church leaders stress that a vision of "life for all" requires a pooling of efforts and resources beyond the divisions of the past, when church relations tended to polarize along political and tribal lines.

Key areas identified for common approaches are peace and reconciliation, development, health, education and theological training.

This commitment to work together was celebrated on Sunday October 27, when delegations from IECA, IPA and IRIA congregations joined the IERA congregation in the Rocha Pinto Reformed Church in Luanda in united worship. More than 1,000 people packed the building and the yards outside. Dr José Belo Chipenda, general secretary of IECA, invited them to raise their hands to affirm this new departure for the Reformed family in Angola.

Our time in Angola was short, the situation is complex and we are aware of many gaps in our report, the efforts of the Angolan team members notwithstanding.

We were moved by the hospitality in villages which in many respects are starting again from scratch, by the perseverance of churches which have continued their ministry throughout the war years, and by the commitment to mission in this new period.

In the face of a new political situation, the new challenges which post-war Angola presents, and a new commitment to cooperation, the Angolan churches are rethinking their ministry and mission, and invite the solidarity and support of partners around the world.

Many of these partner churches are faced with decreasing income, a mission praxis which is sometimes reduced to interchurch aid, and inherited bilateral relations which bless some churches while leaving others bereft. The world church is also rethinking its mission. Re-imagining and restructuring the intersecting circles of witness, support and solidarity is likely to continue for some time.

The urgency of Angolan reconstruction provides the world church with an opportunity to "rethink and restructure in action", by using the possibilities for joint support in Angola as a case study.

The Reformed family in Angola

Igreja Evangélica Congregacional em Angola (IECA)

The Evangelical Congregational Church in Angola is the largest Reformed church. Origins in work of American mission societies from 1880 onward.

Membership: around 750,000.

Origins in work of an Anglican missionary who founded an indigenous and independent

church in 1922. Constituted in 1977 as the Evangelical Reformed Church of Angola.

Membership: about 250,000.

Roots in IERA, continuing from 1984 as the Presbyterian Church in Angola.

Membership: about 7,500.

Igreja Presbiteriana Independente em Angola (IPIA)

Founded in 1991 by Angolan refugees returning from exile in Congo-Kinshasa who decided to retain their independence.

Membership: about 1,000 members.

Igreja Reformada Independente em Angola (IRIA)

Roots in IERA, continuing from 1996 as the Independent Reformed Church in Angola.

Membership: about 3,000

Igreja Cristã Presbiteriana de Angola (ICPA)

Roots in IERA -IPA, continuing in 1998 as the Christian Presbyterian Church of Angola.

Membership: about 900

Igreja Reformada de Angola (IRA)

Roots in IERA, continuing from 2000-2001 as the Reformed Church of Angola.

Membership: about 5,000.

Igreja Biblica Cristã em Angola (IBCA)

Roots in IERA, continuing from 2001 as the Biblical Christian Church in Angola.

Membership: not available.

Igreja Evangelica Unida de Angola (IEUA)

Common history with IERA from 1922 till 1975, when the church continued as the Evangelical United Church. In recent decades the link with the Anglican communion has been strengthened and the church has been renamed the Anglican diocese of Angola.