Huambo - History

12º42S 15º54E, pop (2001e) 165 700. Capital of Huambo province, WC Angola, SW Africa; 240 km/150 mi E of Lobito; on a high plateau, alt 1695 m/5560 ft; rich agricultural region; road, rail, and air transport hub serves commercial and shipping centre; stronghold of the former UNITA leader, Jonas Savimbi; railway repair shops.

Huambo is the capital of Huambo province in Angola.

Huambo is a main hub in the Caminho de Ferro de Benguela (CFB) the Benguela Railway that runs from the port of Benguela to the Congo border.

Huambo was also known by its numerous educational facilities, especially the Chianga Agricultural Research Institute (currently part of the Faculty of Agricultural Science).

The civil war halted Huambo's development and distroyed a great part of its infrastructure, but the advent of peace in 2002 brought a new era of feverish reconstruction and regeneration of its past splendour.

History

Huambo had a population of 203,800 in 1983, but became the site of a brutal battle during the bloody civil war between the government and UNITA from independence until the death of rebel UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi.

Upon independence in 1975, Savimbi declared Huambo to be a separate republic within the nation.

By mid 1976 the Cuban troops had established their most important structures in Huambo town in the area of San Pedro, Lufefena and Cruzeiro, and strong garrisons in most of the other municipal capitals and main towns, but UNITA had the control of nearly all of the territory in between.

Displaced people started concentrating in towns, seeking physical protection and humanitarian assistance.

In May 1991 a peace agreement was reached between the Government and UNITA. Unrest arrived to Huambo very rapidly, as UNITA considered the Province in a way as their political shrine.

The city would still be formally under the control of the Government, but tension progressively built-up in the shape of an increasing strain of violent actions involving UNITA militia. Violent combats in and around Huambo continued still for 55 days, until the Government troops retired and UNITA gained full control of the city. A large offensive gave back to the Government the control of Huambo on 9 November, and soon after all other provincial capitals.

The war ended formally on November 20, 1994 with the signature of the Lusaka Protocol.

By 1995 free transit of people and goods was quite re-established in the Province. By the end of the year the United Nations peacekeepers (UNAVEM III) had been deployed too in Huambo, following the provisions of the Lusaka peace protocol.

After the United Nations Security Council enforced sanctions against UNITA (29 October 1997) because of delays in the implementation of the Lusaka protocol and reluctance to demilitarize and turn over its strongholds, insecurity in Huambo increased gradually, especially in the second half of 1998. In early December the Government launched an offensive aimed at taking the last strongholds held by UNITA in Huambo and Kuito, this new war outbreak soon extending to other regions of the country. Huge population displacements started once again from the rural areas to Huambo, Kuito and Caala. Large camps of internally displaced people were then installed in these cities as the Humanitarian Community was forced to retire out of UNITA-controlled areas, withdrawing completely by the end of the year and concentrating in Huambo, Caala and, later, Ukuma. As Huambo and other major towns in the Plateau were being shelled from Bailundo and other positions still in possession of UNITA, two Hercules C130 aircraft chartered by the United Nations with 23 people on board were shot down over Vila Nova (Dec. 26 and Jan. 2, 1999), as they were trying to evacuate to Luanda the last remains of the UNAVEM III mission in Huambo.

The Government took again the town of Bailundo in October 1999. In this period the conventional war that the Province had known gave way to guerrilla warfare, UNITA still controlling most rural areas and randomly striking military or police installations of the Government, and often civilian communities too.

The exodus of civilians into Huambo and Caala experienced a new boom. In early 2000 there were over 25,000 displaced people in the village of Caala, and over 40,000 in Huambo town. As international sanctions tightened around UNITA, their military actions in Huambo got more frequent and destructive, reaching a peak of violence by the end of 2000.

In October 2001 the Government launched a renovated offensive against UNITA from the North and the South of the Province, combining this time strict military action with what were known as operações de limpeça, literally, cleansing operations which consisted in removing from rural areas large groups of population which were subsequently forced into a few, specific concentration points. This point probably represents the climax in the hardship the rural civilian population went through in the Province of Huambo for the duration of the war.

The death of Jonas Savimbi in February 2002 and the subsequent signature of a new cease-fire brought back tranquility to the Province and set the conditions for the present ongoing peace process and the beginning of an era of development.

Coordinates: 12°46′S 15°44′E