Prometheus 6   

Angolans Come Home to 'Negative Peace'
By LYDIA POLGREEN

M'BANZA CONGO, Angola — The journey took only a few hours — a brisk, bumpy ride of 60 miles in the bed of a truck along a rutted, red dirt road. It was a nanosecond compared with the five years that Emmanuel Antonio, his wife and six children had spent as refugees across the border in Congo.

This was the ride home. As the convoy bounced along, Mr. Antonio's older children slumbered at his feet, oblivious to the bone-rattling bumps, and his 32-year-old wife, Madelena Merneza, cradled their youngest, Dani, 2, in her arms.

Finally setting foot again on Angolan soil, in the border town of Luvo, and waiting in line for a stamp from immigration officials, Mr. Antonio searched the moment for joy. He found only worry.

"My family must come home because we are Angolans," said Mr. Antonio, 38, a farmer. "Now we have peace. We can only hope that there will be peace until the end."

The civil war, which killed at least half a million Angolans and displaced more than a third of this country's 13 million people, has been over for more than a year. Since then, more than a million people like Mr. Antonio have returned to a country physically, politically and economically in ruins.

Their return is perhaps the clearest sign yet that the worst of Angola's troubles are over. But relief officials warn that some of Angola's biggest challenges may still lie ahead.