They may signify straws in the wind or just another failure for the middle ground but the people of Angola are beginning to speak up about the devastation that surrounds them. Last week, bishops at Angola's Eucharistic Conference fulminated against the country's "absurd war and its panorama of death" and spoke of a "hell that worsens day by day". A fortnight ago, a group of individuals launched Manifesto for Peace in Angola. The manifesto is blunt. It takes issue with the government view that pursuing the war is the only way to secure peace. The organisers seem confident that they can drum up 10,000 signatories.
The manifesto is to be presented to the two main antagonists in the civil war, President dos Santos of the MPLA-led government and Dr Jonas Savimbi, the leader of the Unita rebel army. The latter is only too willing to go down the road of dialogue as long as his army does not first have to put away its weapons. But Mr dos Santos is not prepared to talk to Dr Savimbi at all on the basis that he doesn't keep his promises.
That Dr Savimbi does not keep his promises is indisputable. He reneged on his pledge to disarm in 1992 for the simple reason that Unita lost the election which followed the peace agreement. A further agreement was thrashed out five years ago allowing Dr Savimbi the vice presidency and Unita a degree of power-sharing. But the uneasy truce which ensued was followed, not by Unita turning in its weapons, but by Dr Savimbi turning to the Ukraine for tanks and heavy artillery so that, on the resumption of hostilities, Unita would be able to fight a conventional war as opposed to a guerilla campaign. And this it has done very successfully.
This is not a war which has no winners; if it was, it would have been over long ago. Mr dos Santos is winning more time in office each day it lasts. His MPLA party colleagues win power, prestige and perks the longer it continues. The generals in his army are perhaps the biggest winners with hundreds of millions of pounds worth of commissions slinking into their wallets from weapons purchases.
But the winners in this war are outnumbered greatly by the losers. Unita, which now controls two-thirds of the country, is systematically clearing people from the countryside and driving them into the towns where they cannot be adequately fed. The dry season started two months ago but nobody is able to return to the fields to plant a crop. Dr Savimbi, like many warmongers before him, has seized on the effectiveness of hunger as a weapon of war.
This is a conflict which originated in ideological differences but is now about power and riches. Notwithstanding the fact that the country is virtually bankrupt, both sides are focussed solely on the enriching potential of the country's oil and diamond reserves. They have lost sight of the horrendous human tragedy which is now inevitable if war continues. Such food aid as can get through will be nowhere near enough to feed the malnourished millions. Mr dos Santos has a clear choice. Continue the war and watch starvation claim his people or accept reality and get down to unconditional talks with Dr Savimbi, however unpalatable it may be.