A generation ago, Angola was one of the front lines in the war between the West and the Soviet Empire.

At a superpower level that rivalry finished years ago. And now, at last, the blood and bullets expression of that conflict is ending in Angola.

The civil war in that country has lasted longer than the entire lives of most of the combatants.

What happens to a country when it has spent more than a quarter of a century in civil war?

David Loyn has been in Angola for us, and sent this report.

Watch the item

DAVID LOYN:
This is the first sight of the men and boys of Angola's rebel army since they lost Africa's longest war. We have come into the jungle with a supply of food from the Government army which defeated them. Their clothes are just rags. We are the first white people that some of these children have seen. A generation has grown up knowing nothing but war. The rebels have lived up to now in isolation under savage discipline. When they were recruited, some had to kill their friends or their parents and drink their blood. The penalty for escape was always death. Immenso Rapido, whose extraordinary name just means huge speed, is 28. He was born into UNITA. When we ask why they fought for so long, he gives the party line.

IMMENSO RAPIDO:
(TRANSLATION)
We are fighting for the total liberty of all Angolans, so they can live in peace.

DAVID LOYN:
But liberty from what? Who were they fighting against? The Portuguese left in 1975, before most of these soldiers were born. Immenso becomes more and more hesitant.

IMMENSO RAPIDO:
Well, I don't know about that. I don't know what to say.

DAVID LOYN:
Then military discipline takes over and he is called away. In the end, this became a war without cause or reason. The flag of the beaten rebels still flies, but it is a token defiance. On the ground, the soldiers of both sides seem happy that the war is over.

LOURENCO BENTO:
(UNITA political officer)
(TRANSLATION)
I believe that peace will last. People here are very tired and they really want peace. They have been badly affected by the war.

DAVID LOYN:
Our helicopter is loaded with the sick and wounded. It labours to make enough height to get out of the jungle. Those guarding the precious food supply run away as the down draught becomes too much. It's lucky for them that they do. The helicopter crash lands into the clearing from a height of about 20ft. The rear rotor has struck a tree, shearing the engine clean away from the tail. The people of Angola are tired of this war and so, it seems, is the machinery they've been using to fight it. What's happened to us illustrates the problems of communicating, of transport around this huge country now that there's peace. As we load the remaining helicopter there is a fight on the ground. Not between armies but within UNITA. Fighting has become a way of life, the way to settle differences in a society traumatised by war. Angola is one of the largest countries in Africa, bigger than France, Germany and Spain put together. But it has been on the margins of the world while unspeakable horrors have happened under the canopy of its giant forests. Although the fighting may be over, it is not yet safe to go home. Indeed, after the total dislocation of this war, people are still running from the jungle. Every morning, more wretched refugees arrive into reception centres. They have nightmares of butchery by both sides, memories of facing death at the hands of the UNITA rebels merely for owning salt, since that showed contact with the Government. And the Government, for its part, has forcibly cleared huge areas to deny UNITA its support. Now the normal business of life, sleeping, eating, washing, goes on as people are processed. Maria Makumbi does not know how old she is, nor where the father of her child has gone. The baby is 18 months old, but with her stick-like arms and legs she looks much younger. Mother and baby have been on the run all their lives. On their way, squeezed together in the back of a truck, they pass longer established camps. Angola is a nation of the displaced. At the new camp they join others already waiting to be shown a patch of ground to live on. It is the end of a long road. Those running the camp, the Lutheran World Federation, wanted to give each new arrival blankets and cooking kits, but Angola got less than half of the aid money it asked for, so all they get is a bucket and a plastic sheet. For some, there are chance meetings. The churning of displaced people gives hope as it takes it away. But Maria's family still need to keep walking to virgin jungle at the edge of the camp to build their new home. They are safe for now, but this family has been on the run for more than ten years and cannot easily think of anywhere as home. Resettlement will be hard. Maria is frightened that if she says too much about the past, she will be killed. She can hardly bear to say the name of her oppressors.

MARIA MAKUMBI:
(TRANSLATION)
I feel ill when someone mentions the name UNITA.

DAVID LOYN:
Maria's mother has a bullet wound in her neck.

ROSALINA CESSA:
(TRANSLATION)
We were always running because of the war, even when it rained. They were always shooting and chasing us, and we didn't have anything to wear, even in the rain. That is what I mean by "suffering".

DAVID LOYN:
Children play cat and mouse to collect extra rations. Not a grain of corn is wasted. You need to be tough to survive this, and many don't. A makeshift new cemetery nearby is always busy. Four-year-old Maria died of diarrhoea. Her father, Jeremiah, and his friends dig out the little ground that her body will fill. They conduct their own ceremony. There are not enough priests to bury all the dead from this conflict, which some estimates put as high as two million. The cemetery is spreading into ground which is known to be mined, an ever-present danger in Angola. A British demining group have trained locals in the lonely, terrifying job of making the roads safe. They move at just over a kilometre a month. Today they found a Russian-made mine, probably laid in the 1970s when Angola became the front-line in the Cold War as America backed the rebels in the bush, while Cuba and Russia backed the Government in the towns. The detonator is removed by a man equipped only with a paint brush. What began here as a war of independence 40 years ago deteriorated into a bloody slugging match between two men, a battle without ideology or political principle, about power and the control of Angola's huge wealth. One of the two men now sits as president at the head of an unaccountable elite. The other, Jonas Savimbi, lies here, perhaps the most remarkable of Africa's post-colonial guerrilla leaders, meeting his inevitable end, a modest grave in an unremarkable town. Savimbi's lieutenants are not trying to keep the war going. They, the thin men, are negotiating demobilisation terms with men who starved them out of the bush and beat them militarily. No-one here is talking of retribution. They know they have a once-in-a-lifetimes chance of peace.

GENERAL N'ZUMBI:
(Government army commander)
(TRANSLATION)
We think that the only factor which led to the prolonging of this war was the presence of the leader, Jonas Savimbi. The rest of the people were forced to make war because they were frightened. They did not want to fight, and became conscious of the fact that the war was delivering nothing and we had to move on. Now, without Savimbi, the peace will be lasting.

DAVID LOYN:
But having won the war, the Government is being asked difficult questions about how it paid for it. The waters off Angola are awash with oil, almost one in every ten gallons imported by gas-guzzling America comes from here. Claims that money from oil ended up as fat commissions on arms deals led to a scandal, inevitably called Angola-gate, in France. Now research by the NGO Global Witness suggests that more than $1 billion of Angolan oil money went astray last year.

GEORGE CHICOTE:
(Deputy Foreign Minister)
It is not true, because apart from a few cases which could be considered a case of corruption, you have a very huge propaganda, because eventually you may have a state of poverty, or a state of war that's gone on for a long time.

DAVID LOYN:
The suggestion is, specifically, that $1 billion of Angolan oil money went astray last year. Is that true?

GEORGE CHICOTE:
I don't think that is true in terms of the amounts that you have been saying.

DAVID LOYN:
It is true in terms of a few million, though?

GEORGE CHICOTE:
Pardon?

DAVID LOYN:
You say there is small corruption. What do you call small corruption?

GEORGE CHICOTE:
People make deals on anything that is being sold or bought. But so far, when you look at the arms deal that was done, which was the major case when people were talking about Angola-gate, there was no Angola-gate, because the people involved are not Angolans, the people who are the intermediaries of the purchasers. The arms were bought in Russia.

DAVID LOYN:
So you are saying no Angolans made money on arms deals in this war?

GEORGE CHICOTE:
I wouldn't be surprised if that happens, but that is a normal thing you find in these kinds of businesses. What we need today is to look at how do we respond to that, because my problem is you find that in America, and even in larger quantities.

DAVID LOYN:
The UNITA rebels were no better. After slaughtering all of Angola's elephants for ivory, they moved on to diamonds. It's easy money if you know where to look. The diamonds on this table alone are worth about $1 million. The mine where we were allowed to film has not been involved in underhand dealings with UNITA, but much of the diamond industry was in their hands. Despite UNITA's dubious financial record and the fear it still inspires in the countryside, it is still hoping to make corruption the big political issue when elections finally come. I spoke to the man who will almost certainly be their presidential candidate, Savimbi's successor.

ABEL CHIVUKUVUKU:
(likely UNITA Presidential candidate)
I think the next time it will no longer be an excuse for the Government to keep the people in the abject poverty that they are. Things will have to be tackled. We need to overcome that past in which both sides, UNITA and the MPLA, the party in Government, committed atrocities which could be called crimes against humanity. But we need now to reconcile those on both sides of the conflict and allow for peace and stability to happen.

DAVID LOYN:
The riches of Angola's elite are awesome compared to the sufferings of most people here. Those who enjoy the entertainment in a beach bar owned by the President's daughter will sleep in a bed tonight, while Maria's family, in a makeshift shelter in the bush, can finally take some rest after running for their lives. All they have to lie on is a blanket made from a single piece of tree bark.

This transcript was produced from the teletext subtitles that are generated live for Newsnight. It has been checked against the programme as broadcast, however Newsnight can accept no responsibility for any factual inaccuracies. We will be happy to correct serious errors.