Angola has been at war for 40 years now, and with itself for the last 10 of them. Millions have died, as direct casualties or from war produced famine and disease. Millions more are displaced in the cities, dependent on international humanitarian food relief. Over 15 million land mines are spread throughout the country, killing and maiming more people daily. The health and educational network of the nation are in tatters.
This article will try to deal with the historical causes of the present conflict, with a particular fixation on the date of the independence of the nation, on 11 November 1975, and the very unclear (and ephemeral) compromises that led to it. We will conclude that colonialism and imperialism are the main responsibles for the continuing strife, while the very foundations of a modern nation-state are still far from consolidated. The personal responsibility of a particularly vicious and ambitious character is also dealt with.
The two larger bantu kingdoms were Congo, in the north-west (comprising parts of the present P.R. of Congo), and N’Dondo or N’Gola, further to the south. The former was the most powerful, extensive and developed. It was also through it that the portuguese first gained a foot hold on the angolan heartland, taking advantage of its very marked class polarization and conflict. The Congo kings welcomed the portuguese and christianism as standard-bearers for male-inherited private property against the communitarian and matrilineal customs of the land.
The portuguese arrived in 1498 but it was not until 1575 that colonization really begun with the foundation of Luanda by Paulo Dias de Novais. In between (and after), the main occupation of the portuguese was the trade in slaves and ivory, benefiting from good relations with the kings of Congo and its aristocracy (the manis). But popular uprisings would soon occur - in the form of dynastic conflicts - and a long cycle of anti-portuguese coalitions of kingdoms and fiefs (sobados) kept anti-colonial resistance alive well into the XX century. A particularly fierce enemy of the portuguese was N’Gola queen Njinga that reined for 40 years until her death, in 1663.
The portuguese colony was mostly composed of convicts. So much so that the new villages were called prisons. But the colons were very much free to travel and trade through the angolan interior as “pombeiros”. Likewise did many africans, who were called bare-footed pombeiros. The slave trade and the constant wars (cuata-cuata wars) that it promoted for the imprisonment of this coveted merchandise ultimately bled the once powerful and affluent bantu kingdoms to their ruin. Angolan territory was estimated to have 18 million inhabitants in 1450. In 1850, only 8 million remained (and just under 5 million in 1960). Native commerce, craftsmanship and social life in general were greatly affected. Angola was probably the african region most chastised by the slave trade. Many afro-americans (in Brazil, Caribe and the U.S.) would probably trace their origins to these lands.
The power of the colony would expand further to the South and the interior, dominating the kingdoms of Matamba, Kassanje, Bié, Bailundo, Humbi, Ovambo and Sendji. In the north-east, Lunda was dominated in 1920. Of special relevance was the resistance of the ovimbundu kingdoms in the central plateau, particularly of the coalitions headed by Bailundo king Ekuikui II in the late XIX century and the 1902 revolt of Mutu-ya-Kevela.
In 1640, the dutch conquered Luanda but were expelled eight years later by the luso-brazilian Salvador Correia de Sá. From thereafter, the economic life of the colony was very closely linked with (subordinated to) Brazil and the brazilians came to dominate it politically for long periods. Characteristically, Angola would provide slaves for Brazil do produce sugar and gold which would end up in Britain, leaving handsome profits in brazilian pockets and some taxes for the portuguese crown to squander in extravagant consumption. It was the typically mercantilist triangular commerce.
Things begun to change with the enlightenment policies of governor Sousa Coutinho (appointed by one of Portugal’s greatest statesmen, the prime-minister marquis de Pombal) in the late XVIII century. A national bourgeoisie was formed that took interest in domestic production and putting limits to the predatory slave trade. Industrial capitalism took root, with the creation of a native proletariat. New white colons arrived (real immigrants, not convicts). Educational institutions were founded. A layer of black and mulatto affluent and cultivated families appeared in Luanda and Benguela. These trends were favored, in 1825, by the independence of Brazil, whose influence in Angola diminished thereafter. In 1836 the slave trade was officially abolished but went on, even legally, for decades, dripping away only slowly well into the first decades of the XX century.
In 1899 slavery was abolished on the territory. In its place was instituted “corrective work” on the sugar, coffee and cotton plantations. The big (foreign) agro and mining companies arrived, bringing the railways with them. The republic (proclaimed in 1910) legislated a contractual regime for labor, compounded with fiscal dispositions that made it compulsory in practice.
At the dawn of the century there were 9.000 whites in Angola. The number increased slightly during the next decades but it was only the “New State” (fascist) regime imposed in 1926 that devised a colonial strategy who, from 1940 onwards, would totally transfigure the territory. White colons were 172.000 in 1960 and would peak at 600.000 on the eve of independence. The social position of the black and mulatto “assimilado” elites was degraded in an extremely repressive and racialised society. Africans were expelled from the cities into shanty-town surroundings (muceques). Black cultural and national manifestations were strictly interdicted. Exploitation was brutally aggravated by arbitrary fiscal and penal measures. Brutal searches (reminiscent of the cuata-cuata wars of yesteryear) for the forced recruitment of “contracted” labor were constant.
The MPLA (Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola) is the movement of the detribalized urban masses and the intellectual and politicized section of the angolan nationalists. It was founded in 1956, gathering a series of organizations, like the Partido da Luta Unida dos Africanos de Angola (PLUA), the Movimento para a Independência Nacional de Angola (MINA) and the Partido Comunista de Angola (PCA). Following a wave of detentions in 1959, the movement moved its headquarters to Conacry (Republic of Guinea). In June 1960, the MPLA addressed a memorandum to the government in Lisboa stating that “the peaceful solution to the colonial problem in Angola depends on the concrete actions to be taken by the portuguese government”. The answer was, of course, more and intensified repression, leading the movement to conclude that “direct action was the sole alternative to make prevail the right of the peoples to self-determination and independence”.
The kikongos (or bakongos) spread to both sides of the Congo river, in Zaire (now Popular Republic of Congo) and the north-west of Angola. In 1949, following the wake of previous kikongo messianic movements, Simão Toco appeared announcing divine intervention in favor of black people. By preaching resistance to forced labor, tocoism entered in conflict with the colonial administration. Toco was deported to the Azores and returned to Angola only in August 1974. The death, in 1954, of the king of Congo D. Pedro VII (a colonialist puppet) has also caused a great deal of unrest among the kikongos. Two main parties were formed, with the easy winner being another portuguese puppet, D. António. Which died in 1957... At this point the colonialists just did not want to hear about kings on Congo anymore and the throne remained vacant. One of the kikongo associations formed around this succession question was the União dos Povos do Norte de Angola (UPNA) which proposed José Guilmore (alias Holden Roberto) for the throne. In 1958 it was transformed into União dos Povos de Angola (UPA) and proposed independence of the whole angolan territory. In 1962 it merged with ALIAZO (by then Partido Democrata de Angola - PDA) to form the FNLA (Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola). The FNLA formed the GRAE - Governo Revolucionário de Angola no Exílio - in Leopoldville (Kinshasa), recognized by the Organization of African States. But it remained by and large a kikongo organization.
In January 1961, the cotton workers of the plantations owned by COTONANG, inspired by tocoism, made an insurrectionary strike in the area of Baixa do Cassenje. The repression - by land and air - was brutal, leaving perhaps as many as 5.000 dead. Then came the official first shots of the liberation war, with the assault on a prison in Luanda on February 4. The action was a failure and it is still not clear who gave the orders. It appears to have had the participation of militants of both UPA and MPLA, organized by father Manuel das Neves, a white catholic priest and an independent figure in the nationalist movement. In the repressive frenzy that ensued, the MPLA was all but dismantled and the initiative passed on to UPA.
But UPA was also unprepared and had absolutely no modern military training and doctrine at this point. It’s actions that year consisted of a series of massacres of portuguese ranchers (and many black servants) in the North of Angola, carried out by throngs of enraged peasants, armed with nothing but machetes and magical spells. The portuguese repression that ensued was nothing short of genocidal. It was condemned in the UN Security Council by both the US and the USSR. The general assembly passed a resolution that called for angolan self-determination, also with Washington’s vote. Lisboa and Luanda were full of anti-american patriotic furor in those days. The war was on.
Two days after Kennedy’s inauguration, on 22 January 1961, a dissident portuguese military (and former colonial official in Angola), hijacked a luxury liner - the “Santa Maria” - off the coast of Venezuela and headed for Luanda where he planned to stage a coup eventually leading to Salazar’s overthrow. There were 42 US citizens aboard. The ship was located by the US Navy and the americans negotiated with Galvão, ignoring the portuguese government. The hijackers were granted asylum in Brazil. In April - with the insurrection well underway in Angola - the portuguese defense minister general Botelho Moniz attempted a coup to oust Salazar with Washington’s support. The coup failed, Salazar assumed the defense port-folio and immediately rallied the nation to go “to Angola, now and in force”.
Kennedy’s africanist policy-makers wanted to pressure Salazar into conceding a neo-colonialist solution to Angola, with the participation of UPA/FNLA (Roberto was on the CIA payroll). But their non-confrontational approach was doomed to failure. Salazar was an unflinching dogmatic ideologue and also an astute and cunning tactician. Portugal was a member of NATO and the agreement with the US for the vital Lajes air base in the Azores was due to expire in December 1962. After many meetings and diplomatic notes exchanged, the position of the Kennedy administration moved towards appeasement of Salazar and comprehension for portuguese colonialism.
The americans have thoroughly changed course later (particularly the Nixon administrations were very close to the portuguese fascists), but they have remained in contact with Roberto. After the seizure of power by Tschombé in Zaire, the FNLA was denied access to Angola. Mobutu Sese Seko (Roberto's brother-in-law) has resumed zairian backing of the FNLA, which by then (1964) managed to obtain chinese recognition and support. But military activity against the portuguese colonialist army has all but ceased. The FNLA served more as a buffer against any penetration by the MPLA from the North. It’s quite surprising how it emerged in 1974 with such formidable military might. Since 1978, in the wake of a non-aggression pact between Mobutu and the angolan president Agostinho Neto, the FNLA has ceased to exist as a military force.
Jonas was born in 1934, the son of Lott Savimbi, a railway employee, later teacher in north-american protestant missions. His family background and early education were very religious. He came to Lisboa in 1958 to proceed his studies (on which he was a complete failure) and it was in Portugal that he got involved in angolan nationalist politics. But it was also there, apparently, that he established a durable relationship with the fascist portuguese political police (PIDE) and the CIA. He adhered to UPA but kept tight and frequent contacts with the MPLA (the radical nationalist movement, inspired by marxism-leninism).
He moved to Switzerland in 1961. That year he was nominated representative of UPA for Europe. In July, he wrote to Luis de Almeida, of MPLA, proposing a plan for this movement to "annex" UPA, by first joining it and then conquering it from within (?!...) The letter has this interesting paragraph: "We must show ourselves hypocrites and christian, which for me is very painful for christianism repugns me". In 1962, he was already foreign minister of UPA's "government in exile". He traveled extensively - Uganda, Belgrade, Tunes, New Delhi, Leopoldville, etc. - and the reports of the PIDE are very detailed about his moves. He has also wrote letters to portuguese entrepreneur friends of his in Angola, full of praise for the role of Portugal in Africa and advocating its perennial presence in Angola.
Savimbi's official biography says he got a graduation on Political Sciences in Switzerland but not a trace of it can be found. Though very intermittently, he did however live in Switzerland for some years, where he married the daughter of a rich german-swiss owner of lands and mines in southern Angola. During 1963, he was instrumental in a number a great diplomatic triumphs of the FNLA over the MPLA on the Organization of African States. By 1964, he already had built a powerful political constituency within the movement and was mounting a challenge for its top post, as leader of "the pro-american tendency" (report from PIDE). Alas, he got kicked out by Roberto instead, in an anticipation move. He then applied for acceptance in the MPLA, issuing long manifestos full of marxist rhetoric and anti-imperialist intransigence. He found no takers.
In 1965, he managed to take hold of some resources and militants of UPA in Lusaka where he built a power base. It was there he got in contact with the PR of China. Some of his closest friends got military training there and he visited China himself (seeing the "pope", naturally). He may have played for a time with maoist clothes and concepts (even now, he talks of his last war as one of "generalized popular resistance"). But the chinese were not very demanding politically, anyway. They were also supporting the FNLA, which made no secret of its staunch anti-communism. In 1969, the II Congress of UNITA saluted the PR of China, "center of world revolution", Mao Zedong and his "cultural proletarian revolution". But the maoist outlook was nothing but a cover for the very real anti-communist, pro-imperialist and even pro-colonialist activity.
1965 was also the year Savimbi first visited the USA, where he stayed for a month and came back with military plans and support. In March 1966, Savimbi founded UNITA (União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola), based on his own political constituency which was overwhelmingly dominated by members of the Ovimbundu tribe, located on the angolan central plateau. UNITA has only three small armed actions against the portuguese army in its curriculum prior to 1974. In fact, Savimbi has had lots of very warm correspondence with the colonialist authorities, culminating in a formal peace signed with them in 1971. From then on UNITA has functioned as a shield against the incursions of the MPLA from the East. This was first denounced by Aquino Bragança in 1974 and is now a well documented and clearly established historical fact.
UNITA’s army was wholly formed after the anti-fascist coup in Portugal. From 1975 on, UNITA has counted on the support of the USA, racist South Africa, Mobutu's Zaire and, lately, Chiluba's Zambia. In periods of more acute diplomatic isolation, it has managed to survive by selling ivory to smugglers and diamonds for de Beers, for which it has been able to buy sophisticated weaponry to Bulgaria and on the “free market”. It has thus, through the 90’s, kept a strong military presence in some historical municipalities of the central plateau (Bailundo and Andulo), refusing to cede control of them for the state administration, as prescribed by the Lusaka peace accords. Lately it has been resolutely beaten by the FAPLA and chased into the bushes.
The MPLA had come to the Congo in hope of reaching an understanding with UPA and opening a front for the war of liberation in the North of Angola. Neither was to happen. Following the defeat of the congolese revolution, the MPLA was expelled from Leopoldville, many of its militants remaining in captivity in the infamous Kinkuzu concentration camp. Fortunately, the movement was able to transfer its headquarters to Brazzaville, where president Alphonse Massemba-Debat gave them shelter. From the territory of the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville), the movement had military access only to the small angolan enclave of Cabinda, where it opened a small experimental front. Liaison missions to the angolan heartland (namely with insurgent elements in the forests of Dembos) had to pass through the other Congo, where they were intercepted, disarmed and sometimes slaughtered by either the FNLA or the congolese army.
In spite of its operational difficulties, the MPLA has been by far the most effective military challenge to the portuguese (particularly in the period 1966-72). After the independence of Zambia in 1964, it was able to launch a second and very broad front from the East. The terrain there was not the most favorable and there were immense logistical difficulties. But the movement was able to create liberated areas where it organized production and a educational system recognized and assisted by UNESCO. In the forests of Dembos, about 5.000 guerrillas controlled a zone where 40.000 people found refuge. The military commander was Iko Carreira who, in a interview with ‘Jeune Afrique’ in 1972 denounced the use of napalm and defoliants by the portuguese air force against the cultures of the liberated zones. Encounters and conferences of cadre were made inside the territory.
Then there were problems at the level of political direction. The MPLA has lived in a state of almost permanent friction with its president Agostinho Neto, a great poet and accomplished marxist but also an egocentric and autocratic man. In 1973, Neto single-handedly tried to cook a new understanding on “unification” with the FNLA (which never took off anyway). This triggered a rebellion on the eastern front of the movement led by commander Daniel Chipenda. Lusaka took Chipenda’s side and there were armed clashes and arrests. The eastern front (already weakened by UNITA’s obstruction) was completely paralyzed. Among the political cadre, there was also the "active revolt" of Mario de Andrade in 1974.
The first months of the new regime were times of extreme political indecision. The president of the republic was the proto-fascist and neo-colonialist general Spinola, but the democratic movement of the armed forces (MFA) was vigilant on the background, supported by the awakened popular masses. Until the summer of 1975, the popular tide has been in permanent ascent, defeating the successive coups and machinations led by Spinola. Autumn was again a time of indecision, until the final thermidorian coup of 25 November 1975. From then on, bourgeois rule (now in western, liberal and "democratic" garb) was no more to be challenged in Portugal.
Due to its exceptional richness, the importance of the portuguese colony (600.000 people) and the favorable military situation, Spinola was particularly interested in securing a neo-colonialist solution for Angola. For him "the loss of Guinea-Bissau was regrettable, the loss of Mozambique a tragedy that could and should be avoided, but the abandon of Angola was unthinkable". He nominated the notorious fascist general Silvino Silvério Marques as governor. He devised plans for decolonization that would take up to 4 years to conclude. He tried to associate Zaire's president Mobutu to the process, in a meeting held in Cabo Verde whose content has remained secret and subject to intense speculation. Then he tried to promote all sorts of "living forces" and independent thinkers as alternatives to the liberation movements, particularly the MPLA that he abhorred. At first, the colonial establishment - very assured of its strength - saw no reasons to be worried.
The problem for Spinola was that things were moving fast. With the introduction of democratic freedoms of organization and manifestation, powerful social forces were unleashed, both in Portugal and in Angola. In June and August, violent racial confrontations surged in Luanda. The white colonial community grew increasingly alarmed and begun a terrorist campaign. Some sectors of it have devised a rhodesian style white independence, but there was no sufficient cohesiveness and maturity in the movement. After the failure of the spinolist coup of September 28 in Portugal, the neo-colonialist solution was impossible and the white colonialists begun to support either UNITA or FNLA.
The portuguese armed forces organized themselves democratically under the MFA flag and demanded the departure of Silvino Marques. For his substitution, was nominated admiral Rosa Coutinho a discrete officer who nobody knew very well at the time. He was a marxist, a firm supporter of MPLA and did not try to conceal his options. The position of the portuguese governments at that time was also generally towards recognizing the MPLA a certain hegemony in the nationalist field. In fact, even the U.S. consul in Luanda was favorable to the MPLA, on the grounds that it had the best men to constitute an able administration. The MFA/Angola and the administration have helped the MPLA organize itself (including the solution of its grave internal problems) and offered some armament. When the african soldiers of the portuguese army were demobilized, most of them were integrated in the MPLA forces, including the katanguese gendarmes and the fearsome hit-men "flechas".
However, the situation on the ground was still difficult. Particularly the FNLA was a very considerable force and had strong backing, not only from the U.S. but from many african countries as well. It managed to occupy the northern districts and made a push to Luanda in August, stopped by the portuguese parachutists. The three movements started to occupy positions on the ground and this reality could not be ignored. Under the mediation of Portugal and the Organization of African States, the angolan nationalist movements were pressed to find a agreement on a transition to independence, which they did in a conference in Mombassa (Kenya), attended by Neto, Roberto and Savimbi. Based on this prior agreement, they signed a formal accord with the portuguese government in Alvor (Algarve, Portugal), on 15 January 1975.
The Alvor accord called for the immediate formation of a transitional government with the participation of Portugal and all the three movements. A joint army was to be formed also. Elections for a Constituent Assembly were to be held in October. The whites would be recognized full angolan citizenship. Later, the date for formal recognition of independence was set for November 11, 1975. Most probably neither of the movements believed a word of what they were signing. They just wanted to see the portuguese administration leave as soon as possible. Probably the portuguese government just feigned it was arbitrating a serious agreement. The fact is that as soon as the three nationalist movements gained access to the capital, armed confrontations between them were unstoppable.
In Luanda, the MPLA was much more at ease than the other movements. It started a policy of arming its civilian supporters. In 13 February, the MPLA attacked the barracks of its dissident Chipenda. Ironically, Chipenda with his 2.000 men then joined FNLA and later fought alongside UNITA and the south-africans. In March 15, the FNLA tried to make some commemorative military marches in Luanda. And this was really the beginning of the angolan civil war. A violent battle with heavy weapons begun. It lasted, with brief periods of cease-fire, until the expulsion of the FNLA from the capital in July. The portuguese army and the transitional government were powerless to stop the violence. The white residents begun to flee in droves for Portugal. In August, it was UNITA's turn to be expelled from Luanda. The Alvor accords were dead and the MPLA again proclaimed itself the sole representative of the angolan people.
The south-africans invaded from the South, in October. They were joined by UNITA and Chipenda's men. In the North, the FNLA was reorganizing its forces in Ambriz, 100 km from Luanda, with white mercenaries and regular troops from Zaire. The two columns were on the move early in November and their goal was to attack Luanda jointly on the 11th, the date when the remains of the portuguese army were supposed to leave and independence be proclaimed. The MPLA destroyed two bridges but that was not enough to stop them.
The south-africans were ordered to stop, in order not to compromise their allies. And the northern column also stopped, within sight of Luanda. Says portuguese general Diogo Neto: "I was in Luanda until the 8th. On the eve of my departure, the two columns were very near the capital but were forced to stop by diplomatic pressure of the US. The american consulate in Luanda closed on the 2 or 3 and one of its members, which I suppose was from the CIA, told me before leaving that everything had been arranged." What is certain is that a deal had indeed been reached with the MPLA over the Cabinda oil. But was that all?
The 8th of November was also the date the first 650 cubans of "Operation Carlota" (in honor of the leader of a slave rebellion of the XIX century) arrived in Luanda, by air. The airport was controlled by the portuguese. According to Gabriel Garcia Marquez ("Operation Carlota", 'New Left Review', nºs 101-102, February/April 1977), the leadership of the cuban CP had only decided on the mission three days earlier. But the idea was much older and preparations have certainly been going on for some time. The operation was supposed to be secret ("a secret jealously kept by eight million cubans"), but it seems at least Julius Nyerere (of Tanzania), Samora Machel (of Mozambique) and portuguese leftist firebrand lieutenant-colonel Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho have had previous knowledge of it. And the portuguese high-commissioner in Luanda, admiral Leonel Cardoso (member of the "military left"), gave permission to land. Garcia Marquez falls short of saying the soviets were taken by surprise by the cuban action (which I think very unlikely). It only says "it was a sovereign and independent act of Cuba; the Soviet Union was informed not before but only after the decision had been made" (my emphasis). If the north-americans were taken by surprise is anybody's guess at this point, though Henry Kissinger seems to have admited it in some private conversations.
On 11 November, the portuguese high-commissioner transferred sovereignty to "the angolan people", put the portuguese flag under his arm-pit and left. The MPLA's Agostinho Neto thanked him and, to a delirious crowd, proclaimed the Popular Republic of Angola, which Portugal only recognized in February 1976.
Simultaneously, the FNLA proclaimed its republic in Ambriz and UNITA its own in Huambo (then still called Nova Lisboa).
When the cubans arrived, the military situation was considered so grave that they expected, at best, to secure the enclave of Cabinda. But, better organized and motivated, they have repelled the south-africans back to the border and quickly routed the northern force. The "second war of liberation" was concluded in February 1976. But south-african invasions kept occurring until the battle of Cuito Cuanavale and the accords of New York (22 December, 1988) between Angola, South-Africa and Cuba, which secured the independence of Namibia and the cuban withdrawal. In the late 80's there was a real "cuban scare" on white racist south-african society.
The middle 70's were bad times for US imperialism. There was the oil crisis, Watergate, defeat in Indochina. The soviets took positions in Vietnam and Laos (1975), Angola (1975), Ethiopia (1977), Southern Yemen (1978), Cambodja (1979), Nicaragua (1979), Afghanistan (1979). Probably this has helped overstretch the resources of the USSR (which was by then clearly on accelerated decadence), and some officials may have started to grumble. But there was also confidence, initiative and even some ideological assertiveness.
The MPLA was supported by the USSR and Chekoslovakia since 1964. Many of its cadre (including the now angolan president Jose Eduardo dos Santos) were formed there. In short, for many reasons, the USSR just couldn't failed them in the hour of truth. And they did give substantial help. According to US government sources, between 100 and 200 million dollars worth of military aid, between March and the end of 1975. This included some 170 military advisors, armored vehicles, aircraft and the very effective 122 mm rocket, decisive in many confrontations. Of course, what really decided the matter were the cubans soldiers on the ground.
It is beyond dispute that the CIA supported the FNLA in the angolan civil war of 1974-76. They have recruited english, american, portuguese, dutch, french and belgian mercenaries. Badly organized and with lax discipline, about 100 of them died. This effort had connections in Portugal, among the right-wing terrorist network operating there, which collaborated in the shipment of weapons. The point is: how far were the americans willing to go? Congress had barred direct armed involvement. In June 1975, Kissinger secured 16 million dollars for covert actions in Angola, plus 32 million in funds for FNLA. In December, the Senate refused a request for 100 million in further funding and, in January 1976, the House of Representatives passed the Clark Amendment, forbidding any further military involvement in angolan affairs (this was only to be revoked 10 years later by Reagan). The cubans - who arrived in force early in November 1975, when the MPLA was completely cornered in Luanda - were allowed to rout FNLA on the North and repeal the south-africans and UNITA to the southern border. Of course, the US just had no way of defeating the cubans short of an extremely risky direct military involvement. But they made no efforts to destabilize the country at that time either, when they had ample means and people at their disposal for it.
The US was kicked in the ass by the cubans in Angola and have let it stand. Now, even in those immediate post-Vietnam times, this is rather mysterious. Apparently they were in no mood for a confrontation with the USSR at the price of an overt, thoroughly exposed and long-term alliance with the south-africans, which could be very damaging to its relations with most of black Africa (not to mention the european liberals and the civil rights movement at home). Was there a deal? With the angolans surely. They have secured with them the interests of Gulf and Texaco in the oil extraction facilities of Cabinda. I have no proof of any larger deal concluded with the soviets, but this doesn't seem too far-fetched. The MPLA unilateral declaration of angolan independence was on 11 November. On 25 November, a right-wing military coup has effectively put an end to the portuguese revolution, definitely placing the country on the atlantic, demo-liberal order. The contrast between the restraint (in fact, the outright betrayal of a popular revolution) the soviets have imposed in Portugal and their deep involvement in Angola is too glaring.
But the fact remains that, if a deal there was, the US was soon to renege it and, from 1978 onwards, resumed an aggressive policy of destabilization of Angola that lasted well into the late 80’s.
The conflict is much more elemental and primordial. It has to do with the viability of the angolan state. On whether there will be an effective angolan republic or the country will definitively plunge in chaotic ungovernability. Savimbi cannot rule over Angola, for non-ovimbundu peoples have an absolute revulsion for him. So do, in fact, many ovimbundus after his latest terror campaigns on the country side. Success for him would be a protracted war of attrition and a de facto partition of the country. Success for the angolan government would be extending the authority of the state to the whole country, imposing modern republican values and a non-tribal administration. The situation could be compared with the vendayen rebellion against the french republic, though the government in Luanda these days is certainly very far from jacobin virtue.
The latest news is that government troops have taken the mythical UNITA stronghold of Jamba, in the south-eastern end. Savimbi doesn't have a place to rest anymore and no sources of income under his grip. To keep resistance alive, he will now have move along permanently with small guerrilla units on the jungles. Very tiresome and very risky, for he is no guerrilla leader but rather a fat-ass “big man”. If he chooses to move abroad, the movement will probably die away, due to lack of leadership and morale.
Colonialism and imperialism have left nothing but rubble in this once affluent and proud land. Now is the time for something new to start taking root, for which the angolan popular masses will have to start a new cycle of civil liberation struggles, taking the nation’s destiny in their own hands.
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Main bibliography consulted:
M.P.L.A., ‘História de Angola’;
João Paulo Guerra, ‘Memória das Guerras Coloniais’;
Norrie Macqueen, ‘The decolonization of Portuguese Africa : Metropolitan revolution and the dissolution of empire’;
George Wright, ‘The Destruction of a Nation: United States policy toward Angola since 1945’.