"Avit6ria E Certa :The Story of Angola"
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"AVIT6RIA E CERTA : THE STORY OF ANGOLA" COLOR SLIDE-•TAPE OR FILMSTRIP TAPE PRESENTATION DIRECTIONS On the left-hand side of the pages which follow is the transcript of the text spoken on the audio tape. In the right-hand column is a brief label of the content of each picture frame. The person operating the slide or filmstrip machine must have the text in front of him/her and be following it so as to know when to change frames . THE WORDS IN BOLD IN THE TEXT WITH NUMBERS IN BRACKETS FOLLOWING THEM INDICATE TO MOVE TO THE NEXT FRAME— EVERY TIME YOU SEE A BOLD-LETTERED WORD WITH A NUMBER NEXT TO IT, GO TO THE NEXT FRAME. It is important to practice co-ordinating the pictures with the tape before showing the filmstrip to an audience. 1 A VITORIA E CERTA : THE STORY OF ANGOLA (slide 1) Narrative Slide Number "We must return [21 to our lands red with coffee 2. Min . of Health/people white [3] with cotton green with maize fields we must return. [4] 3. Woman and cotton To our mines of diamonds, gold, copper, oil 4. Open pit mining we must return . [51 We must return 5. Children to liberated Angola independent Angola." 6. Neto in poncho Thus wrote Agostinho Neto, leader [6] of the liberation movement, MPLA, when he was incarcerated in a Portuguese prison in 1960 . 15 years later—on November 11, 1975—his poem was fulfilled . His land proclaimed [7] its independence, 7. PRA flag becoming the People's Republic of Angola—with Dr . Neto as President. The process of independence in Angola brought the world's most powerful [8] 8. Soldiers profiled political and military forces to the brink of another global war. Nevertheless, despite devastating losses in lives, [9] crops, property and institu- 9. Man/tree stumps tions the people of Angola were victorious—winning the right to determine [10] their own destiny as a nation. 10. Min . of Health/people Why did the birth of Angola cause such a furor in the United States and among its allies? Why did the U .S . funnel millions of dollars through Zaire to prevent the independence of Angola? Why [11] were mercenaries recruited in the U .S. and 11. S .A. troops Europe to fight against Angolan liberation? Why did the most hated enemy of Africa South Africa—invade Angola in a desperate effort to halt independence? Why is the U .S . so afraid of a free [ 12] Angola, and of Cuban aid in defending that 12. Neto and Fidel right to freedom? And why is Angola so important today? [13] The answers to some of these questions lie in the long history of Angola, its 13. Map of Angola tremendous natural wealth and its strategic location. The Angolan struggle began 500 years ago in the late 15th century with the arrival 14. Portuguese man with of the Portuguese . Through military conquest and mass emigration of Portuguese guns and workers settlers, Portugal established [14] its domination of the area by the 19th century. For 300 years Portugal 's primary interest in Angola was the wealth it gained [15] from the slave trade. 15. Slave line But from the beginning, the societies and kingdoms [16] of Angola resisted Portuguese intrusion and domination of their land . By the middle of the 20th 16. Drawing of Resistance century resistance culminated in the war of national liberation, from 1961-1974, led by the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola-MPLA . [17] 17. MPLA soldiers To understand the reasons for the war over Angola and U .S . involvement we must look at Angola's human and natural [18] resources . In oil, diamonds, iron, manganese, coffee and cotton, Angola produced a GNP of $1 .5 billion in 1973. 18. Diamonds Gulf [19] Oil Corporation represents a prime example of U .S . interests in Angola. Since 1968 it has pumped more than 100,000 barrels of oil a day out of Angola's 19. Gulf cartoon Cabinda enclave . While the oil brought in more than $500 million a year to Gulf, the company was able to pay enough royalties and taxes to finance half of the Portuguese colonial war budget in Angola. Other [20] U .S . corporations, Texaco, Diversa in diamonds and Bethlehem Steel 20 . Ads collage also testify to the depth of U .S . interests in Angola . 2 U.S [211 companies also bought up to 50 per cent of Angola 's most important agricultural export—coffee. 21. Maxwell ad Another key Angolan resource is potential hydro-electric [22] power, symbolized by the massive South African-Portuguese dam scheme on the Cunene River, which 22. Cunene dam will supply power to southern Angola and northern Namibia, but is now illegally occupied by South Africa. 23. Mines None [23] of this economic activity—in the mines, the fields, the fisheries or the dam sites, was aimed at the economic development of the Angolan people. (PAUSE) Such exploitation would never have been possible without the forced labor of millions of Angolans . Said former Portuguese Prime Minister, Marcelo Caetano: "The natives .[24] of Africa must be seen as productive elements organized . in an economy directed by whites. " 24. Workers bent over Thus the Portuguese adapted the slave system into one of forced labor for the plantations, mines and factories . Through a system of control over traditional 25. Children on plantation chiefs, people were forced [25] to work for the Portuguese or made to grow cash crops for export, which meant less food and more starvation. 26. Solitary worker Wrote an African poet: [26] "I put on my clean shirt and go and work my contract to work far away. Which of us will come back? Which of us will die? " In order to control the people, each [27] African was forced to carry an I .D. card. 27. I .D. card If you didn't have it—more forced labor or jail. (PAUSE) 28. Map/Sn . Africa Angola was also desirable to the west because of its critical [28] position in Southern Africa, an area which includes Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa . [29] 29. Resource map Today Southern Africa is the primary world producer of gold, diamonds, chrome, cobalt, manganese and platinum . Containing rich oil deposits, agricultural lands, fisheries and ports, and vast hydro-electric potential, it is vital to the fueling of capitalist economies. Finally Southern Africa rests [30] along the important sea lanes between the 30. Indian Ocean map Indian Ocean and the south Atlantic. It is an area of vital strategic importance to the military and commercial control of the U .S ., South Africa, and other allies . [31] 31 . Soldiers marching How then did the Angolan people launch their independence struggle which ultimately succeeded in overthrowing the Portuguese regime? Their long history of resistance continued into the 20th century taking on new [32] forms—cultural and 32. Mural from Luanda militant. To keep the Angolans under control, the Portuguese divided them by a system of assimilation whereby a minute percentage of Africans were -allowed to become part of so-called Portuguese civilization . Ironically, it was from among some of these assimilados that there developed a modern African national consciousness. Meanwhile, [33] contract labor and low wages, and slums growing up outside the 33. Cotton workers cities breeding unrest forged a new and clear political consciousness among the African population as a whole, and the stage was set. The Portuguese regime could provide no reformist outlets such as constitutional independence which occurred in other parts of colonized Africa . This [34] was 34 . Portugal/poverty because Portugal itself was too poor and underdeveloped, a neo-colony of Britain, and heavily dependent upon its African colonies . With little economic base, .Portu- gal simply could not decolonize without losing total control over its colonies . 3 Modern [35] nationalism dominated Africa in the decade after World War I I so that in December, 1956, a number of Angolans from various nationalist groups in 35. Nkrumah, AAPC Luanda formed [36] the MPLA whose objective was to defeat Portuguese colonialism and develop a nation designed to meet the needs of the Angolan people. 36. MPLA logo By 1959 the atmosphere in Luanda was explosive . Portugal and its secret police had met emerging nationalism with intense [37] political repression and arrests. Executions were not uncommon in the jails and in the streets. 37. Man behind bars At the same time the white [38] population had almost quadrupled in 10 years growing to 200,000, while the African population numbered around 5 million. 38 ." Settlers arriving In June, [39] 1960, Agostinho Neto, one of MPLA's founders, a medical doctor and poet, was arrested . After being tortured he was removed to the Cape Verde 39. Neto Islands. Response was immediate . [401 More than 1,000 people from Neto's village 40. Port ./crowd marched 60 miles to the government headquarters to demand his release . Their peaceful demonstration was met with machine gun fire killing more than 30 people and wounding nearly 200 . The following [411 day, Potuguese troops burned these 41. Burning hut people's villages and killed anyone left. These nationalist uprisings were paralleled in the countryside . A recession in coffee and cotton prices caused an economic depression . Farmers began burning their seeds and destroying tools in protest to low prices . In [42] response, Portuguese 42 . Strafing villages planes firebombed and strafed African villages—again killing thousands. Finally, on February 4, 1961, the level of rebellion reached such a pitch that a large number of Angolans from Luanda's sand .slums, organized by the MPLA, attacked the city's main prison demanding the release of hundreds of political prisoners.