COERCION VERSUS CO-OPTATION: WESTERN RELATIONS WITH THfe MPLA AND FRELIMO FROM 1956 TO 1976 Gillian Rosalind Gunn Clissold A thesis submitted to the University of London in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The London School of Economics and Political Science 1 UMI Number: U166536 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U166536 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 S O F ^ POLITICAL i+l-S ABSTRACT This thesis analyses the development of Western relations with the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) from 1956 to 1976. It concludes that nationalist attitudes were influenced by eleven factors, of which only one--perception of Western policies--was consistently present in every time period. Even when a movement was becoming increasingly hostile to the West due to other factors, perception of a friendly Western attitude was capable of producing a positive nationalist response. Although seven factors shaped Western policies, in general governments reacted in accord with the impact of nationalist policies on interests deemed important. For cold war-focussed countries, a movement's policies were only examined to determine their influence on that international competition. Because both nationalist groups had ties with the socialist world, and because Portugal threatened to deny Western access to the Azores base if the West courted the nationalists, cold war-focussed states such as the United States avoided co-optation initiatives. Those states with wider ties to the area tended to evaluate the impact of the whole spectrum of nationalist policies on regional interests when determining strategies. Countries with broad ties to the region, such as Britain, were capable of overlooking a movement's socialist alliances and adopting co-optation policies if the group was deemed willing and able to further the Western state's interests in the region. The thesis also concludes that co-optation policies would have better protected Western interests than the coercion or neglect strategies so often selected and that such an approach would have produced stronger results in FRELIMO than in the MPLA. However, due to the interplay of other factors, even if subjected to consistently positive Western policies neither movement would have become a close Western ally. 2 Dedication To Freda Elizabeth Gunn and J. B. (Iain) Gunn who tried to teach me to be both empathetic and logical Special thanks are also due to the Rockefeller Foundation, which financed the fieldwork for this study; to Jose Mota, who taught me Portuguese; to the many individuals in southern Africa, Europe, and the United States who gave me interviews; to Helen Kitchen, who gave me the self-confidence and institutional support to start this work; to Cole Kitchen, who proofread it; to David Collis, Shawn Malone, Tiffany Mitchell and Jerome Lebleu, whose extra work gave me time for thesis writing; to Dr. Christopher Coker, who put up with my procrastination; to Janet Gunn, Donna Gray, and Cathi Dunn, who provided constructive nagging; and last but not least to my husband, George (Ric) Clissold II, whose love, support, and encouragement permitted me finally to finish. 3 CONTENTS MAPS ............................................................... 6 INTRODUCTION ....................................................... 8 PART I. EARLY NATIONALISM AND INITIAL WESTERN RESPONSE: 1956 TO 1963 ......................................................... 16 INTRODUCTION TO PART I .................................. 16 CHAPTER 1. MPLA: RADICAL ROOTS ......................... 18 CHAPTER 2. FRELIMO: EARLY CO-OPTABILITY ............... 41 CHAPTER 3. ABORTED U.S. CO-OPTATION... ................... 55 PART II. POSITIONS HARDEN: 1964 TO 1969 74 INTRODUCTION TO PART II ............................... 74 CHAPTER 4. MPLA: SUSPICION SHIFTS TO ENMITY .......... 76 CHAPTER 5. FRELIMO: "THESE COUNTRIES ARE NOT REALLY OUR FRIENDS" .................................... 91 CHAPTER 6. COURTING THE COLONISER ................... 114 PART III. MUTUAL ANTIPATHY GROWS: 1970 TO 1974 .................. 127 INTRODUCTION TO PART I I I .................................. 127 CHAPTER 7. MPLA OVERTURES FOLLOWED BY HOSTILITY .... 130 CHAPTER 8. FRELIMO SHIFTS FROM OPERATIONAL TO IDEOLOGICAL CRITICISM OF THE W E S T ................. 145 CHAPTER 9. U.S. COMPLACENCY ..............................165 CHAPTER 10. EUROPEAN AMBIVALENCE ......................... 183 PART IV. THE FINAL DAYS: 1974 TO 1975 198 INTRODUCTION TO PART IV .................................. 198 CHAPTER 11. ANGOLA: A CASE OF FAILED COERCION .......... 200 CHAPTER 12. MOZAMBIQUE: A CASE OF PARTIAL CO-OPTATION 228 CHAPTER 13. WASHINGTON'S CHOICE ....................... 256 CHAPTER 14. EUROPE'S SELECTIVE APPROACH ............. 275 CONCLUSION........................................................... 288 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................... 299 4 LIST OF MAPS Southern Africa....................................... 6 Angola and Mozambique................................. 7 5 MAPS LMke A lb ert AFRICA . UGANDA / KENYA J CONGO ( f ^ Lake Victoria M RWANDA BURUNDI Tanganyika (ANGOLA) \ ZAIRE TANZANIA Dar es Salaam Luanda Lake M weru Lobito ANGOLA Lake M a la w i/N y a s a Ndola MALAWI _ ^ Lilongwe ZAMBIA Nacala N a m ib e Cahora BassaDam | Lusaka » I \ / ^ Blantyre La*eKanba MOZAMBIQUE Harare ▲ V ZIMBABWE / Beira ; * : A Bulawayo ^ Francistown A * NAMIBIA BOTSWANA W indhoek i W alvis Bay J Lim po po Rive G a b o ro n e A Pretoria Luderitz Johannesburg Mbabane ‘ SWAZILAND Orange River ^Richards Bay M aseru / Durban \LESOTHO **. ATLANTIC • SOUTH AFRICA INDIAN OCEAN OCEAN East London C a p e Town __________ Port Elizabeth . 200 400 Source: Joseph Hanlon, Beggar Your Neighbours: Apartheid Power in Southern Africa (Bloomington, .Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1986), p. xii. 6 f Angola a n d Source: Europa Publications, Africa South of the Sahara 1980-81 (London: Europa Publications, 1980), p. 132. 7 INTRODUCTION This thesis analyses the development of Western relations with two movements that fought for their territories' independence from Portugal--the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (Movimento Popular de Libertaqao de Angola--MPLA) and the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frente de Libertaqao de Mozambique--FRELIMO). The time frame extends from the 1956 founding of the oldest movement up to and including the 1974 to 1975 independence processes and their immediate aftermaths. Within the Western community, U.S. policy is given particular attention and European policy is discussed in detail only in the second half of the period under consideration, when it became activist. The policies of southern Africa's minority-ruled states, South Africa and Rhodesia (now known as Zimbabwe), are analysed only when they became relevant to the interaction between the nationalists and Western governments, again primarily in the later period. This work focuses on the question of motivations. Why did Western governments sometimes seek to co-opt the nationalist movements and at other times try to coerce them? Why did the nationalists at times reach out to the West and appear willing to be co-opted, and at other times move to consolidate their relations with the Eastern bloc? Had the nationalists appeared more respectful of Western interests, would the West have been more supportive? Conversely, if the West had been more sympathetic towards the nationalists, would those groups have become more willing to be co-opted? DEFINITION OF TERMS This thesis uses some standard English-language terms in a specific way. It also employ? several invented terms that are not standard written English. For the purpose of this work, the terms coercion strategy, co-optation strategy, "co-optable", and "level of co- optability" are intended to convey the following meanings: • Coercion strategy; A strategy designed to use military or diplomatic means, or to help others do so, to force a political actor to adopt certain courses of action. • Co-optation strategy: A strategy designed to entice a political actor, directly or indirectly, into pursuing certain courses of action. 8 • "Co-optable": A term invented by the author to indicate that an entity is predisposed to be enticed by friendly gestures into pursuing policies favourable to Western interests. • "Level of co-optabilitv": Another term invented by the author to describe the level of predisposition of a political actor to be enticed by friendly gestures into pursuing policies favourable to Western interests. For the purposes of this paper, the terms derived from the root word "co-opt" should be viewed without the pejorative connotation of "manipulate". Furthermore, even though the latter two terms are invented, for ease of reading they will henceforth be used without the standard quotation marks. DEFINITION OF WESTERN INTERESTS In