DOCSLIB.ORG

American Covert Involvement in the Angolan Civil War, 1974-1975

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
American Covert Involvement in the Angolan Civil War, 1974-1975 Into the Storm: American Covert Involvement in the Angolan Civil War, 1974-1975 Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Butler, Shannon Rae Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 26/09/2021 07:14:59 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/195354 INTO THE STORM: AMERICAN COVERT INVOLVEMENT IN THE ANGOLAN CIVIL WAR, 1974-1975 by Shannon Rae Butler _____________________ Copyright © Shannon Rae Butler 2008 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2008 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Shannon R. Butler entitled Into the Storm: American Covert Involvement in the Angolan Civil War, 1974- 1975 and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Michael Schaller _______________________________________________________________________ Date: October 24, 2008 David Gibbs ___________________________________________________________________ Date: October 24, 2008 John P. Willerton ___________________________________________________________________ Date: October 24, 2008 Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. Michael Schaller ________________________________________________ Date: October 24, 2008 Dissertation Director 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. SIGNED: Shannon Rae Butler 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………..6 INTRODUCTION: EXPLAINING AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY DIFFERING PERSPECTIVES……………………………..8 CHAPTER 1: AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY, AFRICA, AND THE PORTUGUESE EMPIRE: THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA…………………………………………………. 41 CHAPTER 2: HENRY KISSINGER: GLOBAL ARCHITECT………………..121 CHAPTER 3: 1974: PORTUGAL IN CRISIS…………………………………..174 CHAPTER 4: THE COLONIAL QUESTION: SPINOLA VERSUS THE MFA…………………………………………………...214 CHAPTER 5: AMERICAN INTERVENTION IN ANGOLA: THE OFFICIAL MYTHOLOGY……………………………269 CHAPTER 6: AMERICAN INTERVENTION IN ANGOLA: WHY DID THE UNITED STATES BECOME INVOLVED?..................354 CHAPTER 7: AMERICAN INTERVENTION IN ANGOLA: WHO DID WHAT, AND WHEN?............................................457 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS - Continued CONCLUSION: EXPLAINING AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY WHAT DO WE NOW KNOW?.................................................530 REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………559 6 ABSTRACT Angola’s civil war in the mid-1970s has an important role to play in the ongoing debate within the diplomatic history community over how best to explain American foreign policy. As such, this dissertation uses the Angolan crisis as a case study to investigate and unravel the reasons for the American covert intervention on behalf of two pro-Western liberation movements: the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), led by Holden Roberto, and Jonas Savimbi’s National Union for the Total Independence of Angola. That Angola is a late 20 th century example of foreign intervention is not disputed. However, the more significant and difficult questions surrounding this Cold War episode, which are still debated and which directly relate to the purpose of this study, are first, “Why did the United States involve itself in Angola when it had previously ignored Portugal’s African colonies, preferring to side with its NATO partner and to maintain its distance from Angola’s national liberation movements?” Was it really, as the Ford Administration asserted, a case of the United States belatedly responding to Soviet expansionism and Kremlin-supported aggression by Agostinho Neto’s leftist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). Secondly, “Exactly when did the United States intervene, and was this intervention largely responsible for the ensuing escalation of violence and external involvement in Angola affairs?” In other words, as suggested by the House Select Committee on 7 Intelligence, was the Soviet Union’s intervention in response to the American decision to allocate $300,000 to Holden Roberto’s National Front in January 1975? If so, then contrary to the Ford Administration’s official account of the crisis, the United States – and not the Soviet Union – was the initial provocateur in the conflict that left the resource-rich West African nation in a ruinous, perpetual state of warfare into the early 21 st century. 8 INTRODUCTION EXPLAINING AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY: DIFFERING PERSPECTIVES “The Soviet Union’s massive and unprecedented intervention in the internal affairs of Africa…are a matter of urgent concern.” Secretary of State Henry Kissinger 1 “The Soviets did not make the first move in Angola. Other people did. The Chinese and the United States. The Soviets have been a half-step behind, countering our moves.” Anonymous CIA Official 2 “Subsequent to President Mobutu’s request last winter to Dr. Kissinger…the Forty Committee approved furnishing Roberto $300,000 for various political action activities.” The Pike Committee 3 This study will attempt to explain the American intervention in the Angolan crisis and civil war of the mid-1970s on behalf of two pro-Western liberation movements: the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), led by Holden Roberto, and Jonas 1 Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Involvement in Civil War in Angola: Hearing before the Subcommittee on African Affairs , 94 th Cong., 2 nd sess., January 29, 1976, 6. Hereafter referred to as Angola . 2 Former CIA agent John Stockwell identified the anonymous official as Brenda MacElhinney. She was the CIA desk officer for Angola when he returned to CIA headquarters in late July 1975 to become the head of the task force that oversaw the covert American involvement in Angola (code name IAFEATURE). “Brenda MacElhinney” is a pseudonym. John Stockwell, In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1978), 62. 3 “The CIA Report the President Doesn’t Want to Read,” The Village Voice , February 16, 1976, 85. In 1975, the House Select Committee on Intelligence, chaired by Representative Otis Pike (D-NY), conducted hearings on the American intelligence community, which ran parallel to the Church Committee hearings on the same subject in the Senate. The Ford Administration blocked public disclosure of the House committee’s findings. Newsman Daniel Schorr of CBS, however, managed to obtain a copy of the official report. It was subsequently published in The Village Voice . Holden Roberto of the FNLA had lived nearly his entire life in Zaire and had received most of his support from the Zairian president, Sese Seko Mobutu. He was also related, by marriage, to Mobutu. 9 Savimbi’s National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). 4 As David Gibbs has observed, foreign intervention – broadly defined as “the manipulation of internal politics of one country by another” – has been practiced since at least ancient Greece. In the Cold War era, however, it became more common and important. 5 This occurred because the possession of nuclear weapons, especially by the United States and Soviet Union, made direct confrontation between the two increasingly dangerous. As a consequence, the global adversarial competition between the two nations was often displaced to indirect confrontation in the Third World, usually either through the use of surrogates or through paramilitary, and often, covert operations. Angola is a late 20 th century example of foreign intervention. That simple fact is not disputed. However, the more significant and difficult questions of this Cold War episode, which are still debated and which directly relate to the purpose of this study, are first, 4 The United States supported both the FNLA and UNITA, viewing them either as pro-West, or at least as anti-Communist. By November 1975, this support amounted to at least $32 million dollars. The Soviet Union and Cuba were the primary supporters of Agostinho Neto’s Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) during the civil war phase of the Angolan crisis. Yugoslavia also gave significant assistance to the Popular Movement. China was a patron of the FNLA and to a lesser extent, UNITA, as were Zaire and the Republic of South Africa. During 1975-1976, Zambia primarily supported Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA, although it had provided limited support to all three liberation movements during their struggle against the
Load more

Recommended publications
  • SELF-DETERMINATION OUTSIDE the COLONIAL CONTEXT: the BIRTH of BANGLADESH in Retrospectt
    SELF-DETERMINATION OUTSIDE THE COLONIAL CONTEXT: THE BIRTH OF BANGLADESH IN RETROSPECTt By VedP. Nanda* I. INTRODUCTION In the aftermath of the Indo-Pakistan War in December 1971, the independent nation-state of Bangladesh was born.' Within the next four months, more than fifty countries had formally recognized the new nation.2 As India's military intervention was primarily responsible for the success of the secessionist movement in what was then known as East Pakistan, and for the creation of a new political entity on the inter- national scene,3 many serious questions stemming from this historic event remain unresolved for the international lawyer. For example: (1) What is the continuing validity of Article 2 (4) of the United Nations Charter?4 (2) What is the current status of the doctrine of humanita- rian intervention in international law?5 (3) What action could the United Nations have taken to avert the Bangladesh crisis?6 (4) What measures are necessary to prevent such tragic occurrences in the fu- ture?7 and (5) What relationship exists between the principle of self- "- This paper is an adapted version of a chapter that will appear in Y. ALEXANDER & R. FRIEDLANDER, SELF-DETERMINATION (1979). * Professor of Law and Director of the International Legal Studies Program, Univer- sity of Denver Law Center. 1. See generally BANGLADESH: CRISIS AND CONSEQUENCES (New Delhi: Deen Dayal Research Institute 1972); D. MANKEKAR, PAKISTAN CUT TO SIZE (1972); PAKISTAN POLITI- CAL SYSTEM IN CRISIS: EMERGENCE OF BANGLADESH (S. Varma & V. Narain eds. 1972). 2. Ebb Tide, THE ECONOMIST, April 8, 1972, at 47.
    [Show full text]
  • The Impact of the New Right on the Reagan Administration
    LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY OF LONDON THE IMPACT OF THE NEW RIGHT ON THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION: KIRKPATRICK & UNESCO AS. A TEST CASE BY Isaac Izy Kfir LONDON 1998 UMI Number: U148638 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 U148638 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 2 ABSTRACT The aim of this research is to investigate whether the Reagan administration was influenced by ‘New Right’ ideas. Foreign policy issues were chosen as test cases because the presidency has more power in this area which is why it could promote an aggressive stance toward the United Nations and encourage withdrawal from UNESCO with little impunity. Chapter 1 deals with American society after 1945. It shows how the ground was set for the rise of Reagan and the New Right as America moved from a strong affinity with New Deal liberalism to a new form of conservatism, which the New Right and Reagan epitomised. Chapter 2 analyses the New Right as a coalition of three distinctive groups: anti-liberals, New Christian Right, and neoconservatives.
    [Show full text]
  • SADF Military Operations
    SADF Military Operations 1975 -1989 Contents 1 List of operations of the South African Border War 1 2 Operation Savannah (Angola) 3 2.1 Background .............................................. 3 2.2 Military intervention .......................................... 4 2.2.1 Support for UNITA and FNLA ................................ 5 2.2.2 Ruacana-Calueque occupation ................................ 5 2.2.3 Task Force Zulu ........................................ 5 2.2.4 Cuban intervention ...................................... 6 2.2.5 South African reinforcements ................................. 6 2.2.6 End of South African advance ................................ 6 2.3 Major battles and incidents ...................................... 6 2.3.1 Battle of Quifangondo .................................... 7 2.3.2 Battle of Ebo ......................................... 7 2.3.3 “Bridge 14” .......................................... 7 2.3.4 Battle of Luso ......................................... 7 2.3.5 Battles involving Battlegroup Zulu in the west ........................ 8 2.3.6 Ambrizete incident ...................................... 8 2.4 Aftermath ............................................... 8 2.5 South African order of battle ..................................... 9 2.6 Association .............................................. 9 2.7 Further reading ............................................ 9 2.8 References ............................................... 9 3 Operation Bruilof 13 3.1 Background .............................................
    [Show full text]
  • H-Diplo Article Review Forum Commissioned for H-Diplo by Thomas Maddux Published on 16 May 2016
    H-Diplo Article Review 20 16 H-Diplo Article Review Editors: Thomas Maddux H-Diplo and Diane Labrosse H-Diplo Article Reviews Web and Production Editor: George Fujii No. 614 An H-Diplo Article Review Forum Commissioned for H-Diplo by Thomas Maddux Published on 16 May 2016 H-Diplo Forum on “Beyond and Between the Cold War Blocs,” Special Issue of The International History Review 37:5 (December 2015): 901-1013. Introduction by Janick Marina Schaufelbuehl, University of Lausanne; Sandra Bott University of Lausanne; Jussi Hanhimäki, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies; and Marco Wyss, University of Chichester Reviewed by: Anne Deighton, The University of Oxford Juergen Dinkel, Justus-Liebig-University Wen-Qing Ngoei, Northwestern University Johanna Rainio-Niemi, University of Helsinki, Finland URL: http://tiny.cc/AR614 Introduction1 by Janick Marina Schaufelbuehl, Sandra Bott, Jussi Hanhimäki, and Marco Wyss2 “Non-Alignment, the Third Force, or Fence-Sitting: Independent Pathways in the Cold War” n his recollection of recent events such as the Bandung Conference, the Soviet proposals for a unified and neutralised Germany, and the signing of the Austrian Treaty, veteran journalist Hanson W. Baldwin Iwrote in the New York Times in May 1955 that these ‘and half a dozen other developments in Europe and 1 H-Diplo would like to thanks Professor Andrew Williams, editor of IHR, and the four authors of this introduction, for granting us permission to publish this review. It original appeared as “Janick Marina Schaufelbuehl, Sandra Bott, Jussi Hanhimäki, and Marco Wyss, “Non-Alignment, the Third Force, or Fence-Sitting: Independent Pathways in the Cold War.” The International History Review 37:5 (December 2015): 901-911.
    [Show full text]
  • The Origins of the Angolan Civil War
    The Origins of the Angolan Civil War The Origins of the Angolan Civil War Foreign Intervention and Domestic Political Conflict Fernando Andresen Guimaraes First published in paperback in Great Britain 2001 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-349-26184-0 ISBN 978-0-333-97766-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-0-333-97766-8 First published in paperback in the United States of America 2001 by ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, LLC, Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 ISBN 978-0-312-17512-2 cloth ISBN 978-0-333-91480-9 paperback The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows: Guimaraes, Femando Andresen, 1965- The origins of the Angolan civil war: foreign intervention and domestic political conflict / Femando Andresen Guimaraes. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-312-17512-2 (cloth) I. Angola-History-Civil war, 1975- -Causes. 1. Title. DTl428.G85 1997 967.304-dc21 97-9652 CIP © Femando Andresen Guimaraes 1998. 200 I First edition 1998 Reprinted with new Preface 200 I All rights reserved. No reproduction. copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced. copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright. Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
    [Show full text]
  • Non-Alignment and the United States
    Robert B. Rakove. Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 315 pp. $31.99, paper, ISBN 978-1-107-44938-1. Reviewed by Simon Stevens Published on H-1960s (August, 2014) Commissioned by Zachary J. Lechner (Centenary College of Louisiana) The central historical problem that Robert B. of a policy of “engagement” of the “nonaligned Rakove sets out to solve in Kennedy, Johnson, and world.” The subsequent souring of relations was a the Nonaligned World is how to explain the re‐ consequence of the abandonment of that ap‐ markable transformation in the relationship be‐ proach under Lyndon Johnson. Central to tween the United States and much of the postcolo‐ Rakove’s argument is the distinction between nial world over the course of the 1960s. The assas‐ Kennedy’s approach to states in the Third World sination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 was met with that were “aligned” in the Cold War and those that genuine grief in many postcolonial states, reflect‐ were “non-aligned.” Common historiographic ing the positive and hopeful light in which the characterizations of Kennedy’s policy toward the United States under Kennedy had been widely Third World as aggressive and interventionist viewed. And yet by the second half of the decade, have failed to appreciate the significance of this the United States “had come to be seen not as an distinction, Rakove suggests. In the cases of states ally to Third World aspirations but as a malevo‐ that the U.S. government perceived to be already lent foe. Polarizing accusatory rhetoric unusual in aligned with the West, especially in Latin America the early 1960s became unremarkable by the and Southeast Asia, the Kennedy administration decade’s end, emerging as a lasting feature of was intolerant of changes that might endanger world politics, a recognizable precursor to con‐ that alignment, and pursued forceful interven‐ temporary denunciations of the United States” (p.
    [Show full text]
  • Angola Background Paper
    NATIONS UNIES UNITED NATIONS HAUT COMMISSARIAT HIGH COMMISSIONER POUR LES REFUGIES FOR REFUGEES BACKGROUND PAPER ON REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS FROM ANGOLA UNHCR CENTRE FOR DOCUMENTATION AND RESEARCH GENEVA, APRIL 1999 THIS INFORMATION PAPER WAS PREPARED IN THE COUNTRY INFORMATION UNIT OF UNHCR’S CENTRE FOR DOCUMENTATION AND RESEARCH ON THE BASIS OF PUBLICLY AVAILABLE INFORMATION, ANALYSIS AND COMMENT, IN COLLABORATION WITH THE UNHCR STATISTICAL UNIT. ALL SOURCES ARE CITED. THIS PAPER IS NOT, AND DOES NOT, PURPORT TO BE, FULLY EXHAUSTIVE WITH REGARD TO CONDITIONS IN THE COUNTRY SURVEYED, OR CONCLUSIVE AS TO THE MERITS OF ANY PARTICULAR CLAIM TO REFUGEE STATUS OR ASYLUM. PREFACE Angola has been an important source country of refugees and asylum-seekers over a number of years. This paper seeks to define the scope, destination, and causes of their flight. The first and second part of the paper contains information regarding the conditions in the country of origin, which are often invoked by asylum-seekers when submitting their claim for refugee status. The Country Information Unit of UNHCR's Centre for Documentation and Research (CDR) conducts its work on the basis of publicly available information, analysis and comment, with all sources cited. In the third part, the paper provides a statistical overview of refugees and asylum-seekers from Angola in the main European asylum countries, describing current trends in the number and origin of asylum requests as well as the results of their status determination. The data are derived from government statistics made available to UNHCR and are compiled by its Statistical Unit. Table of Contents 1.
    [Show full text]
  • The Portuguese Colonial War: Why the Military Overthrew Its Government
    The Portuguese Colonial War: Why the Military Overthrew its Government Samuel Gaspar Rodrigues Senior Honors History Thesis Professor Temma Kaplan April 20, 2012 Rodrigues 2 Table of Contents Introduction ..........................................................................................................................3 Before the War .....................................................................................................................9 The War .............................................................................................................................19 The April Captains .............................................................................................................33 Remembering the Past .......................................................................................................44 The Legacy of Colonial Portugal .......................................................................................53 Bibliography ......................................................................................................................60 Rodrigues 3 Introduction When the Portuguese people elected António Oliveira de Salazar to the office of Prime Minister in 1932, they believed they were electing the right man for the job. He appealed to the masses. He was a far-right conservative Christian, but he was less radical than the Portuguese Fascist Party of the time. His campaign speeches appeased the syndicalists as well as the wealthy landowners in Portugal. However, he never was
    [Show full text]
  • Nixon, Kissinger, Kerry and the Weathermen: How the American Peace Movement Impacted Foreign Policy During the Vietnam War, 1969-1973
    Nixon, Kissinger, Kerry and the Weathermen: How the American Peace Movement Impacted Foreign Policy During the Vietnam War, 1969-1973 The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Zysett, Alyssa J. 2019. Nixon, Kissinger, Kerry and the Weathermen: How the American Peace Movement Impacted Foreign Policy During the Vietnam War, 1969-1973. Master's thesis, Harvard Extension School. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:42004207 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Nixon, Kissinger, Kerry and the Weathermen: How the American Peace Movement Impacted Foreign Policy during the Vietnam War; 1969-1973 Alyssa Zysett A Thesis in the Field of History for the Degree of Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies Harvard University May 2019 Copyright 2019 Alyssa Zysett Abstract The American peace movement, broken after four years of unsuccessful campaigning against an unrelenting war in Vietnam, fought through Richard Nixon’s presidency, determined to put a permanent end to U.S. involvement in the region. Despite their impact of restricting the extremes that often surfaced in Nixon’s foreign policy, the president ultimately executed his political strategy in Vietnam to protect his 1972 election bid and ensure his administration’s legacy. This resulted in four more years of bloodshed and U.S. deaths in Indochina.
    [Show full text]
  • MILITANT LIBERALISM and ITS DISCONTENTS: on the DECOLONIAL ORIGINS of ENDLESS WAR a Dissertation Presented to the Faculty Of
    MILITANT LIBERALISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS: ON THE DECOLONIAL ORIGINS OF ENDLESS WAR A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Aaron B Gavin December 2017 © 2017 Aaron B Gavin MILITANT LIBERALISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS: ON THE DECOLONIAL ORIGINS OF ENDLESS WAR Aaron B Gavin, Ph. D. Cornell University 2017 MILITANT LIBERALISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS tells a story about the reinvention of liberalism during the era of decolonization. The dissertation shows how a persistent pattern of militant liberalism came to structure the postwar international order—one where the United States engages in militant action to protect the liberal international order from irredeemable illiberal threats, precisely when its hegemonic influence reaches its limit. While anti-totalitarianism and the war on terror are defining episodes in the development of this pattern, the dissertation argues that it was only liberalism’s encounter with decolonization that made the practice of militant liberalism ideologically coherent and enduring. After shattering the civilizational justifications of nineteenth century liberalism, decolonization provided militant liberals with a unique enemy, the Third World, upon which to distinguish and legitimate their own logic of violence, all while destroying alternative political possibilities arising out of the decolonial process. The dissertation explores these themes through four political thinkers—Isaiah Berlin, Louis Henkin, Frantz Fanon, and Carl Schmitt—and narrates a story about the legitimation of militant liberalism and the eventual rise of its discontents. On the one hand, Berlin and Henkin spoke of Thirdworldism as uniquely threatening: the former arguing that Thirdworldist nationalism often morphed into romantic self-assertion, and the latter claiming that Thirdworldists exploited state sovereignty allowing international terrorism to proliferate unbound.
    [Show full text]
  • Saved by the Civil War: African 'Loyalists' in the Portuguese Armed Forces and Angola's Transition to Independence
    Saved by the civil war: African ‘loyalists’ in the Portuguese armed forces and Angola’s transition to independence Pedro Aires Oliveira Instituto de História Contemporânea, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 1069-061 Lisboa [email protected] Abstract: The article examines the trajectories of ‘loyal’ African troops in Angola before and after the demise of Portugal’s authoritarian regime in 1974. It starts by placing the ‘Africanization’ drive of the Portuguese counterinsurgency campaign in a historical perspective; it then explores the rocky transition from colonial rule to independence in the territory between April 1974 and November 1975, describing the course of action taken by the Portuguese authorities vis-à-vis their former collaborators in the security forces. A concluding section draws a comparison between the fate of Portugal’s loyalists in Angola and the one experienced by similar groups in other ex-Portuguese colonies. The choice of Angola has the advantage of allowing us to look into a complex scenario in which the competition amongst rival nationalist groups, and a number of external factors, helped to produce a more ambiguous outcome for some of the empire’s local collaborators than what might have been otherwise expected. Keywords: Angola; colonial troops; Loyalists; counter-insurgency; Decolonization The dissolution of Portugal’s overseas empire in 1975 happened after a protracted counterinsurgency war which took place in three of its African territories (Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique), a 13 year conflict (1961- 74) that put an enormous strain on the limited demographic and economic resources of what was then Western Europe’s poorest and most undeveloped 1 state.
    [Show full text]
  • Christian Missions and the Emergence of Nationalism in Angola
    5/8/2017 Africa at LSE – Christian Missions and the Emergence of Nationalism in Angola Christian Missions and the Emergence of Nationalism in Angola LSE’s Iracema Dulley examines the links between Christian missions and the rise of liberation leaders in Africa. Read in Portuguese In sub­Saharan Africa, many of the leaders who took part in the anti­colonial liberation struggle and the administration of post­colonial African nations were educated in Christian missions. A concise list of such people would include actors such as Nelson Mandela, Kwame Nkrumah, Samuel Nujoma, and Eduardo Mondlane. In Angola, Agostinho Neto, Jonas Savimbi, and Holden Roberto were all educated in Christian missions. The relationship between mission education and political leadership is therefore not a random one. Although there are differences regarding the contexts in which such actors were brought up, looking at one particular instance of this phenomenon might help us shed light on how missionary action helped shape the dispositionof future post­colonial leaders. The focus of my forthcoming article is not, however, on the trajectory of the leaders; rather, it dwells on the period that preceded the engagement of one of them with the anti­colonial struggle. Daniel Chipenda, left, pictured on a trip to Lisbon in 1981, was part Angola’s struggle against colonialism By focusing on the biography of Jesse Chipenda (1903­1969), an important figure within the Congregationalist mission in Angola, one is able to reflect on the social, historical and political conditions that made possible the role his son, Daniel Chipenda, would play during the liberation war in Angola.
    [Show full text]