UNITA WE STAND Angola's Continuing Strife Kenneth Good After Nicaragua, Angola has the government America most wants to see defeated. Why? And can it survive? ngola has pro-W estern Zaire It anherited from Portugal an 750,000 carats in 1985, and the and Zambia to its north-east education system so poor that only country now imports between 50-90 A and east, and Namibia and 15 percent of Angolans were literate percent of its food. South Africa to the south. It is a in 1975, and destroyed equipment This decline is the consequence potentially rich country which, since when the half million Portuguese of external and internal aggression. independence in 1975, has been expatriates fled. But this does not and the effort to oppose it absorbed purposefully prevented - chiefly by account for the losses suffered since 60-80 percent of government revenue the United States and South Africa then. Earlier, the world's fourth­ in 1986. The government of the - from achieving its potentialities. It largest coffee producer, it has seen its Popular Movement for the has oil, diamonds and iron, and vast production cut to Jess than one-tenth Liberation of Angola (M PLA) has resources of land capable of from 1973 to 1981. Similarly, while faced a situation of continous crisis producing both a range of export formerly the world's sixth-largest since its formation. Avowedly commodities and sufficient food for diamond producer, with an output of marxist since 1977, it is also its relatively small population of 6-7 2.4 million carats in 1974, it has moderate and non-doctrinaire. The million. experienced a drop in production to leadership of the first M PLA AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW 29 government, led by Agostinho Neto, American official then described the second half of 1975. the CIA was described by one authority as them.J But UNITA must be began encouraging South Africa to "skilled, educated, and dedicated",' compared with Roberto's group as interYene in Angola. in association and that of his successor, Eduardo well as with the MPLA. and what with Sa,·imbi and again with dos Santos, has stressed its desire for distinguished it strongly from the Mobutu and Kaunda. To the CIA. foreign investment and trade with the FNLA was the stress which Savimbi says Stockwell. "the South Africans West. The External Trade Minister, placed on organisation inside Angola were the ideal solution". The Gaspar Martins, recently referred to and actual engagement in armed American agency "traditionally the large and growing role of struggle. There is e\idence. howeYer. sympathised with South Africa and American and French corporations that Savimbi in the early 1970s was enjoyed its close liaison with BOSS". in the oil industry, and said: "We're prepared to collaborate with the the then main intelligence not dogmatic. We look at the systems Portuguese in military action against organisation in Pretoria: "co­ of the world and decide what is the MPLA and to discredit it ordination was effected at all CIA applicable to Angola." He noted. politically within the OA U. It was leYels and the South Africans too, that 80-85 percent of his Savimbi who subsequently sought a escalated their inYo!Yement in step country's trade was with Western more durable association with South with our own".~ countries. "This is where the market Africa. Washington's strateg~ in is, where we sell and where we buy. The United States has long Angola following the departure of We want technology from the West. supported Portuguese colonialism the Portuguese administration was There is no reason why this shouldn't and it had foreseen neither the to place Roberto's F:\LA in power in continue. ''2 President dos Santos had collapse of Portuguese militarism in Luanda. despite their palpable earlier declared that Angola was Africa nor the overthrow of fascism unfitness for national go,ernment prepared to live "in an atmosphere of and the known strength of the tolerance" with South Africa once UNITA was formed as 'little more M PLA in urban areas. The result Namibia was independent. The was the rout of the inexperienced MPLA government is, at the same than twelve guys with knives' FI'\LA and their Zairean allies. and time, relatively free from the the elimination of the FSLA as a mismanagement and corruption in Lisbon. When the United States 'iable fighting force by the beginning which has self-induced bankruptcy in began to increase its inter\"ention in of 1976. Washington's opposition to some other African countries. Angolan affairs. in January 1975. it the M PLA goYernment thereafter It is not the policies of the did so against the M PLA and by assumed two forms which are still MPLA, but the existence of expanding aid to Roberto. The maintained. SaYimbi ~as ad,·ised to fratricidal divisions within the initiative in Washington came from continue fighting. and the llnited nationalist movement which has Secretary of State Kissinger who was States embarked on a puniti\ e polic~ facilitated external aggression spurred on by a vision of world-wide of non-recognition of the MPLA against the country. Originating in confrontation with the Soviet Union. go,·ernment to undermine Angola's Zaire in the 1950s was what The United States. reports John economic relations with the \\'est subsequently became Holden Stockwell. then chief of the CIA's and hamstring reconstruction 10 the Roberto's Front for the National "Angola Task Force". "clearly ... country. Liberation of Angola (FNLA). wanted this war". It ignored the fact South African forces inYaded Roberto had close association with a that the Soviet Union had stopped Angola before the country's number of American organisations. supporting the MPLA in 1973 and independence. Pretoria would seem and it is said that United States had only resumed significant arms to han! been responding to the pressure encouraged the Organisat­ shipments in March 1975. It also opportunities presented to it by the ion of African Unity (OA U) to recog­ ignored possibilities other than diYided Angolan nationalist nise a Roberto-led government-in­ covert military and economic movement. but also to pressure from exile briefly in the 1960s. But interventiorr. It further ignored the other countries that it should act. Roberto preferred to remain in "life­ obvious negative features of the Stockwell reports that "it came into long exile" in Zaaire. and the FNLA FNLA in apparent preference for the conflict cautiously at first. was structurally incoherent, deeply Roberto's anti-communism. As watching the expanding US program racialist and tribalist little other Stockwell noted: "Most of what (the and timing their steps to the CIA 's".5 than a vehicle for the brutality of its CIA) knew about the FNLA came As it became clear that neither the leader. who also espoused a "visceral from Roberto. the chief recipient of FNLA nor liN ITA had the abilit\· to anticommunism". our largesse". and "we knew even less stop the MPLA. Zambia. Zaire ;lnd The third movement. the Union about Savimbi and UNIT A". the United States called for increased for the Total Independence of The United States. however. did South African interwntion in Angola (UNIT A). was formed by not act alone and. in.the initial stage. support of UNIT A. Like Kissinger. Jonas Savimbi in 1966 as a splinter the CIA obtained the co-operation of both Kaunda and Mobutu feared the group from the FNLA - little more Mobutu in Saire and Kaunda in establishment of a SO\ iet-supported than "twelve guys with knives". as an Zambia. Shortly al'ierwards. during gowrnment in An_gola. In mid- 30 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW October a South African armoured heavy weaponry, first using Cuban by CIA support bases in Zaire and column, totalling some 2,000 troops, ships and later Soviet aircraft. the South African military in the travelled northwards from Namibia, Cuba's dramatic intervention, says south. The government's dry season drawing UNITA and FNLA units in one authority, represented "a offensive in August-September 1985 its wake. It, too, was repulsed south decisive turning point" in the war, came close to Savimbi at his southern of Luanda, and the bulk of the force but it "followed upon substantial base of Mavinga, but the South was withdrawn in January 1976. intervention by others". The Cuban African military quickly flew in Kaunda was left to rail against the action, unlike that of America, was in reinforcements, and the attack was Soviet and Cuban assistance to the no sense covert, and it was repulsed. The Luanda government MPLA as a fearsome "tiger and its proclaimed by Fidel Castro as an would require additional heavy cubs", and to try to deny recognition expression of established state policy weaponry and would be obliged to to the MPLA government.6 By mid- and Cuba's African heritage. By escalate the fighting in order to 1976, however, Savimbi, with early 1976, about 12,000 Cuban annihilate UNITA today. continuing assistance from Pretoria, troops were present. These forces Washington's non-recognition had organised a renewed rural plus the heavy weaponry which the denies Angola Western economic insurgency against what he now USSR and Cuba supplied, helped the aid, and the bulk of the government's called "Soviet/ Cuban occupation". M PLA 's guerrilla-trained units to budget is financed by oil exports, South Africa carried out two shift successfully to conventional presently depleted by low world oil large-scale invasions of Angola direct confrontations with the South prices. With coffee and diamond under the Reagan presidency, in African military. production seriously curtailed, oil August 1981 and in December 1983.