<<Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the April 22, 1999
issue of Workers World newspaper>>
-------------------------
History of U.S. involvement
in Angola
The MPLA, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, which is the
party now running the government, had begun the armed struggle against
Portuguese colonial rule in 1961.
UNITA was founded in 1963 by Jonas Savimbi. By the early 1970s, UNITA had a
formal agreement with the Portuguese army for military cooperation in the
struggle against the MPLA. (See William Minter's book "Operation Timber:
Pages from the Savimbi Dossier" for detailed documentation.)
After the MPLA, with significant aid from revolutionary Cuba, defeated an
invasion by the apartheid South African army in 1975, the CIA took over the
care and construction of UNITA, while apartheid South Africa supplied the
military muscle.
The role of the CIA in Angola, until 1978, is detailed in John Stockwell's
book "In Search of Enemies." Stockwell was the CIA station chief in Angola
but turned against the agency.
The struggle continued with ups and downs until the Angolans, Namibians and
Cubans decisively defeated the South Africans at the battle of Cuito
Cuanavale in 1988. This defeat led to an agreement that involved the
withdrawal of Cubans from Angola in return for the independence of Namibia
and the end of South African invasions.
After Cuito Cuanavale, the U.S government stepped into the breach and began
pouring supplies into UNITA. The ensuing stalemate led to a peace
agreement, brokered by the UN, signed in Portugal in May of 1991. Both
sides agreed to disarm and to hold elections in 15 months.
The MPLA basically held to its side of the disarmament agreement and put
together a mass mobilization for the elections. UNITA violated the
agreement in a sustained and massive fashion, which the UN "peacekeepers"
and the U.S. media ignored. Nevertheless, the MPLA won the elections in
1992 and the UN declared them "free and fair."
MPLA rearmed the masses
What UNITA lost in the elections it tried to win in a coup against the
government, which had disarmed and disbanded a good part of its army. The
fighting was very sharp and the MPLA would have lost except that it started
arming the masses.
Militants and cadres who had been driven out of the MPLA as it moved to the
right after the fall of the Soviet Union came rushing back, picked up
weapons and drove UNITA out of Luanda, the capital. (See Victoria
Brittain, "Death of dignity: Angola's civil war.")
During this period, the UN, following the lead of the U.S., called
for "reconciliation" between the two parties rather than condemning the
aggressor UNITA.
After two years of grinding warfare, in which as many as 1,000 Angolans
died a day, the Angolan army was poised to smash UNITA and drive it out of
the country. Under tremendous pressure from Washington--which wanted to
avoid losing its agent in Angola--the Angolan army pulled back. The
government then signed the Lusaka agreement giving UNITA four ministries
and a share of the army.
UNITA used this de facto partition of Angola and its control of the diamond
mines to finance itself by shipping $1 million worth of diamonds a day
through Zaire. Then it could buy its own weapons. It still relies on the
U.S. for vital political support.
Mobutu's fall in Zaire removed UNITA's rear bases and financial pipeline.
So it went back to war four months ago with hardly a peep from Clinton and
company about a "vast human catastrophe."
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source
is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY
10011; via e-mail: [log in to unmask] For subscription info send message to:
[log in to unmask] Web: http://www.workers.org)
<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>
To view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>
|
