Foreign Policy In Focus - Self-Determination - Regional Conflict Profile

Self-Determination Conflict Profile

Angola

By Thomas Turner

History

Angola's ethnic conflicts are products of a double colonization. The arrival of the Portuguese in the 15th century inaugurated four centuries of informal colonialism, during which Angola exported slaves to Brazil. In the hinterland, Africans sold slaves to traders acting as intermediaries for Luanda's Creole merchants (generally Portuguese-speaking, mixed race, Catholic).

With formal colonization, beginning late in the 19th century, the Creoles became mere adjuncts to the new Portuguese colonial masters. Africans of the hinterland, compelled to work by colonial laws, could produce cash crops or hire themselves out as laborers in Portuguese agricultural or commercial concerns, of which the most successful were the coffee plantations in the Kongo area.

Those Kongo who did not work on the plantations migrated to the Belgian Congo while some became successful business owners. The Ovimbundu had to seek employment on the coffee plantations, since their agricultural economy of the central highlands was too weak to sustain their large population.

By the 1950s, there were two deeply frustrated, opposed social groups: the weakened Creole elites and the black Africans of the interior, poor and uneducated. The Mbundu living east of Luanda were a partial exception in that they were accustomed to interaction with the Creoles.

The Angolan nationalist movement was divided from the start. The FNLA of Holden Roberto and MPLA of Agostinho Neto represented two long-separate sets of interests: the Kongo elites of the North vs. the Luanda Creoles and their Mbundu allies. The FNLA considered the MPLA Creole leadership as "non-African" even if several MPLA leaders were black Africans.

The FNLA and the MPLA were backed by the two opposing superpowers. According to Chabal, "The MPLA was from its inception strongly Marxist (with Communist roots) and the FNLA equally vigorously anti-Marxist." For Blum, however, "although MPLA may have been somewhat more genuine in its leftist convictions than FNLA or UNITA, there was little to distinguish any of the three groups from each other ideologically."

Another divisive factor was leadership. After the failure of a merger attempt in 1962, there was little chance that either Neto or Roberto would ever work with the other. The defection of Jonas Savimbi (one of the few Ovimbundu intellectuals of the time) from FNLA and his creation of UNITA added to the mix a third leader with little taste for political compromise.

The three major Angolan movements--and the Cabinda liberation front, founded in 1963--fought the Portuguese and each other until 1974. In that year, however, the combined weight of the colonial wars in Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique led to a military coup in Portugal. Shortly thereafter, in 1975, Portugal ended its colonial relationship with Angola.

Despite reconciliation efforts by African states, the nationalist movements refused to share power in governing newly independent Angola. The ensuing civil war was won by MPLA, thanks to more effective and more timely backing from its allies, Cuba and the USSR. The FNLA then abandoned armed struggle, but UNITA retreated to southeastern Angola, where it reorganized its armed forces, with American and South African help.

The MPLA organized a Stalinist regime, complete with forced collectivization of agriculture. However, it is difficult to separate the effects of this disastrous policy from those of UNITA's attacks that were directly supported by South Africa. Eventually, the U.S. brokered a settlement, under which Cuba withdrew from Angola in exchange for South Africa granting independence to Namibia and ceasing aid to UNITA.

In mid-1990 the MPLA decided to abandon Marxism-Leninism and the one-party state. Negotiations with UNITA proceeded rapidly, and agreement was reached in May 1991 on a ceasefire and a new constitution guaranteeing human and political rights.

Legislative and presidential elections were held in 1992 under the supervision of the United Nations, which certified them as free and fair. In legislative voting, held under proportional representation, the MPLA won 54% of the vote for 129 of 220 seats. Dos Santos of the MPLA received 49.6%of the presidential vote, as against Savimbi's 40.1%. Because neither received 50%, a second round was to be scheduled. However, UNITA rejected the count, and fighting resumed.

Since 1993 the war has raged off and on, despite an international environment more favorable to the MPLA government than had been the case earlier. In 1993, the Clinton administration recognized the Angola government. That same year, the UN Security Council imposed an arms and fuel embargo on UNITA.

In 1994 the UN brokered a peace agreement between the rebels and the government (Lusaka Protocol), and in February 1995 the Security Council decided to send 7,000 "blue helmets" (UN troops) to verify the ceasefire. Fighting, however, resumed the following month.

A national unity government was installed in 1997, but serious fighting resumed again in late 1998. The fighting occurred not only on Angolan soil but also in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, from which Angola did not withdraw until the beginning of 2002.

Main Actors

Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA): The former single party holds the majority of seats in the legislature, on the basis of the elections of 1992. President Jose Eduardo dos Santos of the MPLA is both head of state and head of government. He has declared his intention not to seek an additional term as president; however, elections cannot be held, given the continuing civil war.

National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA): Jonas Savimbi, founder of this anti-MPLA movement, was killed by government forces in late February 2002. A minority faction, UNITA Renovada, cooperates with the MPLA.

Angolan National Liberation Front (FNLA): FNLA has also divided. Founder president Holden Roberto heads one faction; Lucas Benghy Ngonda another.

Front for Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC): FLEC has splintered into several rival factions, including one headed by N'Zita Henriques Tiago and another headed by António Luis Lopes.

Ethnic Breakdown

Ovimbundu: 37%
Mbundu: 25% (also known as Kimbundu)
Kongo: 13%
Mestizo: 2% (mixed European-African)
European: 1%
Other: 20% (including Chokwe, Luena, and Ovambo)

Cabinda's population of perhaps half a million belongs to the Kongo cultural zone. More than half of the Cabindans live in neighboring countries.

Proposed Solution and Evaluation of Prospects

The death of Jonas Savimbi may help to bring an end to Angola's murderous civil war. At the same time, it may make much-needed government reform more difficult, by lessening the pressure on the MPLA government to change.

Over the years since Jose Eduardo dos Santos succeeded Neto as president of Angola and head of the MPLA, the ideological content of the movement has faded. Its rivalry with UNITA became a power struggle between incumbency based on oil wealth and insurgency based on diamonds. Meanwhile, millions of Angolans have been forced to flee their homes. Many are starving.

For years Angola faced a choice between "a murderer and a thief," as one Angolan complained to a foreign journalist. The "murderer" has been eliminated, but the other problem remains intact. Under dos Santos, a vast amount of oil revenue disappears without a trace, money that could go a long way to easing the problems of Angola's poverty-stricken majority.

The international embargo on blood diamonds may have contributed to weakening UNITA. Certainly it should be left in place for the time being.

The "Peace Accords for Angola," signed in Lisbon in 1991, and the "Lusaka Protocol" of 1994 provide the basis for a settlement of Angola's war, although the government subsequently modified the Lusaka agreement to provide for cooperation with the minority faction UNITA Renovada. International pressure should be applied to encourage a reunification of UNITA, so that guerrilla fighters who lay down their arms will be included. UNITA and other opposition forces will have an important role to play, in pushing the authorities to respect their commitments to free and fair elections and especially to greater transparency in public finance.

Recently churches, civic organizations, and traditional chiefs have demanded that all groups within society, and not just the government and the guerrillas, be allowed to have a say in the country's future. These civil society groups should be included as part of negotiations beyond the discussion of a ceasefire to the broader issues of a political settlement.

Once peace has been restored and a political settlement has been reached at the national level, Angola will need to decentralize political power. There will need to be a more equitable distribution of the proceeds of Angola's mineral wealth. In particular, Cabinda and other coastal regions of the oil-producing northwest need to profit from oil exports.

Likewise, the regions of the northeast must receive a fair share of the proceeds from the sale of their diamonds. At the same time, less fortunate regions must also share in this national wealth. Despite Savimbi's megalomania and the over-representation of his Ovimbundu people among UNITA leaders, his movement did express a call for the inclusion of the poor and disinherited of the interior in the benefits of independence. That call should not be forgotten.

Role of United States

The United States has an obligation to help resolve Angola's current crisis, since it played a major role in creating the crisis conditions. Under Reagan, the U.S. backed UNITA guerrillas, in alliance with the apartheid regime in South Africa. Following the U.S.-brokered withdrawal of Cuban forces from Angola, the U.S. apparently encouraged Savimbi to agree to elections in the belief that he could win. Since the first round of elections in 1992, won by the MPLA, the U.S. has cooperated with the latter.

The U.S. responded to the news of the death of Savimbi by calling for an end to the war. That is a proper and useful response, as far as it goes. The U.S. has been supporting the application of the Lusaka Protocol and the embargo on UNITA "blood diamonds" and should continue to do so. However, an end to the fighting is only the first step toward bringing relief to a country on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe. "Nation building" will be required, however allergic the Bush administration may be to that concept.

(Thomas Turner <tomedwin@excite.com> is professor of Political Science at the National University of Rwanda and professor of International Relations at the Higher Institute of Human Sciences of Tunis, in Tunisia. He is the author of Ethnogenèse et nationalisme en Afrique centrale: les racines de Lumumba (Paris, 2000).)

Sources for More Information

Cilliers, Jakkie and Christian Dietrich, eds., Angola's War Economy: The Role of Oil and Diamonds. (Pretoria, Institute for Security Studies, 2000.)

Hodges, Tony. Angola from Afro-Stalinism to Petro-Diamond Capitalism. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001.)

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