US intervention in Africa: Through Angolan eyes
The rebel movement UNITA, which is subverting the peace process in Angola,
is a product of US intervention in Africa during the Cold War. Tetteh
Hormeku retraces US policy towards Angola since 1945 and asks if there has
really been a change in US stance towards Africa.
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ON 23 July, the UN Security Council expressed concern that the former UNITA
rebels in Angola were trying to restore their military capabilities and
warned of possible sanctions. Two days earlier, US troops had started
landing to train soldiers in Uganda and Senegal, for what may ultimately
become Africa's continental rapid deployment peacekeeping force. Aimed at
promoting peace for economic development in Africa, the so-called African
Crisis Response Initiative is expected in the short-term to involve Ghana,
Tunisia, Ethiopia and Mali. The same week, American leaders arrived in
Harare for the African-American-African summit to discuss economic
development in Africa - more specifically American investment opportunities.
This is not the first time Africans are witnessing a unilateral American
policy towards Africa, combining military and economic concerns. In fact,
especially because it coincided with international concern about UNITA's
destructive potential, it is reminiscent of the US role in Angola, using
UNITA as a proxy.
As told with meticulous scholarship by George Wright in The Destruction of a
Nation: United States Policy Towards Angola since 1945 (Pluto Press), the
war against Angola was part of an American policy for Africa which began to
take shape as far back as 1945. The fundamental objective, then as now, was
to secure American leadership over a unified global economy. To achieve
this, America had to do two things: secure an 'open door for capital', and
destabilise and roll back 'those states that pursued development policies
which prevented US-led international capital from dominating their economy
and/or pursued a non-aligned foreign policy'.
Africa in the 40s: few threats
In shaping US policy in Africa in the 1940s, US policy-makers were
influenced by two immediate considerations. The first was the absence of any
tangible Soviet involvement in the continent at that time. The second was
their perception of the nationalist movements then as not having the
capacity to threaten the status quo. Africa was thus left to the
administration of the Western European allies, while the US maintained
vigilance over a number of colonies for strategic reasons and in order to
expand US trade with them. These included Belgian Congo, Egypt, Liberia,
Morocco, Ghana, Nigeria and apartheid South Africa which were seen as having
raw materials for expanded industrial and military expansion.
In relation to Angola, this policy meant giving Portugal free rein. This was
reinforced by Portugal's perceived importance to NATO, especially because of
its control over the Azores archipelago, a strategically important military
base for NATO. This became the strategy for subsequent administrations. Now
and then some US administrations tried to find within the overall policy
some 'neo-colonial' option for Angola. This was especially in the face of
increasing nationalist activity in Africa, motivated by the fear that doing
nothing would play into the hands of the Soviet Union and China.
Such was the case under President John F Kennedy, who put pressure more
openly on Portugal, and also began to directly build some contacts with
sections of the Angolan nationalist movement, including putting the FNLA's
Holden Roberto on the CIA payroll. Nevertheless, for him too, NATO and
Portugal strategic importance was overriding.
Nixon put an end to Kennedy's tactics. Aligning himself more firmly with
Portugal, he provided military assistance that Portugal used against the
Angolan nationalists. Side by side Nixon's support came expanded US capital
investment in Angola. Under military protection from Portugal, Gulf-Oil
expanded its operations from $150 million in 1969 to $300 million in 1975,
an operation which in turn generated for Portugal 40% of its foreign
earnings. Other major US oil companies, namely Union Carbide, Texaco, Mobil,
and Argo Petro, flocked into Angola, as did other non-oil companies like
Universal leaf and Tobacco, First National City Bank of New York, Firestone,
Chase Manhattan Bank, General Electric and IBM.
Boom for US businesses
US exports to Angola soared from $54 million in 1969 to $166 million in
1973, a 245% increase. Most of this trade was in commodities like
construction and mining, and heavy earth- moving equipment. In exchange,
Angolan exports to the US, of mainly robusta coffee, stood almost steady at
$37 million in 1968 and $38 million in 1973.
Nixon's assumption that Portugal would be able to militarily contain Angolan
nationalism and provide the conditions for US investment was unravelled with
the 1974 coup in Portugal. It set the stage for a more devastating US
involvement in Angola. The coup at first yielded an agreement for political
settlement in Angola, with elections to be contested by the main nationalist
movements, MPLA, FNLA, and UNITA. In order to guarantee that the outcome of
this settlement would not overturn the status quo ante, the US
administration decided to exclude the MPLA (allegedly because of its Soviet
support), and began to undermine the settlement. The US increased its arms
support to the FNLA, which with support from Chinese military advisers,
launched a military operation to conquer Angola for itself. In the ensuing
civil war, the US would coordinate and furnish a joint South African,
Zairois, FNLA and UNITA offensive against the MPLA. The latter was in turn
forced to rely more on support from the Soviet Union, who in the face of
American actions, abandoned their commitment to the political settlement.
The MPLA also asked for and got Cuban operational help. This, together with
US Congressional resistance to further direct US involvement in Angola,
helped MPLA win the war.
Unfortunately, however, the MPLA victory provided the basis for a different
kind of US military campaign against Angola. This was a campaign of
destabilisation to demoralise the Angolan population and destroy economic
infrastructure as a way of undermining the MPLA. Apartheid South Africa
initiated this process, afraid that an MPLA regime would help undermine its
own apartheid system. The US joined forces with them later. The chosen
instrument for both was Jonas Savimbi's UNITA.
President Jimmy Carter kicked this off. Contrary to campaign promises, and
to the wishes even of American business in Angola, he refused to recognise
the Angola government. Indeed he linked recognition to a regional
settlement. In addition, he got nations such as Morocco and China to provide
arms to UNITA, thus circumventing the Clarke amendment, the US law which
prohibited such aid. Above all, in his bid to get the law amended, he
unleashed a cold-war political climate together with processes which
directly supplemented South African activities in Angola. His successor,
President Ronald Reagan, pushed further and more abrasively on all fronts.
For Reagan, Angola was a prime target in the effort to roll back the
revolutionary nationalist regimes in the Third World - from Iran to
Nicaragua - which had begun to put US global dominance under strain. Reagan
established direct contact with South Africa, renewed US-South African
military contacts and defended South African intervention in Angola at such
fora as the UN Security Council. He also established immediate contact with
UNITA leadership, and expanded the network of states and organisations which
served as conduits for arms to UNITA, while he battled to change the US
Clarke amendment. South Africa, Morocco, Zaire, and Israel were mobilised to
give weapons and training to UNITA.
UNITA trained via Saudi Arabia
Starting in 1981, Saudi Arabia supplied Morocco with $50-70 million annually
to train UNITA personnel. The Clarke amendment fell during Reagan's second
term in office, thus clearing the way for direct covert aid to UNITA. The
scale of the resulting aid can be gleaned from the following: $15 million in
1986, $15 million in 1987, $30 million in 1988 and $50 million in 1989.
With US material support, and with joint military operations with South
Africa, Savimbi expanded operations and escalated the fighting over Angola.
Already by 1987 one million people, or 12% of the population, were
displaced. In addition, telecommunications facilities were blown up;
government health clinics were burned down; 10,000 classrooms were ravaged;
grain storage facilities and hydroelectric grids were destroyed;over 200
bridges were smashed.
Land mines were put in agricultural fields. Between 1980 and 1988, the
government lost about $30 billion in revenue; and the amount of physical
destruction stood at $22 billion.
As early as 1987, the fundamental impact of the war on Angola's independent
economic developmental strategy had surfaced. In that year, the government
introduced the Programme for Economic and Financial Restructuring. This
programme, with its budgetary cuts, privatisation and encouragement of
foreign capital, was patterned after the structural adjustment packages of
the Bretton Woods institutions. Angola also applied to join the IMF at the
demand of the international financial community in exchange for debt
rescheduling.
This economic unravelling of Angola, however, was not translated immediately
into military defeat. The Angola government, with the support of Cuban
fighters, held off and, at crucial moments, inflicted defeats on the
UNITA-South Africa war machine. The military stalemate, and its costs for
South Africa, and 'Gorbachev's perestroika', paved the way for a negotiated
political solution for Angola. While accepting this, US policy was geared
towards ensuring, if not outright victory for UNITA, then some power-sharing
with the Angolan government. To achieve this, the US continued to give
military support to UNITA, even as negotiations went on.
The Bush administration carried this dual approach to perfection. It opened
a liaison office in Luanda, and eased the way for IMF and World Bank loans
to Angola. At the same time, in 1992 Bush provided $30 million in covert
funding to Savimbi. Bush approached the 1992 political settlement under
which elections were held, assuming that the Angolan people would vote for
UNITA and against MPLA. When, as the elections approached, it realised that
UNITA may not win, the Bush administration started to promote a formula of
power-sharing, regardless of who won the elections. Meanwhile, the US
administration still held back recognition of the Angolan government and
permission to join the IMF and the World Bank as chips to secure compliance.
No more use for Savimbi
Savimbi refused to accept the results of the 1992 elections and went back to
violence. By rejecting his place in a national government, and embarking on
a war which he was not likely to win, Savimbi was exhausting his value as a
US lever in the Angolan settlement. Nevertheless, the US would continue to
protect UNITA against decisive action by the international community,
particularly at the UN Security Council. Under President Bill Clinton, the
US closed its eyes to UNITA excesses, while putting pressure on the latter
to become part of a political settlement.
Savimbi's continual recourse to violence to wreck political settlements is
testimony that, after years of indulgent grooming by the US, he has
developed the capacity to strike out for his own ambitions, even when the
strategic calculations of its patrons dictated otherwise. It is a capacity
that Savimbi has kept up till today, prompting the June UN Security Council
statement.
So as the US again strides into Africa with a new plan for the
'pacification' of the continent without waiting for mechanisms to ensure
African control of this plan; as once again this strategy goes hand in hand
with a push for US investment in Africa with corresponding reforms of
Africa's economies; as the US seeks to fit all this within its exercise of
leadership over the global economy - one is bound to ask one question. How
long before the imperatives of US global leadership and economic interests
in Africa transform its military initiative into many more UNITAs for
beating Africa's economies into line? (Third World Resurgence No.89, January
1998)
Tetteh Hormeku is a Programme Officer with Third World Network's Africa
Secretariat in Accra.
