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Angola Relations with Other African States
Angola was wary of attempts at African solidarity
during its
first years of independence, an attitude that gave way to
a more
activist role in southern Africa during the 1980s.
President Neto
rejected an offer of an OAU peacekeeping force in 1975,
suspecting
that OAU leaders would urge a negotiated settlement with
UNITA.
Neto also declined other efforts to find African solutions
to
Angola's instability and reduce the Soviet and Cuban role
in the
region. A decade later, Angola had become a leader among
front-line
states (the others were Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania,
Zambia, and
Zimbabwe) seeking Western pressure to end regional
destablization
by Pretoria. Luanda also coordinated efforts by the
Southern
African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) to
reduce the
front-line states' economic dependence on South Africa.
Angola's relations were generally good with other
African
states that accepted its Marxist policies and strained
with states
that harbored or supported rebel forces opposed to the
MPLA-PT. The
most consistent rhetorical support for the MPLA-PT came
from other
former Portuguese states in Africa (Cape Verde, São Tomé
and
Príncipe, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique).
Nigeria, which led the OAU in recognizing the MPLA-PT
regime in
1975, went on to seek a leadership role in the campaign
against
South Africa's domination of the region, but Nigeria never
forged
very close ties with Angola. Nigeria's own economic
difficulties of
the 1970s and 1980s, its close relations with the West,
and other
cultural and political differences prevented Luanda and
Lagos from
forming a strong alliance.
Zaire's relations with Angola were unstable during the
1970s
and 1980s. Zairian regular army units supported the FNLA
in the
years before and just after Angolan independence, and
Angola
harbored anti-Zairian rebels, who twice invaded Zaire's
Shaba
Province (formerly Katanga Province). But Zaire's
President Mobutu
Sese Seko and President Neto reached a rapprochement
before Neto's
death in 1979, and Zaire curtailed direct opposition to
the MPLAPT . Nonetheless, throughout most of the 1980s UNITA
operated freely
across Zaire's southwestern border, and Western support
for UNITA
was channeled through Zaire
(see National Security Environment
, ch.
5). Complicating relations between these two nations were
the
numerous ethnic groups whose homelands had been divided by
the
boundary between Zaire and Angola a century earlier. The
Bakongo,
Lunda, Chokwe, and many smaller groups maintained
long-standing
cultural, economic, and religious ties with relatives in
neighboring states. These ties often extended to support
for
antigovernment rebels.
Zambia, which had officially ousted UNITA bands from
its
western region in 1976, voiced strong support for the
MPLA-PT at
the same time that it turned a blind eye to financial and
logistical support for UNITA by Zambian citizens. Without
official
approval, but also without interference, UNITA forces
continued to
train in Zambia's western region. Lusaka's ambivalence
toward
Angola during the 1980s took into account the possibility
of an
eventual UNITA role in the government in Luanda. Both
Zambia and
Zaire had an interest in seeing an end to Angola's civil
war
because the flow of refugees from Angola had reached
several
hundred thousand by the mid-1980s. Peace would also enable
Zambia
and Zaire to upgrade the Benguela Railway as an
alternative to
South African transport systems.
Elsewhere in the region, relations with Angola varied.
Strained
relations arose at times with Congo, where both FNLA and
Cabindan
rebels had close cultural ties and some semi-official
encouragement. Senegal, Togo, Malawi, and Somalia were
among the
relatively conservative African states that provided
material
support to UNITA during the 1980s. Throughout most of the
decade,
UNITA also received financial assistance from several
North African
states, including Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt, and these
governments (along with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia) pressured
their
African trading partners and client states to limit their
support
of the MPLA-PT.
Data as of February 1989
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