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Angola Communist Nations
The Soviet Union supported the MPLA-PT as a liberation
movement
before independence and formalized its relationship with
the MPLAPT government through the Treaty of Friendship and
Cooperation and
a series of military agreements beginning in 1975. Once it
became
clear that the MPLA-PT could, with Cuban support, remain
in power,
the Soviet Union provided economic and technical
assistance and
granted Angola most-favored-nation status
(see Foreign Trade and Assistance
, ch. 3).
The support of the Soviet Union and its allies included
diplomatic representations at the UN and in other
international
forums, military hardware and advisers, and more direct
military
support in the face of South African incursions into
Angola.
Civilian technical assistance extended to hydroelectric
projects,
bridge building and road building, agriculture, fisheries,
public
health, and a variety of educational projects. Technical
assistance
was often channeled through joint projects with a third
country--
for example, the Capanda hydroelectric project entailed
cooperation
between the Soviet Union and Brazil.
Soviet-Angolan relations were strained at times during
the
1980s, however, in part because Angola sought to upgrade
diplomatic
ties with the United States. Soviet leadership factions
were
divided over their nation's future role in Africa, and
some Soviet
negotiators objected to dos Santos's concessions to the
United
States on the issue of "linkage." The region's intractable
political problems, and the cost of maintaining Cuban
troop support
and equipping the MPLA-PT, weakened the Soviet commitment
to the
building of a Marxist-Leninist state in Angola.
Angolan leaders, in turn, complained about Soviet
neglect--low
levels of assistance, poor-quality personnel and matériel,
and
inadequate responses to complaints. Angola shared the cost
of the
Cuban military presence and sought to reduce these
expenses, in
part because many Angolan citizens felt the immediate
drain on
economic resources and rising tensions in areas occupied
by Cuban
troops. Moreover, dos Santos complained that the Soviet
Union dealt
with Angola opportunistically--purchasing Angolan coffee
at low
prices and reexporting it at a substantial profit,
overfishing in
Angolan waters, and driving up local food prices.
For the first decade after independence, trade with
communist
states was not significant, but in the late 1980s dos
Santos sought
expanded economic ties with the Soviet Union, China, and
Czechoslovakia and other nations of Eastern Europe as the
MPLA-PT
attempted to diversify its economic relations and reduce
its
dependence on the West. In October 1986, Angola signed a
cooperative agreement with the Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance (Comecon or CMEA), a consortium dedicated to
economic
cooperation among the Soviet Union and its allies.
As part of the Comecon agreement, Soviet support for
Angolan
educational and training programs was increased. In 1987
approximately 1,800 Angolan students attended institutions
of
higher education in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union
also
provided about 100 lecturers to Agostinho Neto University
in
Luanda, and a variety of Soviet-sponsored training
programs
operated in Angola, most with Cuban instructors.
Approximately
4,000 Angolans studied at the international school on
Cuba's
renowned Isle of Youth. More Angolan students were
scheduled to
attend the Union of Young Communists' School in Havana in
1989.
Czechoslovakia granted scholarships to forty-four Angolan
students
in 1987, and during that year Czechoslovakia and the
German
Democratic Republic (East Germany) also provided training
for about
150 Angolan industrial workers.
Cuba's presence in Angola was more complex than it
appeared to
outsiders who viewed the Soviet Union's Third World
clients as
little more than surrogates for their powerful patron. The
initiative in placing Cuban troops in Angola in the
mid-1970s was
taken by President Fidel Castro as part of his avowed
mission of
"Cuban internationalism." Facing widespread unemployment
at home,
young Cuban men were urged to serve in the military
overseas as
their patriotic duty, and veterans enjoyed great prestige
on their
return. Castro also raised the possibility of a Cuban
resettlement
scheme in southern Angola, and several hundred Cubans
received
Angolan citizenship during the 1980s. Cuban immigration
increased
sharply in 1988. In addition to military support, Cuba
provided
Angola with several thousand teachers, physicians, and
civilian
laborers for construction, agriculture, and industry.
Angolan
dependence on Cuban medical personnel was so complete that
during
the 1980s Spanish became known as the language of
medicine.
China's relations with Angola were complicated by
Beijing's
opposition to both Soviet and United States policies
toward Africa.
China supported the FNLA and UNITA after the MPLA seized
power in
Angola, and China provided military support to Zaire when
Zairian
troops clashed with Angolan forces along their common
border in the
late 1970s. China nonetheless took the initiative in
improving
relations with the MPLA-PT during the 1980s. The two
states
established diplomatic ties in 1983.
Data as of February 1989
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