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Angola Training
Regular and informal training was provided throughout
the
country at troop recruitment centers, officer candidate
schools,
specialized technical training centers, and field units.
The
military regional headquarters were responsible for
providing
individual training in basic military subjects to troops
and
noncommissioned officers. In 1985 the government cited as
major
accomplishments the establishment of formal training
programs for
military cadres, the creation of military education
centers
throughout the country (particularly at the intermediate
level for
officers and specialists), and the creation of various
specialized
branches of the armed forces. The Soviet Union and other
communist
countries provided most of the formal military training.
The United
States Department of State estimated that 3,260 Angolan
military
personnel had been trained in the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe
through the end of 1986 and that 1,700 Warsaw Pact
military
technicians were present in Angola that year. Most of the
technicians were engaged in maintaining and otherwise
servicing
military equipment furnished by the Soviet Union and other
communist states.
Individual officer candidate training was conducted at
the
Commandante Zhika Political-Military Academy in Luanda,
which
opened in 1984. Most of the instruction was originally
given by
Soviet and Cuban officers and specialists, but since then
qualified
Angolan instructors reportedly had joined the staff. As
the
academy's name suggested, the curriculum included training
in such
military subjects as strategy, tactics, and weapons, as
well as
political and ideological indoctrination. Another training
program
at the academy--a condensed version of the officer
candidate
political-military curriculum--was attended by senior
party
officials on weekends over a ten-month period.
Senior military officers participated in an eight-month
advanced course at the Escola de Oficiais Superiores Gomes
Spencer
at Huambo, but details on the curriculum were not
available. The
school's eighth class, which graduated in 1984, included
about
fifty senior FAPLA officers. Advanced officer training and
highlevel training for officers and enlisted personnel in
armor,
artillery, and other specialties was also conducted in
Huambo. The
Gomes Spencer academy was attacked and extensively damaged
by a
UNITA commando raid in July 1986.
Although information on unit-level training was not
available,
battalion-level exercises had been reported in the
northern and
western provinces, far removed from the war zone. It is
likely that
such large unit-training exercises immediately preceded
deployment
to the combat zone. Reserve units also trained, as
indicated by the
report of a reserve battalion having completed a
three-month course
that included physical conditioning, hand-to-hand combat,
and
infantry tactics.
In addition to basic individual and unit-level
training,
technical training was provided in such specialized
functional
areas as communications, intelligence, artillery, armor,
air
defense, motor transport, and logistics. This training was
provided
at facilities such as the Commandante Economica
Communications
School. FAPA/DAA inaugurated a two-year course for cadets
in 1979
at the National Air Force School in Negage. In early 1983,
176
cadets completed the nine-subject course, which was
administered by
Angolan instructors and "internationalists" (presumably
Soviet and
Cuban advisers). A course for radio technicians and radar
specialists was also offered at the Negage training
center.
Some military training was conducted abroad,
particularly in
the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and Cuba. In mid-1985
the
commander of the Fifth Military Region's FAPA/DAA reported
the
arrival in the region of many new pilots and technicians
who had
recently completed their training program in the Soviet
Union. From
1977 to 1981, Soviet specialists trained more than 3,000
motor
mechanics and drivers and 100 aircraft technicians in both
Angola
and the Soviet Union.
Data as of February 1989
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