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Angola Antigovernment Opposition
The history of the MPLA party and government is ridden
with
factional strife based on ideological, political, ethnic,
and
personal rivalries. In the early 1970s, Daniel Chipenda, a
member
of the MPLA Central Committee, was thought to have
instigated two
assassination attempts against President Neto and was
expelled from
the party in December 1974. As leader of the so-called
Eastern
Revolt faction, he joined the rival FNLA, based in
Kinshasa, Zaire,
as assistant secretary general. Former MPLA president
Mário de
Andrade also opposed Neto's leadership and attempted to
rally
support for his so-called Active Revolt faction in 1974.
In May
1977, Nito Alves, former commander of the first military
division
and minister of interior, spearheaded an abortive coup
with the
support of an extremist faction. Many MPLA officials were
killed,
including seven Central Committee members
(see Independence and the Rise of the MPLA Government
, ch. 1). And in early 1988,
seven
military intelligence officers were reported to have been
sentenced
to imprisonment for fifteen to twenty years and expelled
from FAPLA
for plotting a coup against President dos Santos.
Other sources of dissent included several small
clandestine
groups, which, to avoid infiltration, remained anonymous
and
restricted recruitment mainly to Angolan expatriates and
exiles.
They reportedly represented a variety of ideological
inclinations,
were disaffected by the continuing civil war, economic
chaos, and
political intolerance, and advocated development and a
pluralistic
political system. In 1987 about two dozen members of one
such
group, the Independent Democrats, were imprisoned and
their leader
sentenced to death. These events cast doubt on the group's
continued ability to survive.
Religious sects were another source of antigovernment
agitation. The Roman Catholic Church was often at odds
with the
MPLA-PT government but did not openly challenge it. More
problematic was the government's clashes with such
independent
sects as the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Our Lord Jesus
Christ
Church in the World (Kimbanguist), whose members were
popularly
called Mtokoists, after the sect's founder, Simon Mtoko
(also
spelled Simão Toco). After Mtoko's death in 1984, elements
of the
Mtokoist sect engaged in alleged "antipatriotic
activities" that
were supposedly responsible for riots that occurred in at
least
three cities. Angolan security forces were believed to
have
sponsored rebellious factions within the leadership.
During 1986
and 1987, more than 100 Mtokoists were killed in riots and
demonstrations, and the sect was banned for one year.
Jehovah's
Witnesses were banned from practicing their religion for
their
refusal to perform military service
(see Interest Groups
, ch. 4).
Data as of February 1989
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