Angola Strengthening Ties with the Soviet Union and Its Allies
The Nitista plot shook the Neto regime severely and was
a stark
reminder of the young government's vulnerability in the
face of
internal factionalism and South African destabilization
efforts. In
the aftermath of the failed coup attempt, the government
came to
the realization that its survival depended on continued
support
from the Soviet Union and its allies. Consequently, the
government's reliance on Soviet and Cuban military support
increased, as did its commitment to Marxist-Leninist
ideology.
A new phase of Angola's formal relationship with the
Soviet
Union had already begun in October 1976, when Neto signed
the
Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union
pledging
both signatories to mutual military cooperation. The
treaty was
significant in global terms in that it gave the Soviet
Union the
right to use Angolan airports and Luanda harbor for
military
purposes, enabling the Soviet Union to project its forces
throughout the South Atlantic region.
For the Soviet Union, its intervention in Angola was a
major
foreign policy coup. Soviet leaders correctly judged that
the
United States, because of its recent Vietnam experience,
would be
reluctant to intervene heavily in a distant, low-priority
area.
Conditions would thus be created in which the Soviet Union
could
exert its influence and gain a firm foothold in southern
Africa. In
addition, South African involvement in Angola convinced
most
members of the OAU that Soviet support for the Angolan
government
was a necessary counterweight to South African
destabilization
efforts. Furthermore, United States support for UNITA
during the
civil war had tainted the United States in the eyes of the
OAU and
many Western governments, which perceived a South
African-American
link.
Beginning in 1978, periodic South African incursions
into
southern Angola, coupled with UNITA's northward expansion
in the
east, forced the Angolan government to increase
expenditures on
Soviet military aid and to depend even more on military
personnel
from the Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic
(East
Germany), and Cuba.
The Angolan government's relationships with the Soviet
Union
and Cuba were linked in some ways but distinct in other
respects.
Clearly, the Soviets and Cubans were both attracted to the
Angolan
government's Marxist-Leninist orientation, and Cuba
generally
followed the Soviet Union's lead in the latter's quest for
international influence. Nonetheless, Cuba had its own
agenda in
Angola, where Cuban leader Fidel Castro believed that by
supporting
an ideologically compatible revolutionary movement he
could acquire
international status independent of the Soviet Union.
Although Soviet and Cuban interests in Angola usually
converged, there were also disagreements, mostly because
of the
factionalism within the MPLA-PT. On the one hand, the
Soviet Union
seemed to have favored Minister of Interior Alves's more
radical
viewpoints over those of Neto and probably supported the
Nitista
coup attempt in 1977. The Cubans, on the other hand,
played an
active military role in foiling the coup attempt and
increased
their troop presence in Angola shortly thereafter in
support of the
Neto regime.
Data as of February 1989
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