Angola The Final Days of the Neto Regime
By the late 1970s, Angolan head of state Agostinho Neto
had
reached a better understanding of the motivations behind
the 1977
Nitista coup attempt. Accordingly, he sought a more
pragmatic
approach to balancing the diverse personalities and
schools of
thought within the government and party. In December 1978,
Neto
began a series of government and party reorganizations
designed to
increase the powers of the president, purge both ruling
structures
of incompetent and corrupt officials, and balance ethnic,
racial,
and ideological elements. By abolishing the offices of
prime
minister and deputy prime minister, Neto was able to deal
directly
with his ministers rather than through intermediaries. The
reorganization also resulted in the dismissal or
reassignment of a
large number of senior party officials. Neto effected the
most
dramatic change in the MPLA-PT Political Bureau, which had
been
dominated by mestiços and Mbundu. He reorganized
the
Political Bureau by appointing officials, including three
Bakongo
and two Cabindan members, who gave it a broader ethnic
representation
(see Structure of Government
, ch. 4). These
reorganizations were accompanied by a partial amnesty that
included
the release from prison and return from exile of members
of the
Active Revolt, many of whom Neto reintegrated into the
party.
Furthermore, Neto welcomed back to Angola a number of FNLA
members
and, according to some sources, even made friendly
overtures to
Chipenda. By 1979 Neto had largely succeeded in molding
the MPLA-PT
into a cohesive organization of carefully selected cadres.
Neto also pursued a foreign policy designed to weaken
external
support for UNITA (and what was left of the FNLA and FLEC)
and to
secure friendly relations with as many states as possible
for both
security and economic reasons. Included in this last goal
was a
July 1979 foreign investment law that provided more
attractive
benefits for foreign investors and that Neto designed
primarily to
encourage further Western investment in oil exploration.
Data as of February 1989
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