Angola THE DOS SANTOS REGIME
When Neto died in September 1979 in a Moscow hospital,
he was
still in the process of consolidating his power and
reconciling
with former opponents. To his credit, the internal party
cohesion
that he fostered allowed a smooth transfer of power to
José Eduardo
dos Santos, a Soviet-educated Mbundu who had served as
first deputy
prime minister and then as minister of planning following
the
December 1978 reorganization.
Despite his student years in the Soviet Union, dos
Santos was
a moderate with a pragmatic outlook, not unlike that of
Neto. He
soon expressed his preference for a mixed economy with an
important
role for the private sector. The direction in which he
guided the
MPLA-PT was especially telling. He pushed for the
promotion to the
Central Committee of four moderates--Manuel Alexandre
Rodrigues
(nom de guerre Kito; Mbundu), Kundi Paihama (southern
Ovambo),
Paulo Jorge (mestiço), and Roberto de Almeida
(mestiço). The ethnic backgrounds of these four men
also
demonstrated the new regime's continuing commitment to
broadened
representation in the top party leadership. Nonetheless,
no
Ovimbundu--the largest ethnic group and the one to which
Savimbi
belonged--was a member of the Political Bureau. Dos Santos
defended
this omission by explaining that there were no politically
educated
Ovimbundu who could fill top party positions. The
promotion of
Minister of Foreign Relations Jorge to full membership in
the
Central Committee was especially significant because,
during the
Neto regime, Jorge had initiated contact with the West and
maintained the flexible foreign policy that characterized
that
regime, despite Soviet objections. Minister of Domestic
and Foreign
Trade Almeida, also promoted to full Central Committee
membership,
was an active participant in the fostering of Angola's
economic
ties with the West as well.
Data as of February 1989
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