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Zaire Involvement in the Angolan Civil War
The Angola crisis, set off by the Portuguese coup of
1974, was
a turning point in Zairian foreign policy. The prospect of
imminent
independence for Angola represented both a threat and an
opportunity from Mobutu's perspective. Since 1960 Zaire
had had
close ties to the FNLA, whose ethnic base was among the
Kongo of
the area bordering Zaire. Many of the FNLA leaders,
including
Holden Roberto, had lived in Kinshasa most of their lives.
Roberto
had quasi-kinship ties with Mobutu through his second
wife, who
originated in the same village as Mobutu's then-spouse
(though she
was not Mama Mobutu's sister, as the press often
asserted). The
FNLA was allowed to run military camps on Zairian
territory.
By contrast, Zaire's relations with the
Marxist-oriented MPLA
had been consistently hostile. Since 1963 the MPLA's main
external
headquarters had been in Congo. The MPLA guerrilla effort
was
seriously handicapped by Mobutu's denial of transit rights
from its
Congo bases into the main part of Angola.
These relationships had developed in the context of the
Cold
War. The FNLA had received sporadic United States support,
which
resumed after the Portuguese coup. The Soviet Union had
supported
the MPLA, although the relationship was in abeyance in
April 1974.
Zaire's close relations with China, beginning in 1973, and
China's
anti-Soviet orientation, led to a substantial Chinese
military and
diplomatic commitment to the FNLA.
The dominant African diplomatic position was that only
a
coalition among the three major liberation
movements--MPLA, FNLA,
and National Union for the Total Independence of Angola
(União
Nacional para a Independência Total de
Angola--UNITA)--could bring
a peaceful transition to Angolan independence. While
formally
supporting the consensus, Zairian diplomacy really aimed
at
excluding the MPLA from a share of power, thus ensuring a
friendly
Angolan regime.
In 1974, when Mobutu's strategy took form, he held what
looked
like considerable advantages. The FNLA, with 2,000
guerrillas
inside Angola and 10,000 to 12,000 in the Zairian camps,
had the
largest military force. The new Chinese alliance could be
used to
rapidly augment FNLA armaments, and by mid-year a large
flow of
Chinese equipment to the FNLA camps was under way. The
MPLA was
divided, and one of its factions might be (and was) wooed
away.
While Zambia and Tanzania could not be expected to support
the
FNLA, they might be attracted to some combination
including UNITA
and an MPLA faction. The lethal competition between UNITA
and MPLA
forces in eastern Angola seemed to offer a possible
Zaire-FNLA-
UNITA alliance. The United States had a long-standing
antipathy to
the MPLA and could be counted upon to mount an effort to
block its
bid for power. South Africa also was disposed to assure a
flow of
military supplies to UNITA and the FNLA to prevent an MPLA
victory.
Finally, Zaire had a long common border with Angola and a
large
army that it could employ on the side of the FNLA.
Most of the supposed advantages proved illusory. The
FNLA and
Zairian forces were ineffective in the decisive phases of
the war.
The Soviet Union, unwilling to see an easy American and
Chinese
victory, began armed deliveries at an accelerating rate
from early
1975. The unforeseen Cuban military intervention began
with
advisers in the summer of 1975, but involved combat troops
in the
crucial months of November and December 1975. Meanwhile,
the
exposure of CIA involvement and especially the full-scale
invasion
by South African military units in October 1975 led to OAU
backing
for the MPLA. By mid-1975, the Chinese apparently
concluded the
risks were too high and pulled out.
Diplomatically as well as militarily, Zaire's defeat
could
hardly have been more complete. The MPLA was in power in
Angola,
buttressed by a strong Soviet-Cuban presence, which had
been
legitimated in African eyes by United States and South
African
intervention. Zaire again was the pariah state of tropical
Africa.
The residual costs of the Angolan adventure were
illustrated when
Zaire was rebuffed in its attempt to join the Southern
African
Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), formed in
1980 after
Zimbabwe's independence in order to reduce regional
dependency on
South Africa. Subsequently Zaire's bid to join the
Preferential
Trade Area (PTA) for Central and Southern Africa was
blocked by
Angola.
In 1983 Zaire became a charter member of an alternative
economic union, the Economic Community of the States of
Central
Africa (Communauté Économique des États de l'Afrique
Centrale--
CEEAC), which brought together the five members of the
UDEAC
(Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic, Congo, and
Gabon), the
three members of the CEPGL (Burundi, Rwanda, and Zaire),
and two
mini-states, Equatorial Guinea and Sao Tome and Principe.
Angola
sent a minister to the founding meeting but declared
itself unable
to join because of the civil war. As late as its sixth
summit (in
Kigali, Rwanda, in January 1990), the CEEAC had little to
show in
the way of concrete accomplishments. The conference
authorized the
free circulation of certain categories of citizens (mainly
researchers, students, and residents of border areas)
within the
CEEAC community, approved measures aimed at strengthening
cooperation between airlines, and gave priority to
improving the
roads linking Burundi and Rwanda to the Congo River port
of
Kisangani.
In contrast to the snub by the SADCC, a slow recovery
of
Zaire's reputation was reflected in its election to the UN
Security
Council in 1981 and again in 1989, with support from the
African
caucus. Zaire's troops were part of an OAU peacekeeping
force in
Chad in 1981-82 (and returned, at Chadian invitation, in
1983).
Zaire sent 3,000 troops to Chad in July 1983 to support
the Frenchbacked government of Hissein Habré. The two countries
signed a
military cooperation agreement in July 1985.
Data as of December 1993
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