Africa

by Guy Arnold

  A storm of international indignation greeted the oppressive measures taken by the Portuguese although this failed to alter their approach to the rebels. Portugal controlled information coming out of Angola and suppressed political opposition. Foreigners who had extensive capital investments in Angola did not want to put these at risk and Lisbon hinted to Washington that it might not renew the base facilities it had made available to the Americans at Azores. ‘The Portuguese point of view was clear. Portugal was at home in Angola; it faced a foreign invasion and threatened nobody; Angola was not a colony and Portugal was not going to leave.’21 By the end of 1961, 150,000 Africans had fled across the border into the Congo to escape further Portuguese reprisals. The war was fought over a vast area that was sparsely populated and difficult to move in, facts that would affect the fighting for the rest of the decade. By the closing months of 1961 it had become clear that the Angolan scene had been transformed for ever although over the next few years the Portuguese attempted to persuade both themselves and the outside world that the revolt was a one-off affair and that the territory could return to normal, an attitude that they reinforced by sending many thousands more settlers to Angola through the 1960s. However, in November 1961 a British correspondent wrote from Leopoldville as follows: ‘Until recently, White home-rulers were Portugal’s only political problem in Angola. They are what accounts for the intricate security service. Black nationalism is something new. It has startled the mother country, but has not destroyed its blind, superb optimism. Portugal, says Portuguese officialdom, cannot even envisage giving up Angola and Mozambique, because Portugal is too poor to do without them; and Portugal is too poor to be indispensable to either after independence.’22

  The lack of general development coupled with the treatment of the African population explains the ferocity of the rebel explosion while also raising the question as to why had it taken so long. After more than 400 years of the Portuguese presence Angola only had 250 miles of tarred roads, almost no health services outside the main towns and one of the highest illiteracy rates in the world. Although the Portuguese had defeated the uprising they presided over a territory simmering with discontent with none of the causes addressed or ameliorated. ‘Their success [the Angolan rebels] is considerable. They are pinning down a Portuguese army and air force of 20,000 men. And by mustering support at the United Nations, they have enfiladed Portugal’s Western alliance, dependent on the diminishing value of the Azores naval base.’23 This relatively optimistic appraisal of the nationalist impact did not foresee the divisions that would split the nationalists over the next few years as the UPA under Holden Roberto refused all co-operation with the MPLA. In March 1962 the UPA joined with the Partido Democratico Angolana (PDA) to form the Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola (FNLA) and the following month (April) the FNLA established a government in exile in Leopoldville – Governo Revolucionario de Angola no Exilo (GRAE) with Holden Roberto as Prime Minister. A year later the Congo (K) government officially recognized the GRAE as the government of Angola, forcing the MPLA to close its offices in Leopoldville and move to Brazzaville. However, the apparent triumph of the GRAE in the internecine fighting was short-lived for in 1965 the FNLA Foreign Minister Jonas Savimbi left the movement to found a more traditionalist nationalist movement, the União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA). But as the subsequent history of Angola was to demonstrate, purely ethno-nationalists were not to succeed. There was a broad consensus between colonial powers and nationalists that independent Africa should be composed of nation states based on existing colonial boundaries, a development that suited both sides for different reasons. Although Savimbi had accused Holden Roberto of tribalism when he defected from the FNLA, his own support was based upon the Ovimbundu people, the most populous group in Angola, so that he too, effectively, was a tribalist. Meanwhile, the MPLA petitioned the OAU to reverse its decisions taken at Dakar and Leopoldville to recognize the GRAE as the legitimate representative of the Angolan people.

  At the beginning of 1964 the New York Times (20 January) reported that a feeling of security had returned to Angola. The army had reoccupied the main towns, which the rebels had held, and the Portuguese civilians had returned to them. A crash programme in road building had been started although this was largely for military purposes while the substantial numbers of Portuguese troops and their families had given a fillip to the economy, which Portugal had decided to open to foreign investment. Optimistic claims by both the MPLA and the GRAE that a resolution of the Angola problem could not be far distant were premature. On 7 August 1964 the Portuguese government announced that the fighting was over and that action in the north had become ‘sporadic and very limited’. There were 300,000 Angolan refugees in the Congo (K). Despite apparent Portuguese optimism about the course of the war, a range of sophisticated armaments continued to be supplied to Portugal under NATO agreements and these regularly appeared in Africa. West Germany became of particular importance, notably in providing air support and in 1966, for example, sold Portugal 40 jet fighters for US$10 million. By agreement they were to be used exclusively in Portugal for defence purposes within the framework of the North Atlantic Pact, but instead were deployed in Africa. A spokesman for the Portuguese Foreign Ministry explained their use in Africa as follows: ‘The transaction was agreed within the spirit of the North Atlantic Pact. It was agreed that the planes would be used only for defensive purposes within Portuguese territory. Portuguese territory extends to Africa – Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea.’24

  On the nationalist side, the guerrillas received small arms and ammunition, grenades, light automatics, mortars, artillery and ground-to-air missiles from the USSR and China, Czechoslovakia and one or two other Communist countries, as well as a small amount of humanitarian aid from private – non-government – sources in the West and considerable government assistance from Sweden. By 1966 the MPLA was able to open up the eastern front, adjacent to Zambia, and mount military operations over a huge area of the country while the Portuguese found that they were unable to contain the insurgents. Angola has long porous borders with the Congo and Zambia and these were proving ideal for guerrilla operations and unfavourable for regular army manoeuvres. Portuguese military losses increased during 1966 and 1967 as a result of renewed activity by the MPLA and the emergence of UNITA as a new anti-government guerrilla movement.

  Portuguese policy during the 1960s, while the army and police held the population down, was to develop the territory to a maximum so as to secure the future of the increasing number of whites who were still being persuaded to settle in Angola. There was oil in the Cabinda enclave and iron ore at Cassinga and Angola appeared to have the best development prospects south of the Sahara, apart from South Africa. Development was inhibited, however, by the sheer size of the country, which could not be controlled, even by an army of 50,000. Few of these development projects were designed to improve the lot of the Africans who remained the necessary auxiliaries of white prosperity. Slowly through the 1960s the Portuguese began to realize that they could not hold Angola by force alone; they would have to reform institutions and win over the African population. But the realization came too late. At the end of the decade, in 1970, the struggle became far more intense with the rebels pinning down 60,000 Portuguese troops and slowly winning the war, which was a war of attrition rather than one of set battles.

  MOZAMBIQUE

  The sudden end after World War II of more or less universal European imperial dominance laid bare many aspects of racial arrogance that had become so ingrained as to seem natural to those afflicted by them. The Portuguese, it seemed, suffered from this sense of superiority in inverse proportion to their real imperial power. In a pastoral letter of 1960, Cardinal Cerejeira, the Patriarch of Lisbon, wrote: ‘Schools are necessary, yes; but schools where we teach the native the path of human dignity and the grandeur of the nation which protects him.’ This nation, Portugal, was then an impoverished European backwater whose peop
le enjoyed an average per capita income of no more than US$250. It was little wonder, therefore, that it was so anxious to hold onto its two prized African possessions, Angola and Mozambique. The Portuguese had established forts on the coast of Mozambique in the sixteenth century although major settlement had only occurred in the twentieth century and much of that just prior to the outbreak of the colonial war. Mozambique, despite the sudden realization in Lisbon of its potential worth, was exceptionally poor and relied for over half its income upon providing rail and port services for Rhodesia and South Africa and remittances from its workers in the South African mines. An added grievance to the normal nationalist resentments lay in the fact that education was minimal and jobs, even semi-skilled ones, were reserved for the Portuguese, thus preventing even quite limited African advance. Writing in 1961 on the ‘Colonizing Traditions, Principles and Methods of the Portuguese’ Marcelo Caetano appealed to British imperialism in the following exculpatory passage: ‘Portuguese policy places on parallel lines the interests of Europeans as leaders in the transformation of backward regions and the interests of the natives as a mass prepared to become part of a future civilized people. Thus Portugal cannot accept in absolute terms the principle “paramountcy of native interests”, rather on the contrary her traditional methods come closer to what Lugard called “Dual Mandate”.’25 By the time Portuguese leaders began to deliberate on their colonial policies, their African subjects had had enough. They wanted liberty.

  The starting point of the war in Mozambique was the massacre of demonstrating Africans by the Portuguese at Mueda in June 1960. Three small exile groups then opened offices in Dar es Salam. In 1962 they merged to form the Frente de Libertação de Mocambique (FRELIMO) under the presidency of Dr Eduardo Mondlane, who had been a professor of anthropology at Syracuse (NY). FRELIMO was fortunate in its leadership and was to be the only viable group throughout the struggle, so Mozambique was not faced with the three-way division between competing liberation groups that was to afflict Angola. On 10 August 1962 the UN Special Committee on Colonialism asked the General Assembly to support ‘immediate independence’ for Mozambique. In September the newly formed FRELIMO held a conference in Dar es Salaam at which Mondlane urged his followers ‘to act, work and organize that we may free our continent from foreign oppression’. On 29 September the Johannesburg Star reported that the Portuguese government had begun a massive defence build-up, which included the construction of 15 military airfields on the country’s borders, to prevent guerrilla infiltration into Mozambique. At the same time it had announced development plans for the Zambezi valley to include a hydro-electric project and the opening up of agricultural land for 13,500 whites and 60,000 Africans.

  FRELIMO was quickly recognized by the OAU and subsequently received funds from it. It was also to obtain financial support from the Soviet bloc, China, Tanzania, Algeria, Egypt, Sweden, Denmark and NGOs such as the Rowntree Trust and the World Council of Churches. In June 1963 Mondlane appeared before the nine-nation African Liberation Committee in Dar es Salaam and appealed for training facilities in Tanzania. Up to this date little fighting or even skirmishing had taken place. Over July and August 1964 President Americo Tomas of Portugal visited Mozambique where he was given a tumultuous welcome by whites and blacks (according to Portuguese sources) and watched a military parade of 5,000 out of the 25,000 troops then in the country. Reporting the Tomas visit, the London Financial Times (30 July 1964) said that Mozambique was unique of Portugal’s African territories: there was no revolt against white supremacy. Despite Portuguese optimism at the time of Tomas’ visit to Mozambique, time was running out. FRELIMO launched its war on 25 September 1964 with a proclamation to the people of Mozambique by the Central Committee of FRELIMO: ‘Mozambican People – In the name of all of you FRELIMO today solemnly proclaims the general Armed Insurrection of the Mozambican People against Portuguese Colonialism for the attainment of the complete independence of Mozambique.’ Mondlane himself describes the advances that were made over the next three years: ‘On 25 September 1964, FRELIMO had only 250 men trained and equipped, who operated in small units of from 10 to 15 each. Towards the middle of 1965, FRELIMO forces were already operating with units of company strength, and in 1966 the companies were organized into battalions. By 1967 the FRELIMO army had reached a strength of 8,000 men trained and equipped, not counting the people’s militias or the trained recruits who were not yet armed. In other words, FRELIMO increased its fighting strength 32 times over in three years.’26 By the latter year the Portuguese were deploying up to 50,000 troops against FRELIMO, which by 1968 claimed to control one fifth of Mozambique and 800,000 people. At that time the fighting was mainly confined to the two northern provinces – Cabo Delgado and Niassa – though there was also some fighting in Tete province.

  As always at that time the West saw Africa in Cold War terms. In 1965 Mondlane had stated plainly where he stood: ‘We are Mozambican nationalists of the same kind that Tanzania and most Africans are and most Africans are trying to be. We don’t really think that the Cold War ideological struggle is relevant to us. We want to free Mozambique, and our policies are going to be Mozambique policies.’27 Portugal’s allies on the other hand tried to present the war in Mozambique in Western strategic terms which, conveniently, supported white racial policies in Southern Africa. Writing in Le Figaro in October 1967, General Bethouart first referred to the blocking of the Suez Canal as a result of the Six Day War, the fact that large oil tankers would not be able to use Suez in the future anyway, the turmoil in the Arab world, and the Soviet menace, then continued: ‘Faced with this situation the West must revise its policy towards South Africa and the Portuguese provinces which, through their great seaports, control the outflow of the prodigious mineral, agricultural and industrial riches to be found in large quantities in that part of the continent.’28 In the meantime, Portuguese annual military expenditure was steadily escalating and by 1968 had reached US$217 million for its colonial wars

  On 3 February 1969 Dr Eduardo Mondlane was killed by a parcel bomb delivered at the house where he was staying in Dar es Salaam. This was a grievous blow to FRELIMO which he had led with much success since its creation. He was replaced at first by a triumvirate of Uria Samango, Samora Machel and Marcelino dos Santos but this was soon dissolved: Samora Machel became President of FRELIMO, dos Santos Vice-President while Samango was expelled from the party. Despite the setback caused by Mondlane’s death, in 1970 the war took on a new intensity as FRELIMO forces began to press southwards and attacked the zone where the Cabora Bassa Dam was being constructed while Portugal sent out further reinforcements to its army in Mozambique. By this time Portugal, not unwillingly, had been drawn into the regional strategies of South Africa, the final bastion of white rule. It had found an unlikely African ally in Hastings Banda of Malawi whose determination to maintain good relations with the white regimes of Southern Africa had isolated him from the rest of black Africa. His attitude was of huge importance to the FRELIMO war since the southern spur of Malawi cut into northern Mozambique, in part isolating Tete province where the vital Cabora Bassa Dam was being constructed and ensuring that 400 miles of Mozambique’s frontier was free of guerrillas since these were not permitted to operate from Malawi. The contract for the construction of the Cabora Bassa Dam had been awarded in September 1969 to the ZAMCO consortium of South African, West German and French companies; its principal economic object would be to supply South Africa with power while its political aim was to ensure South African support for the Portuguese war effort in the region.

  PORTUGUESE GUINEA

  The tiny West African colony of Portuguese Guinea was another of the colonial anomalies, an impoverished wedge of territory in French West Africa. It had been ruled jointly with the Cape Verde islands from 1836 to 1879; its land boundaries had been fixed in 1891 by a series of conventions with Britain and France. Unlike Portugal’s larger African colonies – Angola and Mozambique – Guinea was too poor to attract many white settl
ers, but there had always been opposition to Portuguese rule and by the 1950s the colony was infected by the nationalism then sweeping through Africa. In 1952 Amilcar Cabral had founded the Partido Africano de Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde (PAIGC) as a discussion group, but by 1956 it had developed into a well-organized countrywide movement run by a central committee of which Cabral was Secretary-General. Given Portugal’s rigid attitude towards its colonial empire, a violent uprising in Guinea seemed inevitable. ‘A few leaders may understand, from the start, this necessity to use violence both in self-defence and as the only means of opening the door to a better future. But they remain powerless until and unless large numbers of people also feel and acknowledge it. Only then can the bitterness and hope take fire.’29 As with the other Portuguese colonies, advance for the African majority had been minimal and the number of assimilados in this case was less than a third of a per cent of the population. The practical outcome of Portuguese rule was one doctor for every 100,000 Africans, only 300 hospital beds (almost all in Bissau), only one hospital outside Bissau and a minimal supply of nurses and midwives. Educational provision was as backward as health with only one per cent of the population in any sense literate and in the only government secondary school 60 per cent of the pupils were Europeans. In 1960 a total of 11 Africans had acquired graduate status as ‘assimilated Portuguese’ in Portugal.