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Angola FOREIGN RELATIONS
Policy Making
Angola's foreign relations reflected the ambivalence of
its
formal commitment to Marxism-Leninism and its dependence
on Western
investment and trade. Overall policy goals were to resolve
this
dual dependence--to achieve regional and domestic peace,
reduce the
need for foreign military assistance, enhance economic
selfsufficiency through diversified trade relations, and
establish
Angola as a strong socialist state. MPLA-PT politicians
described
Angola's goal as geopolitical nonalignment, but throughout
most of
the 1980s Angola's foreign policy had a pronounced
pro-Soviet bias.
Two groups within the MPLA-PT and one council within
the
executive branch vied for influence over foreign policy,
all under
the direct authority of the president. Formal
responsibility for
foreign policy programs lay with the MPLA-PT Central
Committee.
Within this committee, the nine members of the Secretariat
and the
five others who were members of the Political Bureau
wielded
decisive influence. The Political Bureau, in its role as
guardian
of the revolution, usually succeeded in setting the
Central
Committee agenda.
During the 1980s, as head of both the party and the
government,
dos Santos strengthened the security role of the executive
branch
of government, thereby weakening the control of the
Central
Committee and Political Bureau. To accomplish this
redistribution
of power, in 1984 he created the Defense and Security
Council as an
executive advisory body, and he appointed to this council
the six
most influential ministers, the FAPLA chief of the general
staff,
and the Central Committee secretary for ideology,
information, and
culture. The mandate of this council was to review and
coordinate
the implementation of security-related policy efforts
among
ministries. The Ministry of Foreign Relations was more
concerned
with diplomatic and economic affairs than with security
matters.
Southern Africa's regional conflict determined much of
Angola's
foreign policy direction during the 1980s. Negotiations to
end
South Africa's illegal occupation of Namibia succeeded in
linking
Namibian independence to the removal of Cuban troops from
Angola.
The Cuban presence and that of South West Africa People's
Organization (SWAPO) and African National Congress (ANC)
bases in
Angola bolstered Pretoria's claims of a Soviet-sponsored
onslaught
against the apartheid state. On the grounds that an
independent
Namibia would enlarge the territory available to
Pretoria's enemies
and make South Africa's borders even more vulnerable,
South Africa
maintained possession of Namibia, which it had held since
World War
I. Pretoria launched incursions into Angola throughout
most of the
1980s and supported Savimbi's UNITA forces as they
extended their
control throughout eastern Angola.
The MPLA-PT pursued its grass-roots campaign to
mobilize
peasant support, and UNITA sought to capitalize on the
fear of
communism to enhance its popularity outside rural
Ovimbundu areas.
Many Angolans accepted MPLA-PT condemnations of the West
but
balanced them against the fact that Western oil companies
in
Cabinda provided vital revenues and foreign exchange and
the fact
that the United States purchased much of Angola's oil.
Moreover, in
one of Africa's many ironies that arose from balancing the
dual
quest for political sovereignty and economic development,
Cuban and
Angolan troops guarded American and other Western
companies against
attack by South African commandos or UNITA forces (which
were
receiving United States assistance).
Data as of February 1989
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