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The warlords of the reigning MPLA government and the UNITA "rebel" movement are gearing up to fight another war. The Angolan people are not served well by the leaders they place their faith in.

Reports have been coming in over the last two weeks that UNITA forces have begun attacked and captured 60 towns handed over under the Lusaka Accords in 1994. Attacks have occurred on UN compounds and government facilities. Some of these attacks have also been carried out by MPLA government police and bandits.

Neither side has demobilised in accordance with the Lusaka Accords signed in 1994, or disarmed in accordance with that schedule. Unita attacks have been concentrated on the diamond rich regions of Lunde Norte and Lunde Sul regions, and they have driven out the the UN in eastern Angola. Unita funds its war through diamond sales, and needs the eastern Angolan region as part of its logistics supply trail from Zambia. Unita is receiving 20 supply flights a day, many of which originate in South Africa.

South Africa is the main pipeline to Unita in terms of arms deliveries, and although the South African government pays lip service to being opposed to this, and in favour of its traditional MPLA ally, it does nothing to interdict these flights. An airport just outside Johannesburg, called Lanseria, is believed to be the main airport where flights to Unita originate. I know from reliable sources that the customs at this airport is a shambles. Yet, Mandela's government does nothing to tighten the loopholes.

This is not to say that the MPLA are the "good" guys. They are your classic state socialist kleptocratic African "socialist" regime. They have no compunction in massacring those believed to be their political enemies. Large numbers of "Unita sympathisers" were killed the last time a war broke out between Unita and the MPLA.

Background:

MPLA - Marxist Leninist movement which fought for national independence from Portugal. Supported by the East Germans, USSR, and Cuba.

UNITA - Personal cult, tribally-based movement, centered around its leader Jonas Savimbi. He has executed all his best senior officers through the years (and their families). He saw them as rivals. Also a movement for "national liberation" from Portugal. Historically backed by the USA and apartheid South Africa against the MPLA until 1990-1994.

FNLA- Founded by Holden Roberto. No longer a significant force. Former "national liberation" movement backed by the US against the MPLA.

Angola was granted "independence" in 1975 by Portugal. The Portugeuse promptly fled Angola leaving it bereft of any skilled personnel, purportedly even ripping out and carting off telephone switchboards as they fled.

This denuded country soon saw its "independence" elections degenerate into civil war, as the MPLA and Unita/FNLA battled it out for domination in the country. The MPLA were soon backed by Cuban troops, East German advisers, and Soviet weaponry. Unita looked to the USA for help. After the Vietnam war, the US government was leery about foreign involvements, and Henry Kissinger suggested that Unita look to South Africa for assistance.

South Africa, in the grip of its usual "anti-communist" fervour, invaded Angola from its occupied colony in Namibia, in three flying columns. Its advanced scout vehicles reached a point 50 km from Luanda. According to South African press reports of the time ( a dubious source !) they could see the lights of the Angolan capital.

World condemnation of this invasion in which the government of South Africa lied to its population in saying that there were no South African troops in Angola, caused the USA's tacit support to evaporate. Out on a diplomatic limb, the South Africans retreated, and the civil war raged on.

Through its proxies in Zaire, Zambia, and South Africa the US supplied Unita. Unita also received military support from South Africa. There were many times when South African soldiers fought alongside Unita. As a result of 25 plus years of civil war, Angola is the most mined place in the world. Per capita there are more amputees from landmines in Angola than anywhere else in the world. Most of the farmland, roads, and railways are, as a result of this, unuseable. There are millions of landmines scattered around Angola.

A peace agreement was signed in 1992 and elections were held. They were considered substantially free and fair. Savimbi lost and went back to war. A new peace agreement was signed in 1994 (The Lusaka Accords). This is also unravelling. Now that the USSR is gone, and the MPLA's Angola has been "broken-in" as a state authoritarian capitalist country, the USA has switched support to the MPLA. Angola is a significant source of oil for America, and due to the war, the MPLA has been desperate to sell as many barrels as possible at whatever price it can get.

The MPLA uses oil to fund its military, while UNITA uses diamonds in its captured areas to fund its army. The USA laughs all the way to the oil drum, and, I suspect actually finds the civil war quite useful in this way. The Angolan people are robbed of their birthright which is plundered to maintain their warlords' armies. This why the level of under-development and its fatal consequences is so deep and pervasive.

Anarchist perspective:

Angola is a mirror of the effects of the modern state system and state socialism/capitalist world systems on a country considered expendable.

Angola has been torn limb from limb and turned into a horror chamber for its population by state capitalists and state socialists fighting through their proxy warlords the MPLA and UNITA. It is the classic example of hierarchical power run amock, a twentieth century heart of darkness, eclipsed only by the Rwandan genocide.

None of the elements claiming the right to rule Angola on behalf of its people has bothered for one minute about their plight. Egged on by their superpower and regional sponsers they have devastated the land and its inhabitants. None of them deserve support. None of them can claim with any credibility to serve the Angolan people. Their cynicism is complete in its extreme. They have turned the land into a mined desert and they call it "peace" and "democracy". Electoral politics in such circumstances is a sick joke. The Angolan people are told to choose between their tormentors, their betrayers.

Ironically, Angola is a very clear example where anarchists can point out the futility of building hierarchical forms of "representative" democracy. In Angola, the purported peoples representatives are neither "representative" or "democratic", but are, rather, the enemy of the people themselves. In such circumstances direct democracy and self-organisation are the only sane responses that break the cycle of giving legitimacy to the robber barons of UNITA or the MPLA.

Angola is also a cautionary note to anarchists that many, if not most, so-called "national liberation" *movements* cannot be supported, as they quickly degenerate into something quite ugly. This is distinct from supporti ng such struggles per se.

*No gods, No sects*

Joel

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