Angola: Towards a political solution

Extracted from: "Angola" IN Compendium of Elections in Southern Africa (2002), edited by Tom Lodge, Denis Kadima and David Pottie, EISA, 16-17.

The apartheid regime in South Africa came under a new leadership in September 1978. Earlier that year a massive attack was launched from Namibia, by the SA Defence Force, on SWAPO bases in southern Angola in MPLA-controlled territory. Not only did South Africa's operations against SWAPO continue, military strikes were also launched against the South African liberation movements based in other neighbouring countries in the following decade. An integral part of this strategy was support for UNITA as well as for RENAMO in Mozambique. Thus the 1980s saw South African forces backing UNITA's army against repeated offensives of the combined FAPLA (MPLA) and Cuban armies.

Contrasting with the situation in 1975, a new US administration (President Ronald Reagan's) sharing the South African government's concern about the growing number of Cuban soldiers in Angola, (some 50 000 by 1988) repealed the embargo on American aid to UNITA. Moreover, although South Africa had by then already agreed that Namibia should become independent after UN-supervised elections had taken place, President Reagan and South Africa's Prime Minister Botha (later president) agreed that Namibia's independence be delayed until the Cubans had been withdrawn from Angola. Thus the Namibian and Angolan issues became linked.

However, by 1988 both the Cubans and the South Africans in Angola had become thoroughly overstretched and were finding it increasing difficult to justify their ongoing presence in that country. A crucial development influencing the Angolan conflict at this stage was the changing situation in the ailing Soviet Union. Under Mikhael Gorbachev, the USSR began to favour political solutions, as opposed to conflict situations where the Soviets were militarily involved, in order to reduce these drains on their resources. As a result of these factors, protracted negotiations between the South African, Cuban and Angolan (MPLA-PT) governments were facilitated by US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Dr Chester Crocker. The talks culminated in a package of agreements, signed in New York, in December 1998, which provided for phased withdrawals of all foreign troops in Angola and gave the green light for Namibian elections and independence.

However, while the South African and Cuban forces were gradually being withdrawn, UNITA stepped up its military operations. Although both the United States and the Soviet Union continued to support UNITA and the Angolan government respectively, they left their protegés in no doubt that the time had come for a negotiated end to the war. Adding to the pressures on the Angolan government and UNITA was the success of the peace process in Namibia and the widespread movement towards democratisation and economic liberalisation in Africa, including other Portuguese-speaking African countries. Moreover, the hard-pressed Angolan people desired peace and was becoming restive. With political changes in the offing, party discipline began to collapse in the government-controlled areas, followed by the first legal strikes by workers in different economic sectors. The right to strike had meanwhile been legalised. Civic associations that later became political parties began to appear on the scene.