STATUS OF THE ANGOLAN INSURGENCY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79-00927A005600070003-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 23, 2006
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: February 3, 1967
• Content Type: SUMMARY

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DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
WEEKLY SUMMARY
Special Report
Status of the Angolan Insurgency
Secret
39
3 February 1967
No. 0275/67B
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STATUS OF THE ANGOLAN INSURGENCY
Long-quiescent African nationalists have recently
mounted new attacks in three areas of Angola, includ-
ing regions previously free of insurgents. The at-
tackers have generally operated in larger bands than
before mainly from bases in neighboring Congo (Kinshasa)
and Zambia. However the forays are competing, rather
than coordinated, in nature and have been limited to
hit-and-run raids and small ambushes or acts of sabo-
tage--far from the "three-front" military campaign of
the rebels sometimes alluded to in the press.
The new guerrilla activity almost certainly arises
as much from political and morale factors within the
Angolan nationalist movement as from any present hope
of evicting the Portuguese. Portuguese resources
should be more than adequate to handle the new activity,
which so far is well below the level of insurgency
achieved during 1961 when it took Lisbon six months
to restore control. In addition to stepping up direct
action against the insurgents, the Portuguese have re-
minded the governments of Zambia and the Congo--whose
active support is essential to the Angolan insurgents--
of the economic stranglehold provided by Portuguese
control of strategic transport routes serving those
countries.
The Nationalists
The Angolan nationalist move-
ment has undergone many changes
since 1961, with some groups dis-
playing considerable staying
power and others appearing and
disappearing rapidly. Three or-
ganizations have some present
capability for insurgency. Holden
Roberto's Angolan Revolutionary
Government in Exile (GRAE) op-
erates almost entirely in the
Bakongo tribal region of north-
western Angola and the western
part of the Kinshasa Congo.
Agostinho Neto's Popular Move-
ment for the Liberation of Angola
(MPLA) has traditionally operated
out of the other Congo (Brazza-
ville) against Portugal's Cabinda
exclave but now seems to be bas-
ing itself principally in Zambia.
The National Union for the Total
Independence of Angola (UNITA) is
led by Jonas Savimbi, a former
Roberto lieutenant who has fol-
lowers in both Zambia and the east-
ern Congo (Kinshasa). Together
they can field only 1,000-2,000
guerrillas against Portugal's
46,000-man military establishment
in Angola.
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Roberto's rebels have now
been fighting for nearly six
years. However, within six months
of their first operations in
March 1961, they were success-
fully contained and since then
have been more a nuisance than
a threat to the Portuguese. In
mid-December 1966 Roberto claimed
1,700 followers inside Angola
fighting the Portuguese, but this
figure undoubtedly is inflated.
Most GRAE activity is re-
stricted to small mountain-jungle
areas in northwestern Angola and
to major infiltration routes con-
necting these areas with the
Congo. Most of these guerrillas
are isolated. Many no longer pro-
fess allegiance to Roberto and
seldom contact even nearby rebel
groups. They remain hidden in
small bands and attack only to ob-
tain food and other supplies or
to test new government units.
Last October, encouraged by
the receipt of arms from the Mo-
butu government in Kinshasa and
driven by Roberto's perennial
need to buttress his international
standing, GRAE stepped up its ac-
tions in this region along the
established infiltration routes.
By early December at least one
unit managed to get as far south
as an area 120 miles east of
Luanda. Two GRAE raids--by this
unit and by another operating
along the border--caused the
heaviest Portuguese weekly casualty
rate in several years: 26 killed
including civilians. In all other
actions in Angola during the last
three months of 1966 the Portu-
guese lost about 35 killed and
125 wounded.
GRAE has long planned to or-
ganize an offensive into northeast-
ern Angola from the Katanga re-
gion of the Congo. Although GRAE's
efforts in this area have shown
little success, by mid-November
at least one of its units managed
to swing far enough east to con-
front Angolan forces along the
border with Congo's Kwango region
for the first time since mid-1965.
To date, however, there appar-
ently have been only three inci-
dents in this frontier region.
The nationalist effort which
has intrigued many observers is
the new "front" in eastern An-
gola. Here, where Portuguese
forces are spread thin, Zambia-
based MPLA forces and UNITA
groups operating out of both
Zambia and the Congo have moved
with'elative freedom and have
forced the Portuguese to evacuate
at least temporarily a few small
isolated posts.
According to imprecise Por-
tuguese statistics, the incident
rate in the area since October
has risen to perhaps 15 or 20 a
month. The Benguela Railroad,
the only target of strategic im-
portance in eastern Angola, seems
to be the principal target of
both the UNITA and MPLA organi-
zations. Guerrillas have made
several attacks along the rail-
road but so far have been unable
to affect rail traffic seriously.
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The first insurgents on the
scene belonged to the MPLA I
MPLA forces in t e
area may now number a few hundred.
Most MPLA members have had train-
ing abroad. They appear to have
ample modern, light weapons and
show some organizational sophisti-
cation.
UNITA, formed in March 1966,
has considerably fewer assets.
While it may count some 200 in-
surgents, UNITA members with mil-
tary training abroad may number
only a dozen or two. The organi-
zation seems disorganized and
amateurish, although the Por-
tuguese have noted recent improve-
ment. UNITA has some modern
weapons, but its units must also
rely on poor, homemade arms.
respite these handicaps,
the Portuguese consider UNITA a
greater long-term threat in east-
ern Angola than the MPLA. It
evidently has been far more suc-
cessful in winning cooperation
from eastern and central Angolan
tribes. For example, it succeeded
in recruiting up to 500 primitive
but warlike Chokwe tribesmen for
a. Christmas Day raid on Vila
Teixeira de Sousa, a village near
the Congolese border. However,
the raid exposed UNITA's weak-
nesses as well as its strengths.
The horde, reportedly led by a
witch doctor, was poorly armed
and suffered almost 250 casual-
ties at the hands of the Por-
tuquese, who had been forwarned.
In general, several major
factors will probably serve to
inhibit more substantial insur-
gent activity in eastern Angola.
The largely ignorant local native
population tends to support who-
ever wields de facto military
control, and the insurgents de-
pend on a supply line that
stretches for 2,000 miles across
Zambia from Dar es Salaam.
Moreover, UNITA and MPLA have
so far refused to cooperate with
each other. Indeed, there have
been reports of armed clashes
between them.
Portugal's Response
The Angolan security police,
backed by very efficient networks
of informants, have easily snuffed
out all efforts of any potential,
solely internal, political opposi-
tion to organize. Even welfare ac-
tivities not totally controlled by
the government are harassed and
periodically closed down. Conse-
quently, Lisbon is confident that
if Congolese and Zambian help to
the nationalist military effort
ceases, its troops in Angola can
return to the slow but effective
suppression of insurgent remnants.
Portugal's greatest concern
is directed at Kinshasa. Bases in
the lower Congo provide three es-
sentials absent elsewhere: they
are reasonably near areas of Angola
which are economically important
and heavily populated by the tribes
most opposed to Portuguese rule;
the mountainous jungles in the re-
gion limit Portuguese employment
of air power and firepower; and
nationalist headquarters--in
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Kinshasa--a.nd the port of entry
for arms and trainees can both be
close to forward bases to facili-
tate coordination.
Lisbon's leverage against the
Congo and Zambia--the only other
significant avenue for aid to the
nationalists--is based upon its
control of the trade routes of both
countries, whose economies depend
on copper exports. Portugal ties
unrestricted transit of their goods
across Angola and Mozambique to
their attitudes toward the insur-
gents. When diplomatic efforts
are insufficient, Lisbon applies
a graduated economic squeeze to
obtain the desired response.
On 15 December, by "closing"
the Angolan-Congolese border,
Lisbon for the first time retal-
iated overtly against the rela-
tively minor military aid given
by the Congo to the Angolan in-
surgents. Several days passed
before Lisbon deigned to clarify
that the vital transit trade was
not involved. After UNITA's large-
scale but abortive 25 December
raid against Vila Teixeira de
Sousa, the Benguela Railroad
remained closed for three days
while Lisbon threatened unspeci-
fied retaliation. This permitted
Angola's neighbors to contemplate
the effect of a long-term break
in the line.
Portugal may also be weaving
military pressure on both Zambia
and the Congo into its efforts to
control the cross-border traffic
of the insurgents. Mid-December
news reports from Kinshasa--so
far unverified--claimed that Portu-
guese forces had attacked Congolese
border villages inhabited by An-
golan refugees. About a half
dozen similar, small-scale Portu-
guese incursions have been reported
along the Angolan-Zambian border
since July.
It is unlikely, however,
that Portugal will effect any
lengthy cutoff of vital Congolese
and Zambian trade routes or send
sizable military units into either
the Congo or Zambia. In the past,
even when the Angolan insurgency
posed a far more serious threat,
Lisbon has managed to impress
African governments with the eco-
nomic facts of life by taking
lesser retaliatory actions. Fur-
thermore, Lisbon's policy toward
independent Africa essentially is
to encourage at least peaceful co-
existence. Lisbon also is con-
cerned that drastic action against
the Congo or Zambia might--aside
from bringing a loss of revenue--
serve to propel more radical Afri-
cans into power there, or eventu-
ally might lead to anti-Portuguese
moves by Western powers.
Meanwhile the Portuguese are
shifting forces to re-establish
their preponderance of military
power in eastern Angola. They have
sent several thousand additional
troops there, and they may supple-
ment the professional armed forces
with a village self-defense pro-
gram. Experiments in training
small tribal groups to protect
themselves have been successful.
Prospects for the Nationalists
The latest insurgent push has
done no more than broaden the area
of Angola which suffers from hit-
and-run activity.
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The nationalists need vastly
increased outside help before they
can threaten Portuguese hegemony
in the foreseeable future, but,
despite much talk about foreign
bases, assistance from abroad is
actually on the wane. The Organi-
zation of African Unity (OAU), dis-
_llusioned at the general inepti-
tude of all nationalist groups,
has reduced aid handouts, and the
Angolans' priority for what is
still available is low.
The Mobutu government has
restricted its military assistance
t:o the nationalists to the meager
proffering to Holden Roberto--one
and possibly two arms shipments
and possibly transport and limited
'ands--which enabled him to ini-
t:iate the current series of GRAE
maids. A concerted attempt by
i.he MPLA to take advantage of
Mobutu's pan-African flirtations
=_n 1966 failed to win more than
verbal support for nationalist
unity and permission for the ex-
pansion of its small unofficial
political presence in Kinshasa.
Zambia's support to Angolan
nationalists is even more re-
stricted. Its government period-
i_cally instructs the MPLA and
tJNITA to cease operations out of
Zambia, and Zambian police some-
times impound arms or detain na-
tionalists who have ignored Zam-
bia's strict regulations. Presi-
(lent Kaunda, who wishes to avoid
overly antagonizing Lisbon, also
f=ears the dangers of harboring
armed groups loyal to foreign
leaders and interests. In addi-
tion., he is sensitive to the pos-
sibility of racial violence. The
majority of Zambia's white labor
force--which runs the country's
economy--does little to hide its
sympathy for the minority white
government in neighboring Rhodesia,
and racial tension has already
erupted into occasional violent
incidents.
Nevertheless, political de-
velopments at times encourage the
Congo and Zambia at least tem-
porarily to stretch their self-
imposed restraints, and sometimes
to forget unattractive realities.
In Zambia a more ambivalent policy
toward the Angolan nationalists
developed during 1966 as a by-
product of rising emotions over
white rule in Rhodesia. Before
then, the government had prohib-
ited all Angolan insurgent
military activities except the
passage of MPLA recruits through
Zambia to Dar es Salaam for mil-
itary training in the Soviet Union
and elsewhere. Recently, its
attitude toward the return pas-
sage of arms and trained guer-
rillas from Dar to Angola has
become unclear. In any event
Zambia has not been willing to
crack down on the insurgents,
who continue to ignore Zambian
displeasure at the use of its
territory as a military sanctuary.
Mobutu's search for a pan-
African image prompted his minor
help to Roberto. If pan-African
efforts succeed in prodding the
nationalists into some kind of
agreement among themselves, Mobutu
might feel obligated to provide
further assistance to them. Sev-
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eral African states and a special
OAU subcommittee are working to
unify the Angolans in the hope
that sufficient vitality can be
restored for another major effort
against the Portuguese. However,
a truly concerted nationalist ef-
fort of any duration is unlikely
given the divergent personal am-
bitions and the ethnic, regional,
and ideological disparities among
the three groups.
On Raising the Red Flag
While pan-African support
for the Angolans remains uncer-
tain at best, the USSR continues
to provide some assistance to its
long-time favorite, the MPLA.
their present e ort is pro -
ably an adjunct of their propa-
ganda effort to exploit growing
African restiveness over the
southern African policies of
Western powers. Moscow certainly
feels it is advantageous at
least to keep a hand in any
significant insurgent movement,
but probably is not willing to
risk Western confrontation and
a loss of Soviet prestige sim-
ilar to that which it suffered
by its massive involvement in
the Congo in 1960 and 1963.
The Future
Angola seems destined to
suffer insurgent harassment for
the indefinite future. Those
conditions which could favor
more serious activity--signifi-
cant steady support for national-
ists based in neighboring coun-
tries, or a truly coordinated na-
tionalist movement--do not ap-
pear to be in the cards. Emo-
tional bursts of nationalist en-
thusiasm, frustration, or minor
organizational changes probably
will lead to occasional intensifi-
cations of the insurgency, such
as that now under way.
For their part, the Portu-
guese are unlikely to initiate
an all-out effort--within Angola
or without--to eliminate all
vestiges of insurgent activity.
Lisbon does not now see the need
and its financial resources are
limited. On the other hand,
however, policy changes which
would satisfy the nationalists'
thirst for political power are
unlikely so long as Prime Minis-
ter Salazar or any of his likely
successors remain at the h
in Lisbon.
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