POVERTY GRIPS POTENTIALLY RICH MARXIST ANGOLA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85M00364R001602930100-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 16, 2007
• Sequence Number: 100
• Publication Date: October 7, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/11/16: CIA-RDP85M00364R001602930100-3
. i -,I BIN
iPoten[11111Y Rich
t
An ?ola
By Glenn Frankel
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LUANDA, Angola-On a ridge overlooking
h b this blame on South African supported
:port. city sits a half-finished office building, a con-
;structioii crane perched on its roof. The building guerrillas and the world recession,
have crane have remained frozen in time since ave begun to publicly concede their
11975, the year the Portuguese abandoned this col-. own economic shortcomings. The
;oiiy, a symbol of the paralysis gripping an scan Popular Movement for the Libera-
*omy that could have been one of Africa's richest.- tion Marxist Angola, that the faction-ridden
his rTwenty-two years of continuous war have left nation on since nce independence, has this
an-
.. Angola an economic cripple, shattering its once nandependence, has
strong a ~ ~ nounced a series of new programs to
to
agricultural sector and stunting its indus- turn the economy around.
-trial growth. Farm production has dropped an av-.. Although the Marxists came to
crane of 10 percent a year over the last decade; .. power promising economic justice for
- Angola,- which once exported food to Africa, Latin Angola's poor masses, recent mea-
'America and Europe, now imports 65 percent of sures have a distinctly unegalitarian
its needs. air about them. Skilled workers who
Manufacturing has fallen 12 percent each year. contribute to the country's economic
The war against South Africa and antigovern- recovery have been promised priority;
ment guerrillas is estimated to cost nearly $2 bil- t in receiving
- scarce consumer goods
lion a year, and the government has put total and new cars and permission to trav-
d:,mage to roads, railways, -bridges, factories and el abroad semiannually.
refineries at $10 billion since 1975. President Eduardo dos Santos,
But the numbers don't begin to convey the full while denying that these new mea-
extent of deprivation in this capital, whose pop. sures establish a privileged elite, con-
ulat,on has swelled in 13 years from about 500,000 ceded in a speech earlier this year
to nearly 1.5 million, most of them refugees from that "priority must be given to the
the war and rural poverty.
The urban landscape is dotted with row'after-. those solution of the problems besetting
vsidIv , row of one-ruin shanties made from tin, to a who can effectively contribute
cardboard and mud, eehere sanitation is primitive, problem-, abldecisinc solution all." running u?,1tt:r sometinir, a mile away, ems once and for al." .
children play in mound, of uncollected trash. tvhere Angola's chief economist, Minister
il a hri ?Irt of Planning Lopo do Nascimento,
t , paste?I-pjirited shops and cafes also indirectly criticized the govern-
dow?ntuwn that once gave this cit
a re
l
ti
y
pu
a
un as
the Rio de Janeiro. of Africa are almost all shut
down, their shelves barren and' tables empty. Peo-
ple line tip for hours each day outside the'few.
open government shops where they wait with ra1-
Lion cards to buy the fe\y necessities available'
here-bread, milk, soap, sugar, cooking oil.*
Absenteeism as high as 85 percent has been
reported in some government offices; because
workers spend their days in food lines and be-
cause they are paid in virtually worthless Angolan
kwanza whose official exchange rate is 15 to-'20
times less than can be obtained on the thriving
black market. _
A woman who said she was a clerk at tlie,Na*-.?
tional Bank of Angola waited in line four hours
recently for three bottles, of milk. Asked why she
was not at her job she replied, "Phis is more im-
-Government officials, while. laying most of the
ment for contributing to the coun-
try's chronic food shortages by mov-
ing too quickly to centralized state
farms. In a recent interview with the
national newspaper, . Nascimento
noted that most of Angola's food was
produced by peasant farmers.
"Our mistake was not to have re-
.membered this well enough," he said.
"If we had concentrated more re-
.sources on supporting the peasants
we would have greatly improved the
food situation in. the country." He
said establishment of collective
farms would continue "but at a lesser
pace." .
The Washington Post
7 October 1983
The irony is that Angola should have bet
one of Africa's economic success stories. It
the continent's second largest producer of c
after Nigeria, supplied one-ninth of the world
diamonds in the early 1970s, has bountifi
supplies of other minerals and was once tF
.world's fourth largest coffee exporter.
But Angola under the Portuguese was sac
died with a top-heavy economy, with most c
the wealth and skills belonging to th
350,000 Europeans who lived here. Whe
they fled in 1975, following a 14-year libei
ation struggle by the MPLA and two rive
black nationalist groups, they took every
thi
ng from trck t liht blb
usogus and left be
hind only a handful of skilled workers.
At first, the MPLA turned to the Sovie
Bloc for the arms and Cuban troops with
which it defeated its rivals, who were sup
ported by South Africa and the Central In
telligence Agency. But in recent years, An
gala's government has more and more facet
west for the capital it needs to develop it
natural resources.
"We don't hide the fact that we want tc
build a socialist society" Foreign Minister
Paulo Jorge said in a recent, interview. But
he continued, "It's obvious that to revive our
businesses and industries we have to estab?
lish relationships with western countries."
The West buys almost 90 percent of An.
gola's exports, while the Soviet Bloc accounts
for only 8 percent. Angola's single maiur
trading partner by a wide margin is the
United States, which buys two-thirds of the
country's oil despite the fact that three stic-
. cessive U.S. administrations have refused to
grant diplomatic recognition because of the
presence of Cuban troops. Angola's largest
African trading partner is South Africa, the
hated enemy that occupies part of its south.
There are 'other paradoxes as well: Per
has the biggest. is that revenues from oil
sales to the United States go toward paying
the .bill for Soviet arms and for the Cubans,
who are estimated to cost Luanda at least
$350 million annually. One of the main con-
centrations of Cubans is in Cabinda wh
ere
they are assigned' the important task of
guarding western offshore oil installations.
But even oil has not lived tip totally to its
potential. Due to the present worldwide glut,
production peaked at_180,000 barrels per;
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 Approved For Release 2007/11/16: CIA-RDP85M00364R001602930100-3
according to analysts here, far below
:,!s year's 250,000 target.
Angola's other major export, diamonds,-.
asu has not matched expectations. The Di-
:inund Co. of Angola recently reported that
,;iamond production last year was 27 percent.
:;elow its goal, and only 60 percent of its
1973 peak. The company blamed inefficiency
and smuggling. Some analysts believe half
the gems mined here leave illegally.
The 1`?IPLA has announced a broad crack
down on corruption. Numerous low-ranking
officials have . been suspended from their
posts while others have fled the'country. Dos
Santos himself launched the drive' earlier
this year with a firm warning to those who
"play the enemy's game."
Analysts here- believe ? corruption * begins
near the very top, not with dos Santos him-
self but with some of his closest advisers.' At
least one key minister is reliably reported to
maintain a home and bank account in Ge-
nera. Other officials, including some report:
edly close to the president, were implicated
in a scandal this year in which they allegedly
earned hard currency illegally by renting
their homes to foreign executives.
"For wears the MPLA leaders seemed ati-
=olutely, incorruptible," one western source
said. They lived on the vision that they
were building a new future for Angola. Now,
'w'ith the future looking decidedly shaky and
their confidence gone, some have decided it'd
time to look after themselves."
The allegations of corruption have report-
-dly shaken dos Santos, 41, a Soviet-trained
ngineer who has uneasily ruled :his party j
,..
si tos nce 1979. Analysts here believe dos San
lwE
still attempting to consolidate his hold and
.o steer a middle course between the a
11PLA's warring factions.
Those factions are said to roughly break
town between hardliners who are pro-Soviet
end committed to Marxist-Leninist ideology
ind moderates who' argue for a pragmatic,
none western-oriented approach.-
Agostinho Neto, the founding father of
he MPLA, was said to have been moving :'
Rut whether dg's Santos can establish con-
trol over his fruding followers and stave bff
economic collapse remains an open question.
Some conditions have improved-ships that
once waited two months to unload goods'at
Luanda's port are now unloaded within two
weeks, thanks to tighter management and
increased benefits for dock workers.
But the food situation has actually wdrs-
ened in recent months due to guerrillas' in-
creasing stranglehold on Angola's prime bg-
ricultural regions. Hundreds" of agricultural
specialists from the Soviet Union and East-
ern Europe have been evacuated -from those
regions to Luanda hecause_their safety could
no longer be assured.
Angolan leaders nonetheless defend their
revolution. "We have achieved a lot of things
already,"said Foreign Minister Jorge, citing
improvements in the :country's literacy rate
and' in infant mortality. "Maybe it's not
enough for-what the-Angolan people expect-
ed and what they are entitled to, but don't
forget that since 1961 it-he year the MPLA
and a rival liberation group launched their
struggle against the Portuguese) our people
have not: known one single day of peace."' -
rt
979. Dos Santos, then planning minister, ;4t
;as the compromise choice to replace him.
dmirer said. "He doesn't think the answer {1'sf
..
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A sow and brood root through garbage in one of Luandas shantytowns. In background, women draw water from well
Approved For Release 2007/11/16: CIA-RDP85M00364R001602930100-3