ANGOLA: THE POLITICAL DYNAMICS OF THE MPLA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91B00135R000601030009-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 7, 2010
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: May 5, 1983
• Content Type: REPORT

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/25: CIA-RDP91 B00135R000601030009-4
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/25: CIA-RDP91 B001 35R000601030009-4
Telephone:
Tri :41r. Ed. Sanders,. Staff Director
Committee on.Foreign Relations
United States Senate.
Washington. D.C.20510
This report, . Angola:-.The Political
Dynamics of the MPLA, has been prepared by
the Bureau of Intelligence and Research,
Department of State. It is being.made
-available with the. understanding that it will
be shown to MEMBERS*ONLY. Thank yon:::: for
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Office of External Affairs
.,Washington, D. C. 20505
 Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/25: CIA-RDP91 B001 35R000601030009-4
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(U) ANGOLA: THE POLITICAL DYNAMICS OF THE t4PLA
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Summary
(C) President dos Santos, who assumed the
leadership both of the Popular Movement for the
Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and of Angola in 1979,
has consolidated his political power by decreasing
.the importance of competing MPLA factions and
striving to maintain the semblance of party unity.
(C) The MPLA's ties with the Portuguese,
Soviet, and Cuban communist parties enabled it to
conduct a decade-long insurgency against the
Portuguese colonial government and to win--with
Soviet and Cuban military assistance--a civil war
against its rival liberation movements. Since
Angolan independence in November 1975, the MPLA has
divided into factions on racial and tribal issues
as well as questions of economic planning, military
tactics, and relations with the Soviet bloc.
(S/NF) Dos Santos would like to prevent the
internal violence that characterized the first
years of Angolan independence and to pursue para-
military operations against the UNITA insurgents of
Jones Savimbi. He is likely to continue to solid-
ify his position as national leader, although he
probably will face growing opposition from the
military.
(S/NF) When the MPLA assumed power in 1975,
it divided into two factions:
--The "internationalists" were a small cadre of
well-educated mulatto and black intellectuals
who had close ties to the Portuguese Communist
Party and who, for the most part, had lived
Declassify: OADR (multiple sources)
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INTELLIGENCE SOURCES AND
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Report 612-AR
May 5, 1983
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/25: CIA-RDP91 B001 35R000601030009-4