ANGOLA: NEAR-TERM PROSPECTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP97S00289R000200230003-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 9, 2011
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: January 24, 1984
• Content Type: SNIE

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Director of Central Intelligence Secr4t
25X1
Special National Intelligence Estimate
Angola:
Near-Term Prospects
Key Judgments
S ret
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SNIE 71-84
ANGOLA:
NEAR-TERM PROSPECTS
KEY JUDGMENTS
The full text of this Istimalr is
bring published separately with regular (list ribution
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THIS ESTIMATE IS ISSUED BY THE DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL
INTELLIGENCE.
THE NATIONAL FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE BOARD CONCURS,
EXCEPT AS NOTED IN THE TEXT.
The following intelligence organizations participated in the preparation of the
Estimate:
The Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security
Agency, and the intelligence organization of the Department of State.
Also Participating:
The Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Department of the Army
The Director of Naval Intelligence, Department of the Navy
The Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence, Department of the Air Force
The Director of Intelligence, Headquarters, Marine Corps
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KEY JUDGMENTS
The Angolan Government will continue to lose ground to the
I'NITA insurgents over the next year, particularly in the rural areas,
although we do not expect dramatic net changes in the overall
military situation. UNITA-which has 35,000 men under arms and
conducts sustained guerrilla activities in 12 of Angola's 16 provinces-
will continue to make advances, particularly in the northeast where
the economically important diamond mines and coffee plantations
are located, but UNITA will remain unable to defeat the Angolan and
Cuban forces that hold the major cities and key garrisons. (Luanda has
a 35,000-man Army and 65,000-man People's Militia, and Havana's
military contingent numbers about 30,000, of which an estimated
23,000 are combat troops.)
Spreading insurgent activity will cause Soviet and Cuban backers
to increase their already high level of support to the besieged regime.
Cuban forces may be further augmented, and they are likely to
become more actively involved in the fighting. The Soviets, who have
warned the South Africans they will give Luanda all the support
necessary to protect Angola's territorial integrity, will increase their
commitment to the MPLA regime by sending more arms, supporting a
more active Cuban role, and even increasing their advisory presence as
conditions dictate. We believe that the Soviets have not yet decided
how far they will go to preserve the MPLA regime. While we think
Moscow will stop short of sending its own ground combat troops to
Angola during the next year, there is a growing possibility it will send
pilots, air defense crews, and additional advisers. The chances of
intervention would increase if, in the long run, Cuban forces are unable
to stabilize the military situation.
Despite the probable increase in Soviet and Cuban involvement in
the Angolan conflict, we do not expect the insurgents to suffer major
reverses. The additional Communist assistance, however, will probably
slow the UNITA offensive and will improve the MPLA's capability to
hold on to major urban centers.
Moscow's growing military commitment to Angola reflects Luan-
da's importance to broader Soviet objectives: namely, undermining
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Western influence throughout the Third World, competing with the
Chinese, promoting pro-Soviet change, and obtaining greater air and
naval access in the region. Angola serves Soviet objectives in southern
Africa by affording the USSR entree to the SWAPO and ANC insurgent
groups, which supports Moscow's long-term objective of undermining
the white minority regime in South Africa.
In our view, Moscow could maintain its current level of support,
and even increase it significantly, without feeling pressured to reexam-
ine its position in Angola. Havana, in addition to being ideologically
committed to the MPLA regime, will follow Soviet preferences as long
as the costs of its involvement in Angola do not rise precipitously, such
as by a sharp rise in casualties.
Angola faces an acute financial crisis as burgeoning investment
costs in the petroleum and diamond sectors and a heavy debt service
obligation for foreign military supplies and technicians consume
almost all of the country's hard currency earnings. Overall, GDP
probably will drop at least another 5 to 10 percent over the next year as
a result of Luanda's inability to increase imports of essential goods and
the steady drop in economic activities as UNITA sabotage teams move
farther north. Luanda's efforts to obtain financial relief, particularly
from Western sources, are not likely to be very successful. The
continuing economic decline in Angola probably will prompt Luanda to
ask Moscow for further concessions in their bilateral economic relation-
ship-such as delaying repayments for military assistance-which the
Soviets are likely to grant.
The political balance within the MPLA will remain delicate over
the next year. Ideological factionalism and related racial tensions
between mulattoes and blacks are major sources of friction within the
regime that will continue to impede significant decisionmaking. The
military successes of Jonas Savimbi's UNITA over the past year,
however, appear to have narrowed differences between principal
MPLA factions-the mulatto-led, pro-Soviet, more ideological hard-
liners and the more moderate, pragmatic black nationalists-on the
necessity for an increased military effort against Savimbi's insurgents. '
' The Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Department of State, prefers the term "Lara faction" to
"hardliners" and accepts the use of the term "hardliners" in the context of this paper only as indicating that
this group in the Angolan Government has consistently advocated close ties with the Soviet Union and its
Communist allies, that many within it appear committed to Marxist-Leninist ideology, and that the group as
a whole opposes any form of political accommodation with UNITA. State/INR believes that, regardless of
these labels, there are few in the government who would take exception to Angola's "hardline" position
against South Africa and UNITA.
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Although President dos Santos has reduced somewhat the power of the
hardliners in the MPLA over the past two years-while undercutting
the black nationalists even more-we still believe that no major decision
can be made without the hardliners' agreement. Moreover, we believe
that dos Santos cannot overly antagonize the hardliners even on lesser
matters without running the risk of a move against him by this faction,
particularly since we believe that the hardliners retain strong influence
in the military and intelligence services.
UNITA's strategy is to force the MPLA into a negotiated settle-
ment. VNITA's leaders apparently recognize that they cannot militarily
defeat the NIPLA regime as long as the Cubans and Soviets remain in
Angola. However, bl/ crippling the Angolan economtl and raising the
cost of the conflict to unacceptable levels, the L'NITA leadership
believes it ultimately can force the MPLA to a negotiated settlement.
The South Africans, for their part, probably are satisfied with the
results over the past year of their policy toward Angola. At a minimum,
Pretoria probably calculates that the inability of Luanda to part with
Cuban troops has eased pressure on South Africa to agree to a Namibian
settlement. Furthermore, South Africa also probably believes that time
is on the side of the UNITA insurgents, despite increased Soviet and Cu-
ban assistance. Consequently, we expect South Africa to continue its
current policij directions, to talk about negotiating with Luanda while
keeping up the militant pressure on the MPLA regime, with the long-
term intention of driving its Soviet and Cuban backers out of Angola.
Some South African policymakers, including senior military offi-
cers, wish to pursue an international settlement on Namibia that
provides for a Cuban withdrawal from Angola. Some individuals may
believe that UNITA can win a military victory over the MPLA. Pretoria
would prefer a solution that included a Cuban removal, an MPLA-
UNITA reconciliation, and the establishment of a non-SWAPO-domi-
nated government in Namibia, but most of the leadership realizes that it
is unlikely to attain all these goals.
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