POVERTY GRIPS POTENTIALLY RICH MARXIST ANGOLA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88B00443R001404090089-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 23, 2008
• Sequence Number: 89
• Publication Date: October 7, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2008/05/27: CIA-RDP88B00443R001404090089-0
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y 11
Iotei Lia l
ich
I
,Alarxist Angola
By Glenn Frankel
W..;h ,,;tun F'n,t. Foreign Service
LUANDA, Angola-On a ridge overlooking this
'port city sits a half-finished office building, a con-
struction crane perched on its roof. The building
and crane have remained frozen in time since
1975, the year the Portuguese abandoned this col-
ony, a symbol of the paralysis gripping an econ-
omy that could have been one of Africa's richest.
Twenty-two years of continuous war have left
-Angola an economic cripple, shattering its once
strong agricultural sector and stunting its indus-
.trial growth. Farm production has dropped an av-
erage of 10 percent a year'over the last decade;
Angola, which once exported food to Africa, Latin
..America and Europe, now imports 65 percent of
its needs.
Manufacturing has fallen 12 percent each year.
The war against South Africa and antigovern-
ment guerrillas is estimated to cost nearly $2 bil-
- lion a year, and the government has put total
damage to roads, railways,-bridges, factories and
refineries at $10 billion since 1975. 11
But the numbers don't begin to convey the full
extent of deprivation in this capital, whose pop-
ulat ion has swelled in 13 years from about 500,000
to nearly 1.5 million, most of them refugees from
the war and rural poverty.
The urlrtn landscape is dotted with row after
, ncllr>s row of one-room shanties made from tin,
cardboard and mud, here sanitation is primitive,
running alter sometimes a mile away, and where
children pl.ty in mound; of uncollected trash.
The hriz;ht, p,,stt?l-p;iinted shops and cafes
downtu%%n that once gave this city a reputation as
the Rio de Janeiro. of Africa are almost all shut
down, their shelves barren and' tables empty. Peo-
pie line up for hours each day outside the'few.
open government shops where they wait with rar
Lion cards to buy the fey 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 theNa-
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 inure im-
portant. for my family." j
Government officials, while. laying most of the
blame on South African-supported
guerrillas and the world recession,
have begun to publicly concede their
own economic shortcomings. The
Popular Movement for the Libera-
tion of Angola, the faction-ridden
Marxist party that has ruled this
nation since independence, has an-
nounced a series of new programs to
turn the economy around.
Although the Marxists came to
power promising economic justice for
Angola's poor masses, recent mea-
sures have a distinctly unegalitarian
air about them. Skilled workers who
contribute to the country's economic
recovery have been promised priority
in receiving scarce consumer goods
and new cars and permission to trav-
el abroad semiannually.
President Eduardo dos Santos,
while denying that these new mea-
sures establish a privileged elite, con-
ceded in a speech earlier this year
that "priority must be given to the
solution of the problems besetting
those who can effectively contribute
to a decisive solution of everyone's
problems once and for all."
Angola's chief economist, Minister
of Planning Lopo do Nascimento,
also indirectly criticized the govern-
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 save 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 been
one of Africa's economic success stories. It is
the continent's second largest producer of oil
after Nigeria, supplied one-ninth of the world's
diamonds in the early 1970s, has bountiful
supplies of other minerals and was once the
world's fourth largest coffee exporter.
But Angola under the Portuguese was sad-
dled with a top-heavy economy, with most of
the wealth and skills belonging to the
350,000 Europeans who lived here. When
they fled in 1975, following a 14-year liber-
ation struggle by the MPLA and two rival
'black nationalist groups, they took every-
thing from trucks to light bulbs and left be-
hind only a handful of skilled workers.
At first, the MPLA turned to the Soviet
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-
gola's government has more and more faced
west for the capital it needs to develop its
natural resources.
"We don't hide the fact that we want to
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 maior
trading partner by a wide margin is the
United States, which buys two-thirds of the
country's oil despite the fact that three suc-
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-
haps 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, where
they are assigned' the important task of
guarding western offshore oil installations.
But even oil has not lived up totally to its
potential. Due to the present worldwide glut,
production peaked at 180,000 barrels per
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ty, according to analysts here, far below
.',,is year's 250,000 target.
Angola's other major export, diamonds,'.
dso has not matched expectations. The Di-
!rnond Co. of Angola recently reported that
diamond production last year was 27 percent
below 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 MPLA 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
tiantos 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-
neva. Other officials, including some report-
Idly 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 years the MPLA leaders seemed ab-
solutely' incorruptible," one western source
said. ";They lived on the vision that they
were building a new future for Angola. Now,
with the future looking decidedly shaky and
their confidence gone, some have decided it's
time fo look after themselves."
The allegations of corruption have, report-
edly shaken dos Santos, 41, a Soviet-trained
engineer who has uneasily ruled.his party
>ince 1q79. Analysts here believe dos Santos
still attempting to consolidate his hold and
to steer a middle course between the
\IPLA's warring factions.
Those factions are said to roughly break
down between hardliners who are pro-Soviet
and committed to Marxist-Leninist ideology
and moderates who' argue for a pragmatic,
more western-oriented approach.
Agostinho Neto, the founding father of
the MPLA, was said to have been moving
away from the Soviets before his death in
1979. Dos Santos, then planning minister,
was the compromise choice to replace him.
"tie's not an ideological man," one western
admirer said. "He doesn't think the answer
to every problem can be found in Marxism." f
lint whether (1',s Sanlos can establish con-
trol over his feuding followers and stave btf
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 ag-
ricultural regions. Hundreds of agricultural
specialists from the Soviet Union and East-
ern Europe have been evacuated from those
regions to Luanda because 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."!
'?- t.3, .... a?~ _,~ss~:a.. .."w.s.~~.av`>:es ....J?J;.:.:h,. x<
- `. ay l.eon dash-The Washington Pos
A sow and brood root through garbage in one of Luanda's shantytowns. In background, women draw water from well.
Approved For Release 2008/05/27: CIA-RDP88B00443R001404090089-0