MIDDLE EAST AFRICA SOUTH ASIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00865A000200230001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 9, 2004
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 27, 1975
• Content Type: NOTES

Approved For Release 2004/08/17 : CIA-RDP79T00865A000200230001-5
Secret
OUIV~ Kgu~
Middle East
Africa
South Asia
Secret
1
No. 0418/75
January 27, 1975
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Egypt: Recession in West Will Harm Agricultural
Exporters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Angola: Daniel Chipenda Surfaces . . . . . . . . 2
Uganda: Amin Passes Four-Year Milestone . . 3
Jan 27, 1.975
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Egypt
Recession in West Will Harm Agricultural Exporters
Recession and balance-of-payments problems in
the West will have a severe impact on Egypt's
luxury-oriented agricultural export trade. This
would increase Egypt's financial dependence on other
Arabs and cause Cairo to take another look at its
agricultural development plans.
The cotton export season opened several months
ago, but no orders have been received from customers
in Western Europe, where the bulk of Egypt's extra-
long-staple cotton normally is sold. The Egyptians
may have to lower prices substantially when the com-
peting Sudanese crop goes on sale next month.
An Egyptian prediction that cotton export
receipts this year would drop by only $300 million
now appears overly optimistic. Total earnings may
be less than half of the record $822 million of 1974.
Egypt also may have great difficulty marketing
cut flowers, out-of-season vegetables, and other
luxury produce. Rising sales of such goods accounted
for much of the increase in Egypt's agricultural
export volume over the last decade. Falling demand
in Western Europe, a prime market, could wipe out
these gains.
In an effort to blunt some of the impact of
shrinking trade with the West, Cairo may be trying
to revise its recently negotiated 1975 trade protocol
with the USSR. Cairo had apparently already agreed
to step up shipments of manufactured goods to the
USSR in order to reduce its substantial debts, but
it may urge Moscow to accept surplus agricultural
products instead.
Such a revision would make available additional
domestically produced consumer goods to replace Western
imports, which can be bought only if Egypt gets extra
creditor more Arab cash, such as the $100 million
Kiang Faysal has just iven>
Jan 27, 1975
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Angola
Daniel Chipenda Surfaces
Daniel Chipenda, who bolted the Popular Move-
ment for the Liberation of Angola over a year ago
in a bitter leadership dispute with president
Agostinho Neto, announced last week in eastern.
Angola that he is ready for "immediate dialogue" with
the Portuguese government and the two other Angolan
liberation groups--the National Front for the Libera-
tion of Angola and the National Union for the Total
Independence of Angola. The Popular Movement, which
Chipenda had served as vice president, immediately
condemned him for creating "a civil war atmosphere."
Chipenda was excluded from independence nego-
tiations with the Portuguese earlier this month and
is attempting to work his way back into the political
mainstream. He is unlikely to have any luck operat-
ing as a free agent, however. Since he left the
Popular Movement, Chipenda has been able to obtain
only some modest support from Zairian President Mobutu
who had hoped that. Chipenda would be able to unseat
Neto. Mobutu and Neto are longtime enemies.
When Chipenda bolted the Movement he took about
2,000 armed supporters with him. Some of. these are
beginning to drift. back to that liberation group,
and others are joining the National. Front for the
Liberation of Angola. Chipenda himself probably
will join the National Front eventually, although
it is difficult to foresee a political role for him
in the transitional government. He is a skilled
military commander, but the Popular Movement and the
National Union would probably oppose his appointment
to any important position in the transitional govern-
Jan 27, 1975
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Uganda
Amin Passes Four-Year Milestone
General Idi Amin celebrated the fourth
anniversary of his rule on January 25. His
staying-power is somewhat puzzling in view of
the depredations of the ill-disciplined army,
public discontent with the stagnating economy,
shortages of necessities such as salt and sugar,
and a deterioration of educational and health
services. Within the armed forces Amin has conducted
purges of persons from tribes he did not trust and
has had officers he considered potential rivals
murdered. The danger to Amin of assassination by
individuals or small groups of military personnel
motivated by tribal revenge or ambition is never
far removed.
Paradoxically, Amin's unpredictable and erratic
behavior has probably contributed to his survival.
In keeping with his mercurial temperament, much of
his frequent travel about the country appears to
be on impulse and he rarely gives notice of his
itinerary. Moreover, he travels by helicopter
much of the time, making the task of an assassin
more difficult. He sometimes risks mingling with
crowds, but more often he avoids them.
Although some armed forces personnel are
known to be hostile to Amin, it appears likely that
the bulk of the military associate him with the
highly favored status he has given to the armed
forces and for this reason are inhibited from
conspiring against him. The armed forces sided
with Amin on two occasions when his rule was
challenged--once in September 1972 during a
Tanzanian-supported invasion of the south by Ugandan
exiles and again in March 1974 when fighting broke
out in the Kampala army garrison.
During the turbulent era since he overthrew
the civilian government, Amin has given the army
and air force priority in government spending. The
size of the army has doubled to about 17,000 men
during the past four years. At least 16 percent
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of the national budget goes for defense expenditures--
a bigger proportion than spent by most East African
states.
Most of the rank-and-file were formerly poor
peasants accustomed to existing near the subsistence
level; they are now well paid by Ugandan standards.
More than a few supplement their pay by using
their weapons to pepetrate robberies on hopeless
civilians. Many of the businesses taken by the.
government from Asians expelled in 1972 were assigned
by Amin to army officers. Periodic radio appeals
by Amin to officers and men urging them to train
regularly, not to drink excessively, and not to
treat civilians badly suggest that the Ugandan
soldier is not overburdened by the rigors of
discipline.
As for the civilian population, they are probably
weary of Amin but may not view him as the intolerable
tyrant he is seen to be by foreigners. Most Ugandans
applauded his deportation in 1972 of the Asian
minority that had made up the country's middle
class, and probably are sympathetic to his anti-British
and anti-foreign gestures. They probably do not
view his sounding--off on international matters as
particularly ludicrous. Amin's "common-man"
touch, his sense of melodrama, and the decisiveness
and personal courage he has sometimes displayed
in the face of danger probably have helped him
with the. Ugandan people.
Amin's profligate military spending and overall
economic bungling have unquestionably moved the
once-promising modern economy steadily downhill.
The impact of that slide is mitigated, however,
by the fact that the great majority of Ugandans
have always been poor. Moreover, the country's
unusually favorable agricultural situation makes
it possible for most Ugandans to grow enough to eat.
Most educated Ugandans who remain in the country
are fully aware of Amin's deficiencies, but are
cowed by him and his poorly educated, undisciplined
army. Many members of this class have fled.
Some are deeply involved in anti-Amin plotting from
their exile havens, notably Nairobi and Dar es Salaam,
Jan 27, 1975
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but they are divided by tribal and personal rivalries
and appear to have little prospect of offering any
real challenge to Amin's rule.
Jan 27, 1975 5
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