UNITA 1976
Source: The Workers’ Advocate [U.S.] Volume 6, Number 3, March 15, 1976;
Extracted from The Workers’ Advocate for the MIA Africa pages: by Paul Saba.
February -- 1976
"We shall support a government only after the masses have expressed their opinions: only through general elections, after peace has returned to the country, will it be possible to determine definitively who will be the nation's leaders." Dr. Jonas Savimbi November 11, 1975.
"We firmly believe in the need for the formation of a national army -- a people's defence force -- for we know that ideologically, in our conception of armed struggle and of the world, an army is an essential and decisive element for the seizure of power." Dr. Jonas Savimbi
"National unity can also be achieved by armed struggle. Unity is a goal in the national revolutionary process. Unity cannot be forged merely with words, it must manifest itself through action so that such unity may become a tangible experience in the daily life of the people." Dr. Jonas Savimbi December 31, 1975.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
| I. Introduction................................................................... | 1 |
| II. What is at stake............................................................ | 2 |
| III. Roots of the present conflict....................................... | 4 |
| IV. South Africa's game.................................................... | 6 |
| V. The failure of the OAU................................................ | 7 |
| VI. Distorted Press coverage on Angola.......................... | 8 |
| VII. The history of UNITA............................................... | 10 |
| VIII. What UNITA stands for............................................ | 13 |
| IX. Who will decide Angola's future............................... | 13 |
| X. Footnotes..................................................................... | 14 |
| XI. UNITA's Constitution................................................ | 15 |
I INTRODUCTION
After the April 25th coup d'etat in Portugal the very complexion of Africa shifted from steeled determination in the face of imperialism to exuberance. Who could have predicted that the oldest colonial power in Africa, one of the most fascist states in Europe would fall like a pack of cards under the march of history. African people had won the fight against colonialism in Angola, reflecting one of the most dynamic instances of triumph in contemporary African History.
Yet the same face of exuberance was soon to reflect anguish. Instead of reaping the fruits of victory in Pan-African Socialism, Angolans are today faced with a far more treacherous war. It has already condemned to violent death nearly twelve times more African people than fell during the whole 14 year long war against the Portuguese. They must today confront more sophisticated weaponry than they ever met against the Portuguese colonialists and, most repugnant of all, witness African massacre African in an externally fanned war without African benefit.
The background to the present civil war finds its roots in the colonial period during a time when all the outside world learned about the African resistance was contingent on which groups held the superpower hook-ups to promote an elaborate international propaganda mechanism. This propaganda often-times spiralled in its own independent orbit with but fanciful links to any actual activity in the field. The Portuguese encouraged public confusion on the relative strengths of each liberation movement. They would manipulate communiques so that an attack by one movement was attributed to another. The aim of this ploy was to discredit the most effective movement in Angola so that it would not develop the outside support base to intensify its own operations against the enemy. When the colonially-imposed veil of secrecy lifted after the Portuguese coup, there was only one movement which actually controlled vast liberated areas, and only one nationalist leader who had opted to direct his operations from inside Angola itself -- The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) lead by Dr. Jonas Savimbi.
It is to clarify issues of the present conflict in Angola that this pamphlet has been prepared. It also aims at redressing in part the injustice done to Angola's cause through false and distorted reporting by those whose own political self-interests conflict with the genuine independence of the Angolan people.
II WHAT IS AT STAKE
The diplomatic policy of non-alignment which Africa had adopted from the OAU's inception in 1963 offered the continent a means of neutralizing superpower war games on African soil. African governments refused the role of tropical pawns in the wars of European nations in the knowledge that the first through to the last casualties would be the African populations and their own economic development. But the sordid spectre of victimization to international manipulation has reared its vampirish claws in Angola. It threatens to abort the independence for which the Angolan people so bitterly struggled. It proposes as well a haunting scenario for the independent development of the entire African continent.
Thus the real issue at stake for Angola is whether the efforts of an African people who have braved tremendous sacrifices to win their freedom will be thwarted by those now trying to make up in military terms for popular ground lost during the actual struggle for independence. In terms of Soviet foreign policy -- Angola is a trade-off of sorts. Russian military intervention in Portugal would have violated the Helsinki agreement and the potential for further concessions from the west. The Soviet Union could however concentrate its efforts with practical impunity in attempting to win a military victory in Angola. It would then obtain new access to Africa through one of its potentially richest countries and realize its aim of constructing arms depots for the trans-shipment of military wares to any corner of Africa which might suit its political purposes. The stakes in playing the game on African soil are all the more favorable as the only real losers are the hapless Angolan people caught dead in the crossfire.
The point Russia is attempting to prove is that there is an easier way to gain power than to suffer in any massive way through the decades of ordeal entailed in liberation war. Let the colonialists and the African population fight it out and when the African victory is declared, then the self-righteous conquerors can descend from their mountain top with battalions of un-battle scarred tanks, 12,500 Cuban-Russian mercenaries, propaganda stuntsmen, and fill up the space left from departed colonialists and war-weary African population. During the fourteen year war against the Portuguese the Soviet Union invested a total of less than 2 million pounds a year in aid to the MPLA. This sum could be more than halved when one reckons the amounts paid out in bribes, propaganda and military hardware aimed at discrediting or physically eliminating all other liberation movements fighting desperately for African independence but not under the auspices of the Soviet Union. Why then after the defeat of the Portuguese, when the Angolan parties were supposedly preparing for democratic elections, did the Soviet Union spend over 60 million pounds to aid MPLA and today that figure hovers well over the 100 ($250) million mark?
Angolans did not suffer the excruciating centuries of colonialism and the horrors of the most recent fifteen years of continued colonial war to be subjected again to the iron fist rule of people who do not truly represent them. Angolans will never again submit to the domination of people they see as enemies, whether they be domestic or foreign. Neither UNITA, MPLA, FNLA nor South Africa, nor the powerful Soviet Union and America can defeat the will of the Angolan people to be free. All forces must come to recognize, as UNITA always has, the limits of military force and work for a political solution to Angola's crisis, that is, an Angolan Government of National Unity.
At UNITA's annual conference held December 31, 1975 in Silva Porto, Angola, the tenets of a National Unity Government were clearly laid out! It would be guided by the principle that no party alone must impose by sheer force, its will upon the people of Angola. The process of the formation of such a government would necessarily pass through the following stages:
1) Immediate ceasefire with pre-conditions, keeping all forces at their present positions.
2) Creation of a neutral force to implement the ceasefire.
3) Realization of a tripartite conference under the auspices of the OAU, to be held on the national territory, tor the formulation of a political solution to the conflict.
4) The formation of a Provisional Government of National Unity] to restore the climate of peace and work conducive to the realization of general elections in the country.
III ROOTS OF THE PRESENT CONFLICT
The April 25th coup forced a new willingness upon Portugal to negotiate with the three liberation movements for Angolan decolonization. The stumbling block was the disunity between the parties, further aggravated by violent factional feuds within MPL A itself. UNITA played the leading role m this reconciliation process, shuttling back and forth between the other two movements until multilateral ceasefire agreements were signed among the three groups. The Mombassa Conference held in January 1975 laid a common platform from which to compose the historic Alvor Agreement. This accord was signed on January 15, 1975 by FNLA, MPLA, UNITA and Portugal. The Agreement established among other things:
a) The territorial integrity of Angola with the inclusion of Cabinda.
b) The date for the total independence of the countrv -- November 11, 1975.
c) The formation of a national army by the integration of the military forces of the movements into a unified Angolan command.
d) The phasing out of all Portuguese military forces
e) The installation of a transitional government which would rule the country until the date of the proclamation of total independence.
f) Resolution of the problem of power transfer to the3 liberation movements by general elections.
The most contentious point of the accord stipulated the integration of the military forces of the movements into a unified command. Only one of the three movements -- UNITA -- proceeded to implement this tenet, presenting each month its quota of 500 men.
The Transitional Government faced a multitude of difficulties and collapsed: (a) There was no national army or police force with which to maintain public order and enforce the law; (b) The members of the Government had no administrative experience, and their partisan politics undermined seriously their ability to govern evenhandedly; (c) Portugal who still had a responsibility to lead the way during this critical transitional phase was treacherously one-sided and openly promoted the MPLA.
It is also important to recognize that the prospect of general elections was not received with equal enthusiasm by all three movements. Polls taken by the Portuguese, the OAU, foreign and internal media alike affirmed that UNITA would clearly carry a minimum 55 percent of the Angolan electorate with the remaining 45 percent being shared between FNLA and MPLA. Increasingly evident that MPLA would not receive an honourable showing through elections, it then began moving decisively to shift the issue of who would determine Angola's future from the ballot box to the battlefield. The strategy to undertake such a course of action was apparently proposed months earlier as evidenced in a newly uncovered secret document from the communist governor of Angola to Agostinho Neto, MPLA's President, written in December 1974.
Fighting erupted in March, first sporadically then with increasing continuity. Several ceasefire agreements were signed but broken almost immediately. Arms distribution by MPLA to civilians in Luanda became commonplace. Because of further factional splits, MPLA member-lists were too small to themselves sustain an anarchical situation in the capital which would disrupt the possibility of elections. Consequently young teenagers of 12 and 13 years old were enlisted and armed with automatic weapons without, however, being given any serious training in their proper use. Arms build-up multiplied along with the presence of foreign advisors, adding to the growing aversion of the people to foreign intrusion. Finally, the MPLA integrated 4,000 Katangese mercenaries (2) into its forces, further betraying the people's sense of justice in its self-proclaimed cause.
MPLA was by this time heavily armed by the Soviet Union. (3) But in fact even before the formal establishment of Transitional Government let alone the outbreak of actual war, MPLA was receiving steadily augmenting supplies of Soviet weaponry. In August of 1974 the Tanzanian press publicized the arrival of a Soviet cargo plane carrying a shipment of arms valued at $6 million destined for MPLA. In October 1974, three months before the Alvor Agreement establishing the transitional government, the Soviet Union re-routed military wares for MPLA to the port of Pointe-Noire, Congo-Brazzaville and to that country's airport at Maya-Maya.
On June 4th, UNITA's office in Luanda was razed by an MPLA armed attack in which scores of women and children who had been attending literacy classes on its premises were maimed or and killed. On June 10 a similar attack occurred in Gabela; on June 30 in Cassamba; on June 15 in Henrique de Carvalho. In view of the rapidly deteriorating situation, the Nakuru summit conference was convened at the initiative of UNITA. The Nakuru Agreement was a reminder to the Alvor Agreement and called for an effective ceasefire, peace, tolerance and realization of elections and cessation of all acts of provocation. The agreement was signed in mid-June but was broken three weeks later by a new wave of violence between MPLA and FNLA. MPLA likewise increased its attacks on UNITA. on July 22 at Kalabo; July 30 Lukusse and August 5. the firing on a plane carrying Dr. Savimbi in Silva Porto.
UNITA was at this point forced to counter this offensive and entered the civil war. Moreover, Cuba has to this date, provided MPLA with 12.500 armed troops (4)and there are over 1,000 Russian military advisors' and still more technicians from Eastern Europe to augment MPLA's army. Thus the present situation finds the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Cuba, the U.S. and others involved directly or indirectly in the Angolan civil war.
IV SOUTH AFRICA'S GAME
In July of 1975 the racist apartheid regime of South Africa launched its own invasion of Southern Angola. It justified its aggression in terms of protecting its interests in the Cunene Dam project. What is not commonly known is that in response to that invasion, an integrated force of UNITA-MPLA-FNLA who were at the time positioned along the dam construction site (on behalf of the Transitional Government) were defeated by the invading South Africans. The issue of alliances around this sordid matter were fast distorted by MPLA's international propaganda machine and by their access to journalists based exclusively in Luanda. MPLA's reasons for attempting to tie UNITA to the racist South African Government are clear. South Africa's designs in fueling the rumor campaign are more intricate.
South Africa's most persistent military threat in recent years has been attacks by the liberation movement SWAPO (5) against the South African racists who illegally occupy Namibia. SWAPO could not have stepped up its guerrilla activities against South Africa as it has done in the past months were it not for their intimate cooperation with UNITA. SWAPO has throughout the history of their liberation'struggle, fought alongside UNITA, shared with them bases and supplies, military victories and defeats. But because of SWAPO's backing by the Soviet Union they were compelled to share diplomatic platforms with MPLA in the international arena. (6)
Today SWAPO has a force of over 3.000 guerrillas encamped in UNITA bases in Southern Angola. The escalation of SWAPO guerrilla attacks into Namibia over the past months conclusively confirms UNITA's stand against apartheid South Africa. South Africa recognizes all too well that the only way to effectively dislodge SWAPO is to first DESTROY UNITA. Thus the racist regime hoped to discredit UNITA before her progressive supporters and thereby "kill a trio of birds with one stone".
President Jonas Savimbi has repeatedly called on all African nations who are earnestly concerned with removing the South African scourge from Angolan soil to act jointly in tackling this menace. The Annual Conference of UNITA (Silva Porto, December 31. 1975) reiterated the demand for the total withdrawal of all South African troops now occupying Angolan national territory.
V THE FAILURE OF THE OAU
The Organisation of African Unity meeting in Addis Ababa in January 1976 failed to reach any decisive formula to solve the Angolan crisis. This failure, which was skillfully promoted by both superpowers and their puppet forces fighting in Angola, enabled all restraints to be lifted from Soviet aggression against our people, for the failure to find an African solution to an African problem enabled, in their eyes, justification for a superpower solution, namely a Soviet one.
For UNITA, this means that we must double our vigilance and determination to free our people and we therefore must reiterate our appeal to all progressive forces the world over to assist us in every way possible. We can no longer expect from the Organisation of African Unity any decisive leadership in our struggle when they reconvene in the near future but again must expect the divisions perpetrated by the superpowers to rear their ugly heads once more.
There are four main basic causes for this failure which are:
1. The internal weakness of the Organisation which stems from the lack of an outstanding, strong unifying and coaching leadership.
2. The tendency for OAU member countries to yield to non- African pressures -- the Soviet Union pressured many, blackmailed some, and bribed a few Heads of State.
3. A unifying, Pan-African ideology has not been developed and put into practice; African countries are still overwhelmed by the economic strength of the East-West axis to which they tend to cater, thus reducing the Organisation to an aggregate of East- West client states, and finally,
4. Politicians are failing to distinguish cause from effect in the Angolan civil war; the war has become militarily very big and politically very complex; it is a war created by the massive military intervention of Russia and Cuba to which other powers decided to respond militarily; unfortunately, instead of condemning all foreign intervention the issue has become clouded by the presence of South African troops on Angolan soil. Most of the delegates at the OAU summit did not go to Addis Ababa to resolve the Angolan crisis but rather to discuss the South African issue -- not to resolve it but rather to engage in familiar rhetoric.
The lack of resolution by the OAU has strengthened the superpower hold in Africa and terefore UNITA's definition of TOTAL INDEPENDENCE becomes an even greater priority in the surge for African freedom.
VI DISTORTED PRESS COVERAGE ON ANGOLA
The role of the media as a powerful instrument in any situation, whether it be reactionary or progressive, must never be underestimated. The coverage of events in Angola, however, have proved conclusively to the people of Angola that the Western media is a force attempting to manipulate events rather than report them.
Rather than seek out facts, freely available and accessible to them, newsmen from all parts of the western hemisphere have chosen two paths: either to sit in the bars of Lusaka and Kinshasa and create the news among themselves, each reporter acting as the others' source of information (how often have you seen the words "from a reliable source"), or to base themselves permanently in Luanda (considered "safe" by all of them) allowing their stories to be fed to them by the MPLA-Soviet-Cuban propaganda machine and deliberately participating in feeding the world lies about the civil war.
On many occasions UNITA cadres have offered to take newsmen to the front line in Angola to determine for themselves whether UNITA is fighting with South African forces or net A large number have refused while those who accepted continued either to perpetuate the lie (still not based on evidence) or maintained silence on the basis that the sensationalism generated by the lies was "newsworthy" A tiny number of reporters (the number that can be counted on one hand) have, however, maintained their integrity in the search for truth but have been betrayed by editors who refused tc print their stories.
Many of UNITA's supporters have been perplexed and disheartened by the reports in the Western media and continuously ask why UNITA did not refute the allegations made against it. In fact UNITA has consistently denied these allegations of South African collusion with the movement ever since the lie was first reported, (in late October, early November 1975). However suffering from the fate of many liberation movements, our cadres' statements have largely gone unreported, misquoted and. many times, just downright distorted. Television interviews have been cut from one hour or 30 minutes, most of which the time was spent dealing with the South African issue, to 30 seconds when the only question that comes across is UNITA's reaction to USA or Russian involvement. Taped interviews for prominent papers such as The Times of London, The Manchester Guardian, the New York Times, etc, all of which were solicited by these papers, have appeared with gross distortions and statements made up by the reporter or editor but attributed to the UNITA interviewee. Pictures have appeared showing a white person in UNITA held territory with captions such as "South African forces aid UNITA" when in fact, the person concerned in the picture is a doctor working in Silvo Porto. Note the nature of the caption since often they are so vague a law suit cannot be brought against the paper, however, the implication is there.
The South African lie is not the only one perpetuated by the media. Such statements assigning UNITA as pro-Western or CIA- aided continue day by day the stream of abuse against the Movement. Constantly UNITA has attempted to retaliate by writing articles, letters, making telephone calls to elusive editors, but to this day the truth has yet to be printed since the aim is once again to confuse cause with effect. For example, if it is reported that UNITA forces are being thrashed by the advancing Cuban army many of UNITA's allies in Africa will begin to withdraw their support, not wishing to be associated with a losing side, which in turn will create a shortage of supplies to the front and weaken the military capacity of UNITA's armies. Instead of the story eminating from the reality, it instead created the reality, and caused it to take shape after a lapse of time. This, in effect, is what has been happening to UNITA.
The effect of the South African lie, the CIA lie, the pro-Western and anti-communist labels, the lie of military defeats nave lost UNITA many of its traditional friends and allies. However, there are lessons to be learnt which obviously have still not been digested by progressives in the world, despite the history of Vietnam, Cambodia, and the experiences of many movements throughout the world. These lessons, exposing the enemy in all its manifestations including so-called liberal to outright fascist, by their very nature conclude the necessity to establish an alternative media with its own independent investigative processes and sources of information.
UNITA's resolve has not weakened despite this barrage of abuse and history will exonerate the Movement for its continued integrity and its stated objectives and policies, and its vigilance in the face of its enemies.
VII THE HISTORY OF UNITA
Dr. Jonas Savimbi was often called by the Portuguese colonialists the most dangerous man in Angola. The movement UNITA which he founded, was formally constituted in the central Angolan village of Muangai in March of 1966. The armed struggle for the liberation of Angola had erupted in March 1961. It was preceded a month earlier by an unsuccessful attempt by MPLA supporters to storm a Luanda prison. (7) The political climate had by 1961 clearly attained a fervent tenor of anti-colonial insurrection. Frantz Fanon described the beginnings of this struggle thus:
"We may remember that on the 15th March 1961 a group of 2 or 3 thousand Angolan peasants threw themselves against the Portuguese positions. And... it must be added that thousands of Angolans were mown down by colonialist machine guns. It did not take long for the leaders of the Angolan uprising to realise that they must find some other methods if they really wanted to free their country. So during the last few months the Angolan leader Holden Roberto has reorganised the National Angolan Army, using the experience gained in various other wars of liberation and employing guerrilla techniques." (8)
However, by 1964 the Angolan liberation war had reached an impasse. A tendency commonly manifest in puppet governments began to show in this instance as well. It was an increasing dependency of the liberation movements on outside support. Such relatively high-level aid dissipated the initiatives for building strong internal support for their movements. It was in fact this profound issue of levels and timing of support which so starkly differentiated MPLA from her substantially more effective diplomatic allies FRELIMO and PAIGC, all of whom held together in the alliance called CONCP. The latter two movements had early established a solid leadership core and revolutionary infrastructure inside their respective countries. The aid they later received was consequently much more a complement to their own efforts at liberating their countries, not a substitute for it as occurred with MPLA.
Occasional forays across the Zambian or Zaire borders followed by a quick retreat to foreign base areas had also begun to seriously alienate the peasantry and create an obstacle to further development of the resistance movement. The peasant population resented the tactics whereby roving guerrilla bands would move in and out of combat zones while the peasantry fixed permanently on the terrain had to suffer unaided, vicious Portuguese reprisals.
When UNITA was formed in 1966 it proposed a new strategy to the evolution of the struggle. Rather than concentrate the resources of the movement on gaining international support (and manipulation), UNITA's headquarters and leadership would be permanently established inside the country. The bonds which must be developed between the leadership and the masses could only solidify when the leadership was in day-to-day contact with the people they claimed to serve. In order to overcome the hesitation, the fears of the peasantry, it was the leaders first who had to offer an example of total dedication to the cause they were espousing. The leaders then lived, ate, slept, worked and died alongside the people.
From this vantage point the guerrillas could assume the initiative in the fight against the Portuguese. By maintaining complete contact with the peasantry and studying at close quarters the factors specific to this population and this war, UNITA succeeded in implanting within Angola's core an infrastructure for revolutionary warfare. The peasants at the beginning armed only with bows and arrows were in a short time able to multiply their supplies with carefully planned attacks on Portuguese arsenals Through an intense campaign of mobilisation, a diffuse and sporadic resistance evolved into an efficient and tightly- structured liberation movement. The liberated areas, used as rear bases for launching attacks became complex structures for training guerrillas, providing rudimentary educational and medical facilities to the civilian population and experimental agricultural techniques to increase the productivity of the land.
The emphasis which the organisation gave to the peasantry was not to imply that the level of political consciousness among that group was inherently advanced. The program of the party was first presented to them. Party cadres would enter the villages, and live with the local population in order to grasp the real existing problems. At this stage, as they were becoming familiarized with the situation, they were in fact the students of the masses. Subsequently the party was able to produce a concrete program. And it was at this stage, once the analysis was made that the masses became the students of the Party cadres, manifesting the permanent relationship between the vanguard party and the people. The Angolan peasantry responded to concrete facts that affected their daily life under Portuguese colonialism such as forced labour in mines and coffee plantations, exceedingly high taxes and starvation wages, the non-existence of schools for their children. When they consciously and voluntarily accepted the means of fighting against these injustices, then they would form m their local viflage a political committee-which made their own decisions, produced their own food, and created their own militia along the lines of self-reliance. From this low-level of political mobilisation carried out over long periods among the peasantry the party moved to a higher level of political education. Step by step consciousness was enhanced. It was through this process that the rural population was integrated into the armed struggle. UNITA's military wing, "The Armed forces of Liberation" (FALA), was so organised around the slogan "revolution and reconstruction" that they served not only as a fighting instrument, but as an instrument for production and mobilisation as well. In the evenings the guerrilla officers would lay down their arms and offer instruction to the people.
Through this process, UNITA was consolidated in the rural areas and then expanded to urban areas as well, operating in clandestine cells. By the time of the coup d'etat in Portugal, UNITA clearly controlled the Angolan countryside, not through force of arms, but through its acts of leadership and devotion to Angola's liberation. Because of UNITA's methods of struggle, she was able to galvanize massive popular support, particularly in the rural areas. And as Angola is a rural country with a 90 percent majority, its popularity was translated into overwhelming polling power.
VIII WHAT UNITA STANDS FOR
UNITA's structure and ideological position are subject to constant critical analysis from the highest echelons of leadership to the peasant in the village. It is this factor of permanent criticism at times called permanent revolution that has enabled the Party to reflect the interests of the masses of the people dictated by the people themselves.
The Constitution of UNITA specifically and clearly states the structure and ideological base of the Party and therefore we feel it better to reproduce in total the document, rather than elaborate on a flowery basis.
IX WHO WILL DECIDE ANGOLA'S FUTURE
The international interests vying for the privilege of determining what political course Angola will take are now actively manifest. And so the Angolan people,combative victims of nearly 500 years of Portuguese colonialism, find themselves today tragic prey to a massive Soviet military manoeuvre in Angola.
It is imperative that Africa now clearly recognizes the compelling need in Angola for a government of national unity. For any less would assure the further victimization of Angola's people to ugly fratricidal struggle and even more intense superpower manipulation.
Through militant participation in the armed struggle against colonialism, the Angolan people have demonstrated to the world their political maturity to decide and join fully in the total reconstruction of their country. The real question today shorn of all propagandistic underhangings, is whether these war-weary people will be allowed to decide through democratic elections and despite superpower meddling, their own future. No less than the long-range security of Africa itself will pivot on that answer.
X FOOTNOTES
(1) Angola is one of the largest and wealthiest areas on the African continent, richly endowed with vast deposits of oil, diamonds, gold, and a score of other natural resources.
(2) These Katangese were the Congolese secessionists of the early 1960's who were well remembered throughout Africa for their role in killing Patrice Lumumba.
(3) MPLA was equipped with tons of Russian AK-47 automatic rifles, Kalashnikov sniper rifles, Tokarev pistols, SAM-7 heat- seeking missiles, wire-guided missiles, 122 mm rockets and rocket launchers, amphibious tanks, T-54 tanks, GTR armoured personnel carriers, PPSH submachine guns, SKS semi-automatic rifles, AKM assault rifles, six-wheeled trucks, etc.
(4) One Cuban soldier captured when he was cornered by a village woman in UNITA territory and pelted with stones, evinced confusion and dismay that fie had been briefed before leaving Cuba that he was going over to fight a war of independence. But when he arrived he realized that he was involved in a civil war and the Cubans were the only foreign troops he saw. Another Cuban was bitter about MPLA troops who deserted their Cuban allies at Sa da Bandeira when it was recaptured by UNITA on October 25.
(5) South West African Peoples Organisation
(6) MPLA had throughout the course of the anti-colonial struggle accused SWAPO of bartering supplies to UNITA for their assistance. MPLA demanded in vain that SWAPO help them in liquidating UNITA from Southern Angola. With SWAPO's refusal MPLA then sought to have the Namibian movement derecognized by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) Liberation Committee
(7) MPLA which was formed in 1956 had evolved from the Angolan branch of the Portuguese Communist Party. It was Alvaro Cunhal who in fact in 1964 organized direct contacts for Agostinho Neto with the Kremlin. It was much later, an evolution of this already established political relationship which promised Neto massive Soviet support in provoking civil war.
(8) Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, MacGibbon and Keel, 1965, p. 107.
[Photo: Jonas Savimbi, leader of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), receives a warm welcome after the liberation of the port of Lobito.]
XI UNITA'S CONSTITUTION
Art. 1: Definition:
UNITA, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, is a revolutionary party of all the Angolans struggling for the liberation and national reconstruction of the country.
Art. 2: Structure:
UNITA is organised administratively and militarily as follows:
1) the Nation, the Province, the District, the Council and the Village.
a) on the national level there is the Congress held every four years; the Annual Conference; the Political Bureau; and the Central Committee.
The Supreme Organ of UNITA is the Congress formed by all the delegates of the basic organisations, the Political Bureau and the Central Committee.
The Congress evaluates and reviews the development of the struggle every four years and establishes in general lines the policy of the party. The Congress reviews the Constitution, the programme of the party and elects all the members of the Political Bureau and Central Committee.
The Annual Conference is the organ formed by the delegates from the Political Bureau, Central Committee, Armed Forces and the People's Assembly. The Annual Conference formulates the policy of the party and establishes the Internal Regulations of the Party.
The Political Bureau is the Executive organ which implements the policy approved by the Congress and by the Annual Conference. The Political Bureau is composed of 10 members elected by the Congress who are proposed by the President after he himself is elected by the delegates of the Congress.
The Central Committee is the organ which safeguards the implementation of the policy decided by the Annual Conference and whenever asked the Central Committee can assist the Political Bureau and Central Committee in consultation with the General Secretary of the Party.
UNITA adopts three principles as methods of work:
1) Collective leadership.
2) Democratic Centralism.
3) Criticism and Self-criticism.
(a) in each province and district function a provincial and district Committee elected by the inhabitants.
(b) on the Council level functions a People's Assembly also elected by its own inhabitants.
(c) the Village is the basic unit of our organisation. On its level function a local committee equally elected by its own inhabitants.
(d) the Cells are composed of 3 to 9 people. They function in all administrative levels of the party. Their functioning is necessary where the work of the party is clandestine as the only vehicle to spread the party ideas.
2) The FALA's Structure is as follows:
A) on the National level:
a) the Military High Command which defines the strategy of the struggle for all the national forces.
b)the General Chief of Staff which defines the tactics of the struggle from the defined strategy of the Military High Command.
B) On the Regional level;
a) the Military Region.
b) the Regional Chief of Staff.
C) On the District Level:
a) the Military District
b) the District Command formed by guerrillas and sentries of the people.
D) On the Military Council there is a command of the Council formed by the guerrillas and sentries of the people.
E) On the level of the village there is a local force formed by the sentries of the people.
Art. 3: The Immediate Aims of UNITA:
To continue the mobilisation of all Angolans especially the peasants, workers, revolutionary intellectuals in order to establish a firm base for the struggle for national liberation.
1. To struggle vigorously against tribalism which can be a 'latent enemy of our national unity.
2. To struggle against illiteracy and to increase the political consciousness of the Angolan people.
3. To unite all the Angolan forces susceptible of being united in order to tirelessly struggle against colonial domination.
4. To educate constantly the Angolan people in the light of the protracted and cruel struggle in order to achieve a true national independence.
5. To intensify the process of reconstruction of the liberated areas in order to conquer immediately the moral and material well-being of the inhabitants until national reconstruction.
6. To teach the militants of UNITA about the necessity of class struggle with the process of the National Democratic revolution, in order to
a) maintain the leadership of the struggle in the hands of the most ideological advanced elements of our society.
b) to guarantee the continuity and sequence of the National Democratic revolution with a socialist revolution in order to safeguard the interests of the most oppressed class in our country, because only a socialist revolution guarantees the just distribution of the means of production.
7. To denounce all the defeatist tendencies which often count on the goodwill of the enemy for the solution of the problem of national independence.
Art. 4: United Democratic Front in Angola
Unity of all the fighting forces in Angola for national independence is a necessity for victory. In Angola, experience has proved that without unity of all the patriotic forces, victory over our enemy becomes more difficult because efforts will be spent on false objectives.
1) UNITA is ready to participate in a large democratic front with other Angolan political movements struggling with arms.
2) A united front in order to be democratic must engage all the Angolan patriots, all political and nationalist groups, trade union organisations and student organisations which are opposed to Portuguese colonialism. But a true unity which can resist imperialist intrigues must be based on clear ideological principles reinforced in practice by the process of class struggle.
3) UNITA is ready to join a still much larger front among all the revolutionary forces in Southern Africa against the racist minority regimes which are enslaving our respective peoples. The genuine revolutionary forces which are struggling in the Continent of Africa must establish a common strategy in the struggle against our enemy. We must oppose the reactionary unity of the enemy with a revolutionary unity in order to reach our objectives.
4) UNITA is equally ready to take part in a much larger front of all the progressive forces of the world in the common struggle against colonialism and imperialism in order to safeguard the interests of peace, liberty, democracy and socialism.
5) To maintain and reinforce more and more the independent nature of our struggle in relation to outside assistance.
Art. 5: Membership
Every Angolan who accepts and struggles for the implementation of the major programme of UNITA can become a member of the party
The admission of new members is made by recommendation of two party members and approved by one of the organs of the party on a lower level, such as the Local Committee.
Art 6: On National Policy
On the National level UNITA struggles for:
1) to establish in Angola a government of the African majority without outside interference.
2) to free and develop all the productive forces of the country.
3) to free all the political prisoners detained by colonial regime.
4) to reconquer our total national independence.
5) to organise general elections for the formation of a national Assembly according to the principles of universal franchise of secret and direct vote. All sexes over 18 years will have the right to a vote.
6) the National Assembly will be the supreme body in Angola. All the deputies of the National Assembly will enjoy parliamentary immunity. The National Assembly will write the Constitution which will guarantee the fundamental rights of all the citizens. The Constitution will have to be approved by the people through a Referendum before it is enforced.
7) to guarantee the territorial integrity of Angola.
8) to promote a free national education from primary schools up to university.
9) to promote an authentic Angolan and African culture, and to fight against obscurantism.
10) to guarantee the emancipation of Angolan women.
11) to protect the family and the children.
12) to promote an agrarian reform on the national territory with the principle that the land belongs to those who till it. Land must be considered as a communal property and never a private property.
13) to guarantee the equality of all Angolans before the law without discrimination.
14) to promote a planned economy in order to develop fully all the resources, human and material potentialities which guarantee the construction of socialism in Angola.
15) Mint a national currency.
16) to abolish all the privileges rendered by the colonial regime.
17) to abolish every form of forced labour and the exploitation of human labour in every part of our national territory.
18) to create a national army for the defence of the motherland. The national army will be formed by the veterans of the liberation war who have along the years of struggle learned how to serve the people above their own lives.
19) to assure the participation of the people in the leadership of all the internal and external affairs of the country in order to maintain the best revolutionary tradition of a people's democracy.
Art. 7: On Foreign Policy
1) to eliminate all foreign military bases on the national territory.
2) no participation in any military alliance pact.
3) to practice a progressive policy which guarantees our independence and national sovereignty.
4) to nullify all the unjust and unequal treaties created by the Portuguese colonial regime on behalf of Angola.
5) to support without reservations all the movements which are genuinely fighting for the liberation of Africa.
6) to support completely and entirely the struggle of all the brothers of African descent at home and abroad.
7) to subscribe to the principles of the United Nations Charter on the basis of "no interference in the internal affairs of the member countries, big or small".
Art 8: Finance
The funds of the party will come from the subscriptions of the party members and other donations.