A decade later - Fundação Luso-Americana

[TMS] As a player, Portugal was relevant.
The notion that Portugal had no relevance
as a player is fallacious. Once the
superpowers came onto the stage, all the
other actors were left very little room
to maneuver, which does not necessarily
mean that they had no relevance as
actors. As far as Portugal is concerned,
there were three or four issues involving
Angola that were very important. First,
according to American information
we have, the lions’
share of the weapons belonging
to the Portuguese armed
forces was left to the MPLA.
Kissinger even tried to blackmail
the Portuguese government
– and “blackmail” was
his term, not mine – saying
that the Portuguese government
should either guarantee
that no weapons are left
to the MPLA or the US would
cease all the aid it was lending
to airlift Portuguese
colonists in Angola to
Portugal. We also have to
realize that Portugal was
deeply divided. There were
a number of policies and a
number of centers of power.
The second issue, which is
also really important but
hard to corroborate because
of the lack of reliable primary
sources, is the issue of
the famous Battle of Luanda
in July of ’75, when the FNLA tried to
reenter Luanda after it had been expelled
by the MPLA. According to information
particularly from the American Secret
Service – information denied by the
Portuguese officers I spoke to – there
were Portuguese troops fighting beside
the MPLA to keep the FNLA out of
Luanda. The third issue has to do with
poLicy
Portugal’s negotiating efforts at two particular
points in time: during the Alvor
Agreement in January, 1975 and when
the MPLA and UNITA were attempting to
forge an alliance against the FNLA in
August of ’75. In both cases, the superpowers,
particularly the superpower I
deal with in my book – the United States
– would try its best to destroy these
diplomatic efforts – and succeed.
‘ As a player, portugal was relevant.
The notion that portugal had no
relevance as a player is fallacious.
once the superpowers came onto the
stage, all the other actors were left
very little room to maneuver, which
does not necessarily mean that they
had no relevance as actors.
’
[MR] Even the US considered the MPLA the
only representative movement in Angola, the
only one that truly represented the Angolan
people.
[TMS] North American operatives in
Angola who understood the reality of
Angola did. The ones who weren’t in
Angola – like Kissinger – did not exactly
share that view. They knew very little,
but the ones who were there, the operatives
on the ground, believed exactly
that. The FNLA was – to use their expression
– a “puppet of Mobutu’s.” So the
MPLA was the movement in the best
position to guarantee the viability of an
Angolan state after independence. It was
also the one most in line with Portuguese
interests. Then there were other issues.
There was the group in Angola represented
by Admiral Rosa Coutinho.
In my opinion, there were other
motives – even ideological and
geopolitical ones – but even so,
he always favored the Soviet
Union. In my book I reveal – I
think for the first time – that at
one point, Melo Antunes began to
support Jonas Savimbi and UNITA,
though in the context of a project
to forge an alliance between the
MPLA and UNITA. The idea was to
achieve an independent Angola
governed by an MPLA/UNITA alliance,
in which the MPLA predominated,
since it was by far the
strongest movement, but offsetting
the MPLA and Agostinho
Neto’s power with UNITA and
Jonas Savimbi. On the other hand,
the idea was to lessen the MPLA’s
dependence – or what was construed
to be its dependence – on
the USSR, by helping it to establish
other diplomatic channels with,
for example, Algeria and Yugoslavia.
Melo Antunes tried to convince
the Americans to maintain at least a
threshold of good relations with the
MPLA, or even support the MPLA, to
reduce its dependence on Moscow. In
the book I also reveal, for the first time,
that Agostinho Neto “did not close the
door” on good relations with the United
States; actually, his stance was quite the
opposite.
Parallel no. 6 | FALL | WINTER 2011 43