Angola-the War Still Goes on

Scan page 3

Two and a half years after its declaration of independence from Portugal, the Cubanbacked MPLA Government in Angola is still engaged in a war against pro-imperialist forces.

In the south of the country the right wing Unita continues to control some : emote areas of the country and, through guerilla operations, are still holding down 'arge numbers of Angolan and Cuban troops.

Recent reports also claim :hat the military control of the Neto government is also still threatened in the serritory of Cabinda.

Separated This small enclave of terriis.y on the coast north of the Congo estuary is separated om the rest of Angolan terntory.

During the civil war which șeceded Angola's indepenfence. the MPLA fought in Cabinda against two Cabinda iraratist groups both going -der the name of the Front for the Liberation of Cabinda Enclave (FLEC).

Nowadays there is only one FLEC group left and it is harboured and given assistance by the right wing regime of President Mobutu in Zaire and possibly also by Mobutu's more distant imperialist patrons in Washington, Brussels, Paris and London.

reserves Mobutu and the imperialists have a number of interests in Cabinda. For one thing the Cabinda enclave gives Angola the control of both sides of Zaire's crucial narrow exit to the sea through the Congo estuary.

But the main interest of Cabinda, and the reason that the FLEC can continue to count on imperialist support, is its reserves of oil, among the richest in sub-Saharan Africa.

When the oilfields of Cabinda are in full production they are expected to produce a quarter of a million barrels (worth four million dollars) a day.

The Portuguese colonial administration in the early most useful apologists for continued capitalism, "peacefully reformed', were wheeled out for the job.

Lucy Mvubelo, a long-time trade union bureaucrat who 1970s allowed the American Gulf Oil Company to begin the exploitation of this oil.

During the independence and civil wars Gulf was forced to close down its operation.

After inaependence however, the "socialist"

government of the MPLA welcomed back Gulf, though it claims that it intends at length to nationalise the American Company.

This "nationalisation"

however, is one which will give full compensation to Gulf and probably allow the company to retain a share of ownership and profits and all its management prerogatives.

Nonetheless Gulf, and the French Elf Company which also has some exploration concessions in Cabinda, are probably still fearful enough of their future to find it worthwhile to continue to finance the FLEC as they reportedly have in the past.

Executions

The MPLA says that the FLEC now scarcely exists and that the whole of Cabinda is securely under government Cuban troops on manoeuvre outspoken and regular critic of South African government policies" (to quote the South African government advertisement).

On occasion these enemies Huge pictures of Neto, Castro control.

The FLEC, however, claimed two weeks ago to have captured and executed 136 Cuban soldiers captured in Cabinda.

Unprecedented

The FLEC statement said that the executions took place after contacts between the FLEC and the liberation movements in Eritrea, and were in protest against the sending of Cuban soldiers from Angola to Ethiopia to support the forces of the Mengistu regime.

Apart from the FLEC statements, there has been no independent corroboration of this report nor any information as to whether the Eritrean liberation movements either knew about or supported the executions.

Whether or not the claim is true, the fact that it was made at all highlights the unprecendented role which Cuba is now playing in Africa, in particular in Angola and Ethiopia.

Imperialist sources claim that there are now 25,000 Cubans in Mozambique and 10,000 in Ethiopia.

Even if these figures are exaggerated, it is clear from other evidence that the exaggeration is not very great.

----- pull-quotes -----

organisation, supported by the South African racists,