(Bd. Notes This article has boon written especially for the Bulletin by an expert on the struggle in Angola. Comrades should raise the matter ina careful way in all their organisations. No doubt some kind of national campaign will be soon underway in relation to the strugzle in Angola and that will give an opportunity to counter the misleading information being disseminated. )
Recent press reports have given a dangerously misleading account of developments in the Angolan liberation strugglo. The Observer on March 18 headlined a report by Colin Lesum — tAngola rebels turn guns on one anothor!', It went on to say that the chief of staff of the Angolan Liberation Army, 'a wing of the 1i.P.LA.!, had denounced the leader of U.P.A. and made grave charges against him. The picture was given of mounting internecine struggle between rival nation alist organisations.
In fact the Angolan Liboration Army is not part of the M.P.L.A. (Peoples! Movement for the Liberation of Angola) but part of the U.P.A., the Union of Peoples of Angola, led by Roberto Holden. This denunciation from within his own ranks of the man chiefly responsible for Angolan disunity, accompanied by an appeal for a United Liberation Front, is in fact one of the greatest contributions towards Angolan unity since the outbreak of armed rebellion,
However, Legum's misleading report must have gratified the Bow Group authors of The New Africa which proposos that the Portugese colonios be placed under United Nations trusteoship in order to safeguard British interests in Central Africa and 'avoid another Congo'. The Observer roport helped all those interested in promoting African disunity and presenting a picture of Africa unable to govern itself that still requires the guiding hand of imperialism.
The facts, however, do not favour imperialist plans.
Of the three main Angolan nationalist partios, tho I!.P.LeA., led by lario de Andrade and Viriato Cruz, is tho only one that has a real political program —-- both for the conduct of the liberation struggle, and for the political and economic independonce of Angola after the defeat of the Portugese. It is, furthermore, the only political party with support among tho urban as well as. peasants masses. The M.P.L.A., whose loadership is perhaps at the most advanced level in the whole of Black Africa, has since 1960 —-- long before the actual armed uprising —--—— insistently urged all nationalist organisations to come together in a Netjonal Liberation Front. It was ll.P.L.A. militants in Luanda, ths colony! SP wid were the first to rise against the Portugese on February 4, 1961, although the imperialist press has consistently represented the Union of Peoples of Angola (U.P.A.) as the initiators of the revolt.
The U.P.A. is a tribal organisation based on emigrant Angolans from the north of the colony who go across the border to sock work in the Congo. It was founded in Leopoldville by Roberto Holden and has no program beyond political independence. Its leaders refuse to recognise the existence of any other political party, deny the need for a United Liberation Front, are black nationalist —-—— except in regard to Americans --—- are violently anti-communist and pro-U.5S.A. Holden's main known support has come from Bourgiba's Tunisia, and he is a close associate of Kasavubue
The Luanda revolt sparked off a mass uprising in northern Angola among tribes where U.P.A. had influence, and as the terrain was suited to guerilla warfare it was here that most fighting occurred and the most violent Portugese reprisals took place. Despite the support given to U.P,A. in the United States and the West generally, and hostility to the M.P.L.A., it must not be therefore assumed that U.P.A. represents an Angolan ‘national bourgeoisie’, There is not in Angola any class of Africans that can be defined as a ‘national bourgeoisic'. Portugese colonialism has kept its territories too undeveloped and its African subjects too backward and oppressed economically and politically for this phono— menon to have developed. The role of a 'national bourgooisie'! has so far been played in Portugese Africa by Portugese white settlors, many of whom would like to see freedom from Salazar in order to pursue a Wolensky-like policy in Angola and Mozambique.
Both the M.P.L.A. and tho U.P.A. are parties supported by working masses in U.P.A.'s case, the inarticulate and politically backward peasant masses of the north, and especially tho Ilkongo poople; in M.P.L.A.'s case the working class of the towns and largo masses of poasants from tribes all over Angola,
fa continued/ at, unlike U.P.A., tho M.P.LeAe is uncompromisingly non-tribalist and national in breadth, admitting to its ranks and to its gucrilla units -mropsan supporters, and it has a cadre of politically mature lcaders.
There is a third largo party, the A.L.I.A.Z.0., also a tribal grouping based on the ZOMBO poople,e This too is a peasant party, but unlike U.P.A. has an honest leadership who are willing to onter a National Liberation Front with all parties,
Till now the chief obstacle to ths formation of the National Liberation Front has been the attitude of the U.P.A. leaders who have consistently refused to consider it. And in autumn 1961, though still unwilling to attack the U.P.A. leaders because of their conviction that reform should come from within the U.P.A. itself, M.P.L.A. was forced to announce that U.P.A. supporters had captured and hanged an M.P.L.A. guorilla of 21 men led by a Buropean, Captain Tomas Ferreira. This charge was donied by Holden, but the news was seized on, especially in the United states, to show that open warfare had brokon out betweon U.P.A. and M.PeLele
The truth behind the Observer misreport is not that M.P.L.A. has now publicly denounced U.P.A. On the contrary a sorious split has occurred within U.P.A. itself, completoly exposing and isolating tho [olden clique that had seized control of the party. According to the statemont by U.P.A. chief of staff Marcos Kassanga on March 3rd, theo U.P... army has withdrawn all support from the Holden leadership, charging it with a number of torrible crimes, These includes the massacre of the 11.P.L.eA. guorillas; inciting inter-tribal warfare involving the deaths of 8,000 Angolans instead of fighting against the Portugese; the murder of U.P.A. ho wil. of military operations in the interior, Commander dno Baptista; misappropriation of finds belonging to the revolution, The statement concludes . with a call for all sincere nationalist parties to unite in a National Liberation Front and for African and other friendly countries and organisa tions to cease supporting Ilolden and to give aid instead to genuine nationalist organisations.
The denunciation of Holdon by his own party's armed force was at once followed by a similar policy statement from the L.G.T.A., the U.P.As-sponsored trade union,
The Holden clique, without its army and without its trade union, cannot hope for long to go on nindering Angolan unity.
Moreover it can no longer put over on the rest of the world its confidence trick of being the sole representative of the Angolan revolution. The 11.P.LeA. is today receiving the aid of a number of African countries, and in the first place that of the F.L.N.
It is up to us in Britain to see that misreporting of the Angolan struggle is not used by Tories and their hidden supporters to put over intervention under U.N. or any other disguise.