From: pmmst8+@pitt.edu (Paul M Mweene)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Subject: Re: Angola: See what Savimbi is up to now (was Re: Great Victory in
Date: 15 Oct 92 10:55:54 GMT
Organization: University of Pittsburgh

In article <10OCT92.03172449@edison.usask.ca> f54oguocha@edison.usask.ca writes:
>Oooooh! when did MPLA start ruling Angola? Your sense of history and judgement
>makes me laugh. I hope you are not writing all these in order to gain favour
>(ministerial appointment!) from the MPLA. Just remember that no condition is 
>permanent. From the way you write I can see you switching support in the 
>nearest future. I think you are the 'opportunist' you are accusing Dr Savimbi
>to be.

I should begin by making it clear that I do not intend to spend my time on 
this issue, epecially when my detractor is beginning act like Dan Quayle...
ie, obfuscating valid points by spuriosly spewing out any subject matter no
matter how irrelevant it maybe for to the topic under discussion. 

But even as this is the case, let me surprise you by imforming you that practisein liberation movements, SWAPO, ZANU, ZAPU , ANC etc is to appoint people to 
oversea the various vital areas such as finance, information etc. These people
go under diffierent titles, but I know many who refer to thwm as ministers. I
leave you to research this "common knowledge"....

As for the tone of your writing, I suspect that you are trying to get under my skin. If that is so then I refuse to turn this n-group into a forum personal
vendattas...
 
>It is difficult to find out whether your annoyance with Dr Savimbi stemed from
>the fact that he helped in founding UNITA and later became its leader or that
>he approached the national issues through a path divergent from that of your
>MPLA
This is such a straight forward issue. The man is an opportunist and a criminal
ANY blackman who solicits white south african help to fight his own country men
is a criminal. South Africa is the last country in the world which would stand
for the well being and betterment of the black man. I have no problem with a
difference oon opinion, I think it is healthy. However people who commit crimin
al acts lose the right to opine. Finally even cursory assesment of the conditio
na under which UNITA was formed shows that it is sell out organisation. It was
not formed to fight for freedom any more than Inkhata is interested in fighting
for freedom of the oppressed in South Africa. I hope you don't endorse the
"divergent path" by which  Inkhata is approaching "nationa issues".

.
i> All the analyses you have been feeding us with for sometime now have no
>practical relevance to the problems in Angola today

I have a different opinion about them, and I hope you will be more of a democratthan your hero Savimbi and respect other peoples opinions...
.
i> The main problem at hand is
>how best the different political parties in Angola can be brought together into
>harmonious existence, so that genuine peace can return to our beloved Angola.
>I think I am getting tired of your incongruent, inaccurate, and biased  histor-
>cal analyses and 'dig-ups'. So, let's move a step further and address the most
>pressing problems of the moment.

Please suggest a way in which this "harmomious existence " can be brought about
already Savimbi has reject the will of the people and has threatened to go to 
war if he is not declared winner of free and fair elction that he lost. I hope
you are surprised by this most "divergent" way of approaching national issues.
I am not, I could not have expexted ny different because I understand the 
nature of UNITA and its objectives. That why I know that it is neither fit nor
ready for coexistence as it is currentlyh constituted...
As for my incohruent analyses, tell me what do you offer in return. To me you
don't seem to know that facts; and if you do, you are clearly exercising a
decision not to exhibit your knowledge.....That why you are moving a step
further without offering a single shred of information to support your position.

>>
>> 
>>>when the Portuguese had left. Can you now tell us how much Cuba and the
>>>estwhile USSR spent in post-independent Angola?

It not what they spent but why they spent it. The correct and courageous expuls
on of South Africa from Angola by Cuba in 1975 is something for which owe Cuba
eternal gratitude. Unless you would have preferred that Souht Africa colonise
Angola, you would have to agree with me that the more the USSR and Cuba spent
in Angola the more they earned our gratitude...
.
>> 
>Funding comes in different shades. For example, when a western country says 
>she is giving some humanitarian aids to a liberation force, or a country that is
>known to be supporting a particular liberation force, what do people like you
>think she is doing? When a western country starts laying trade embargoes on
>on a colonial regime in your part of Africa, what do you think is going on?
>Afterall, most of us know the kind of shady, 'backyard' businesses that go on 
>during such struggles

Please be more specific. In the 60s and 70s, freedom fighters in Angola, Mozambique, South Africa and Namibia beseeched western millitary assistance to prosecu
te their freedom struggles. The west refused. Intead they armed Rhodesia and 
Souht Africa to the teeth. Portugal, the not a NATO, country nvertheless benefi
tted from close ties with NATO in it millitary campaign against MPLA. In Mozam
bique a British secret agent accidentaslly blew himself to pieces as he was try
ing to mine a railway line. In Zambia european farmers, all on British passport
s directed millitary incursions against Rhodesian refugee camps administered by
the UN. 
As for the sanctions you mention. They were instituted only one other time against
an "intransigent" colonial power, Rhodesia. A commision commision to discover 
why they had been ineffective revealed that Britain had been circumventing them
. BP was exposed as having been providing Rhodesia with the oil which sustained
it through UDI. 
Even you cannot dispute this
.
> How are we sure you are not one of the beneficiaries of
>one western aid or another? I really don't understand the kind of arguement you

This is a ridicuolus childish assertion which I wont dignify with an answer.

>>
>*The imperial blood suckers taught you how to read and write. They forced their
>language and culture on you and there is no doubt your are enjoying a bit of
>that now, otherwise how can you be writing in a language I can understand? What
>did the Soviets teach you? Can you write your name in any of the Soviet langu-
>ages

I gety the distinct impression that you are becoming hysterical right here.
It seem to me that you think being in the west is the same as being in 
paradise. I will grant you this much, if you are here for personal economic
improvement  i sympathise with you. But don't append to your run of luck the
additional nonsense that western culture is so wonderful. It certainly is not
better than mine. And I certainly did not come here to learn culture. I hope
you are not expressing thankfulness for being mentally colonised. However if
I can make money here I will make it. I am sure you will be shocked to learn
that western countries are rich because the money they made (make) in other 
countries. And even though there more westerners making in my country than
there are my country men in all western countries combined for any reason we
would not, like you, be misguided into thinking they are there to learn 
culture.
As for your statement that westerners taught me how to read, let me just point
out that they too learned form somewhere. And they probably paid a smaller 
price for this knowledge than I am paying. 
The most outrageous of all your sttatements is that westerner have taught me ho
w to speak. I do not, unlike you, revel in this fact. First there are enough
languages in Africa, and I know mayn of them, for us to communicate in if some
Africans did not think that western language are made of notes music...

 
>*At least you are living in a western country now. Why don't you go and live in
>your sweet CIS (formery USSR)? I think your are a hypocrite!

Keep quite. There are more westeners in my country exploitnig it than there
Africans in the west......
>>
>The anwser is simple. Take a lesson from Ethiopia and Somalia. Do you need more
>examples?

You have to consider the objective and subjective conditions of those conflicts.They were not immediately preceeded by an anticolonial struggle.

>> 
>forget the role of Kenya in the Zimbabwan struggle? Remember the role of your
>African brothers in all these struggles before ever mentioning the Soviets.

While we are talking about Mois administration in Kenya, we might do well to
observe that it was recently exposed as one of the prime backers of the 
criminal RENAMO movement.....
>>
>>
>No wonder you neither go to church anymore nor believe in God. It is a pity.

Keep your predjudices to yourself. I certainly do consider myself in need of
your pity..
>> 
>>
>When did the Angolan civil war, I don't mean liberation war, start? When can
>you ever understand what is going on? 

I am tired of teaching, there are books on the subject in any good library..>>
>>Angola and Zaire were the most exploited colonies in Africa.

eg, Proprotion of people massacred by the colonial powers. The proportion of
the country's naturla resources exproprited AND EXPORTED. The level developmen
nt at the end of the colonial period.
i
ZAIRE:
      The territory was ceded  to the personal custody of King Leopold of Belgi
iun in 1887 or(1885). The initial native population was estimated as being
between 15 and 20 million.  The majority were forcibly conscripted into a rubber 
producing venture by the king. Millions who resisted were killed. In 1907,
the atrocities committed by the king were exposed and the territory taken from
him. Fial population, 5 to 8 million. 

At the end of the second world war stated the prime minister of Belgium
istated " Thanks to the congo, we have been able tp prosecute the war 
effort without touching our gold reserve.."

ANGOLA:
       The departing Portuguese, destroyed factory machines, broke office 
windows and  furniture. They killed the live stock and destroyed 28000
of the 3000 (I may have one zero toomany) of the vehicles whic are the backbone
of the angolan economy.....

 anyway you read this for yourself....

>Where did you read that? How do you measure the degree of colonial exploitation?
>I think you are becoming overly sentimental. Go to Equaorial Guinea and see ano-
>type of exploitation.
>>
>>
>Once again you have shown that you don't have good knowlege of African history.
>In any case, war is war whether it is ignited by ethnicism or western and east-
>ern idelogical differences. I still believe strongly that Angolans have a useful
>
>Oguocha

If you are aware of the reactionary nature of a UNITA, you will know that it is
futile to hope for peaceful coexistence. In Nigeria, the various ethnic groups
wanted greatness for themselves. They could therefor reconcile themselves to
the idea that a greatness for the country could somewhat lead to a greatness for them. UNITA , however, serves only the interest of its foreign masters, that i
s why it does not care for the will of the people in this election.

Makala