African Activist Archive

This transcript of a slide show on Angola opens with a poem by Agostinho Neto, leader of the MPLA liberation movement written in 1960 when he was being held in a Portuguese prison. The transcript discusses U.S. companies with interests in Angola, including Gulf Oil Corporation, Texaco, the DiVersa Diamond company, and Bethlehem Steel. Also, U.S. companies bought up to 50 percent of Angola's coffee, its most important agricultural export. The transcript discusses Holden Roberto, FLNA, and the Popular Union of Angola (UPA). It says the FNLA set up a government in exile in Kinshasa, Zaire, in the same year that Roberto was put on the CIA payroll. The transcript discusses the Nixon Administration and the Kissinger-sponsored National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM 39). The transcript discusses NATO and Portuguese dictator Caetano. It discusses UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) and its leader Jonas Savimbi. The transcript says the MPLA set up a Medical Assistance Service; mass organizations were set up such as the National Union of Angolan Workers, Youth Organization, and Organization of Angolan Women (OMA). The transcript discusses the coup in Portugal in April 1974, which set the stage for independence in Angola; the armed struggles in Angola, in Guinea-Bissau under the PAIGC, and in Mozambique under FRELIMO had created increasing unrest in Portugal. In Angola, there is a more difficult "Second War of Liberation" which included the U.S., the South African army, mercenaries, and neo-colonial interests in Portugal and Africa. Less than three weeks before the slated independence of Angola, thousands of South African troops invaded Angola from Namibia. In the same week as independence, hundreds of Cuban troops arrived in Luanda at the request of the new Angolan government. The transcript says Portugal's first President after the coup was General Antonio Spinola, former colonial Governor of Guinea-Bissau and architect of the assassination of PAIGC leader Amilcar Cabral. [Note: The November 1976 issue of Southern Africa magazine, published by the Southern Africa Committee, lists the slideshow as available from the MPLA Solidarity Committee. There are a large overlap of members of the Southern Africa Committee and the MPLA Solidarity Committee.]

African Activist Archive

"A VITÓRIA É CERTA: THE STORY OF ANGOLA"

Color Slide-Tape or Filmstrip Tape Presentation

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Rights Management