Episode 3 - Congo uprisings and the war for independence in Angola turns up the Cold War heat

[Music] Welcome back to South African Border Wars with me, your host, Des Latin. This is Episode 3 and we're focusing on the Congo and Angola this episode. Both countries had a major impact on the future of South West Africa. What began as a fight for the right to autonomy in both the Congo and Angola settled for conflict fan by the flames of the Cold War that led down the road to South Africa's border war. The Scramble for Africa accelerated after the 1884 partition of the continent, where European nations agreed to divvy up Africa and a meeting arranged by the Germans. Soon afterwards, King Leopold II of Belgium became frustrated by his country's lack of international power and prestige. He tried to persuade the Belgian government to support colonial expansion around the then largely unexplored Congo basin. But Brussels was ambivalent, so Leopold created the colony on his own, sitting up the Congo Free State in 1885. Eventually, by the end of the 19th century, the violence of Congo officials against indigenous Congolese and the ruthless system of economic extraction had led to intense diplomatic pressure on Belgium's government to take control of the country, which it did in 1908, creating the Belgian Congo. What these privateers had done in the Congo features in Joseph Conrad's great work, Heart of Darkness. The large-scale mistreatment of the locals included mutilations and mass murder of men, women and children on rubber plantations. Entire villages were raised to the ground, but the most notorious method used by these privateers was chopping off the hands of those who refused to work. Worse, mercenaries hired to enforce the law in Congo had to account for every bullet, so they brought back the hands of the victims. They also took to just chopping the hands of anyone innocent or guilty to earn a few dollars. The strange echoes in our world, for example, the book Heart of Darkness features someone called Captain Kurtz, who lives up the Congo River and has succumbed to barbarism. And has been sought by the main character who travels up the river searching for him. Joseph Conrad's masterpiece was refreshed in 1979 as the basic storyline of the war movie Apocalypse Now, which is all about Vietnam. I watched Apocalypse Now at the military garrison of Rundu on the Cabango River, bordering Angoda and South West Africa while serving in the South African Defence Force two years after that movie was made. Everything is connected, they say, their codes of the past and present are all around us. And so, back to the Congo. Belgium's style of administration was unique compared to how the British and French govern their territories. London and Paris preferred indirect rule, where colonials or local traditional leaders were put in positions of authority, whereas the Belgians ruled directly from Europe. This led to a structural weakness when it came to future governance, compounded by the manor in which privateers had looted the Congo. There is another fact about Belgians experiencing the Congo. Large numbers of white immigrants moved there after the end of World War II. These people came from across the social spectrum, and yet in Africa, they demanded to be treated like royalty by the local black population. That began to grate on the new black intellectuals educated in Europe, who also returned home, and were greeted by low-class whites, who were not the educated equal, demanding they be treated as superior beings, mainly because of the colour of their skin. Of course, this form of mis-shape and human relation characterised much of what was going on in Rhodesia, South Africa, Mozambique, Angola, and South West Africa. By the 1950s, the Congo was urbanising rapidly, and Belgium wanted to create a model colony with the emphasis on a black middle class. Ironically, it was the same class called the Ebu Lou, who were to lead the uprising later, including the much-beenerated Patrice Lemumba. The Congo is flush with natural resources, and by the middle of the 20th century, one specific natural resource in particular was of great interest, Uranium. In fact, much of the Uranium used by the Americans to develop their first nuclear bombs during World War II, which they dropped on Japan, came from the Congo. Needless to say, the Soviet Union became very interested in the Congo, and Africa generally. Simultaneously, African national movements began developing in the Belgian Congo and further south during the 1950s, in the Congo primarily among the educated Ebu Lou as I said. But Congo politics broke down broadly into both ethnic and geographical lines, and these divisions would be exploited by the Cold War empires, and are still creating major divisions in the Congo to this day. Back in the 1950s, entrenched colonial business interests regarded the most threatening of these as the movement, National Congolese, or MNC, which wanted independence, but talked about a staged handover of power by Belgium. The MNC was led by Patrice Lemumba, who wanted the Congo to evolve into a classic post-colonial African nationalist-led government. Opposed to both the MNC and the Belgians, was the Alliance Bakonga, or Abacca, led by Joseph Kasavubu. He was far more radical and demanded immediate independence, but he was also an ethnic nationalist. Kasavubu wanted the future country to be run only by the Bakonga tribe, as inheritors of the pre-colonial kingdom of the Congo. He wanted a return to something that existed before colonialism, which of course is both foolish and impossible. The third group called the Converter-Rachion, their associate, Shribalis, the Kotanga, or Konakat, was a localist party led by a Moiz Chombe, who wanted the Congo to be a federalist country because he regarded Kotanga as a separate nation. Konakat's power base was in the southern province of Kotanga, which shared a long boundary with Angola. It's extremely rich in resources, including the all-important uranium, along with huge deposits of copper. Even now, the DLC produces over 3% of the world's copper and about half its cobalt, most of which comes from the Kotanga region. The Congo's civil war, or Congo crisis, as it was also known, broke out just days after Belgian graduate independence in 1960. That war lasted four years, and spilled over into Angola. So, from 1960 onwards, the Congo was right in the middle of a Cold War storm. When Belgium handed over power to the Congo people on June 30, 1960, it also had negotiated post-colonial mining rights for its citizens and other European investors. But it failed to install anything like a civil society or local administration. It was all about the commodities and the military. That's not a healthy mix. Add to that recipe a heavy dose of Cold War fever, where you can see that the DLC was going to become a hotbed of faction fighting pretty swiftly. Within a week of independence, the Congolese army mutinied, demanding increased pay, and the removal of white offices. Belgium promptly sent in their own troops, which led to many other Congolese soldiers rebelling. These troops mostly gravitated towards nationalist prime minister Patrice Lemumba, who had based his political philosophy on the principle that no ethnic group should dominate. He spoke of the opportunities of a democratic socialist society, which of course did not sit well with Western philosophy as it faced down Soviet expansion in Europe and further afield. It was precisely at this moment, and critical for the future of the entire region, that the mineral-rich Katanga province, under the leadership of Moise Chombe, succeeded from the DLC. Critically, Chombe was backed by the old colonial master Belgium, who had hired mercenaries to provide him with a little extra firepower. What a mess. Congolese President Joseph Kuzavubu and Prime Minister Lemumba then approached the United Nations, asking for a peacekeeping force to keep the different groups apart. This is where the Cold War, which was playing out both within the United Nations and on the ground, was to doom the region to conflict, which continues to this day, and the United Nations is still there. The proxy war began in earnest with the communist bloc, including Eastern European countries and Cuba, beginning to quote Lemumba, who espoused communist ideals. Eventually, the UN agreed to send a peacekeeping force, but President Kuzavubu, who was Lemumba's ally, then came under pressure from the Americans and others, in the West, to rid government of what was seen as communist elements, aka Lemumba. But Lemumba was attuned to the danger and responded by firing President Kuzavubu as a kind of political preemptive strike, when he got wind of what the Americans were asking Kuzavubu to do to him. The wheels in the Congo now well and truly came off as both Kuzavubu and Lemumba claimed control over the entire vast territory. More arms and mercenaries entered the Congo over the next two years of fighting. Waiting in the wings to strike, was army chief of staff Joseph Mabutu, who orchestrated a coup d'état, out when both Lemumba and Kuzavubu. Mabutu was a favorite amongst Western governments, and he was playing a clever political game. Mabutu bet on American superpower status over the Soviet Union, and Lemumba suddenly found himself under house arrest. He managed to escape but was tracked down and murdered by Katangan rebels. In many ways, killing Lemumba was the key moment that set the stage of war. for the next 50 years of war in the Congo, a civil war that has never ended. With this chief rival dead, Mabutu pledged nominal support to President Kazavubu, and the two managed to end the Katanga secession attempt defeating Chombe. UN forces eventually recaptured all of Kapa and Uranium-rich Katanga province, but in early 1964 a new rebellion began in the east of the country, when armed fighters called Symbas began to spread out across the region. They were extremely brutal, and the actions were carefully followed by whites and Angola next door, as well as Rhodesia, South West Africa and Mozambique. The stories of rape and murder swept across South Africa, raising the fears of the white minorities in each country. As the Symbas targeted missionaries, businessmen and their families, and their murdered men, women and children, just as the Belgians had done on their rubber plantations. By November 1964 the Symbas were eventually defeated, things settled down, but only for a few months. A year later in 1965 Mabutu certainly seized power from President Kazavubu after promising mining rights to Western nations, and therefore protected him during the next United Nations debate, while Kazavubu had had won too many friendly exchanges with the Russians. This turmoil led to Kazavubu and former Katanga nationalist Moisa Chombo being exiled, and Mabutu set up a dictatorship, which would go into control of the country until 1997. The instability along the Katanga border coincided with the surge in political awareness amongst blacks and Angola, and South West Africa, and increased fear amongst whites and Rhodesia, and South Africa, that the Congo uprising and ethnic violence was now on their doorstep. At the same time, in South Africa, the African National Congress and Pan-African Congress were already mobilizing black opposition to the harsh terms of apartheid instituted by the National Party. As Calvin Klauswitz remarks, the most far-reaching decision that has to be made is to establish the exact nature of the war on which you are to embark. Neither mistaking it for nor trying to turn it into something alien to its nature, he remarks. Then the Sharple massacre in 1960 saw S.A. Police Open Fire and Protesters killing 69, in the same year as South African Police Open Fire and Protesters in South West Africa in Vintuk. The close relationship between South Africa and South West Africa was mirrored in the coordination between the ANC and Swapo. By 1964, Nelson Mandela was in prison, and things were shaping up across the region. Wights in South Africa and Rhodesia were mobilized by the respective governments deeply influenced by the Cold War, and by a sentiment that blacks were not equal to whites because they were supposed to be evolving politically. Of course, in South Africa's case, that was rather hypocritical because whites had fought a bitter war, only a few decades before, which was based on ethnicity of Recona vs English. The war saw kitcheners scorched earth policy and concentration camp system that killed off around 10% of poor women and children. It was genocide by another name, savage, brutal, and barbaric, hardly the actions of a civilized nation. It was white on white violence of the most vile-kind, pernicious, destructive, and nockic. And yet, the descendants of these poor war veterans were on local radios in South Africa in the early 1960s, declaring that blacks still had some way to go to achieve civilization. If this mentality wasn't so poisonous and deadly, it would be laughable. However, it was to be the Portuguese and Angola Guinea and Mozambique who would find themselves in combat against communist-backed African-national freedom movements first. The winds of change were blowing across Africa and in the south, they would become a gale. While the Congo was collapsing, in Angola, the forces linked to what is known as the "war of independence" were organizing. This war first burst into flames in the north of the country in an uprising against forced cultivation of cotton in 1961, but ended up turning into a full-scale civil war just over a decade later. It was also a war of insurgency and characterized by atrocities carried out on all sides. So let's hear about which Angola nationalist and separatist groups would be important in the coming border war. The national liberation front of Angola or FNLA came into being under the leadership of Holden Roberto in 1954. There was a distinct Congo connection here because Roberto was the descendant of the Congo Royal House and had lived in the Belgian Congo most of his life. So Roberto divorced his wife and married one of Congo President Mabutu's sisters just to clinch the relationship. The FNLA was supported by the Congo where it was based and trained, financed by the United States, but provided weapons by Eastern Europe. In other words, American cash went towards the purchase of Czechoslovakian-made AK-47s which were shipped into northern Angola via the Congo. The second major player was the MPLA, which eventually ended up ruling Angola. It was founded in 1956 by mixed race and white intellectuals who were heavily influenced by communism and part of the Angolan intelligence. It's one weak point was ethnicity, heavily imbued by support from the Umbundo people, as well as some other ethnic groups in Angola and headed up by Augustino Netto, who was a Portuguese-educated, urban intellectual. He first reached out to the US, asking for support in the battle against what he saw as injustice, but was rejected by Washington. Netto was naturally at home on the far left and the Soviet Union and Cuba became the MPLA's backers, which was to prove highly significant in our story. When the freedom struggle in Angola began, the MPLA were supplied with vast amounts of Soviet weapons, including PBS sub-machine guns, Tokare pistols, AK-47 and Seminole assault rifles, machine guns, rocket propelled grenades or RPGs, and anti-tank and anti-personal mines. Not to mention ammunition, galore. Later, this support turned into heavy weapons, such as ground to air-support missile systems, tanks, and other mechanized weapons, along with technical and technical advises, who were sent from Russia and Cuba, to die in Africa. The MPLA's main support route in Angola was via Zamiya to the east, not the Congo to the north, which was the FNLA's stomping ground. The future combatants were starting to stack up based on their cold war suppliers. The third main player in this war, who we're going to hear a great deal about, was Unita or the Union for the Total Independence of Angola. It was formed in 1966 by Joseph Savimbi, who became disillusioned with the FNLA. That was because Roberto refused to extend his war beyond the kingdom of the Congo, and Savimbi knew it was a mistake, and something then really significant happened in Savimbi's life. In 1965, Savimbi met Che Guevara, the Argentinian who was the darling of the Cuban Revolution. Guevara gave a parting on the ground in Africa soon afterwards, but Savimbi was to become the future ally of the South African Defence Force as it fought against the Russians and Cubans. Savimbi's initial funding and support came from Cuba, the Soviet Union, and East Germany, with Che Guevara providing some support at first, and exquisite 180 degrees in Savimbi's political consciousness was going to take place. So next week, we'll return to the expanded Independence War in Angola and how low intensity skirmishes began in the mid 1960s in South West Africa at the same time. Everything is connected, as you'll see. So please rate the podcast on iTunes if you have the time. You can also head off to my website, abwarpodcast.com, where you'll find the South African Border Wars page. If you're in a rush, don't forget my Twitter account, you can reach me there, direct message me @dearslayton. Until next episode, goodbye. [Music]