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The Angolan Puzzle: Varied Actors and Complex Issues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

Kenneth W. Grundy
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Extract

Too frequently policy makers in Washington or Moscow see local or regional issues in southern Africa solely through their own, often distorted, lenses. And seen exclusively in ideological, or alternatively East-West or Cold War terms, they view their interests as inherently antagonistic. The old African maxim popular among non-aligned leaders in the early 1960’s is apropos: “When the bull elephants fight, the grass gets trampled.” Yet, unlike two elephants contesting clashing claims to territory of or sexual supremacy, southern Africa is not the territory of either of the super powers. Nor does Angola belong to other regional powers, notably South Africa. Although such states may have “interests” there. Angola is not their’s to shape.

Type
Focus: Self-Determination and National Sovereignty in Africa
Information
African Issues , Volume 15 , 1987 , pp. 35 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1987 

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References

Notes

1. Coleman, James S. and Sklar, Richard L., ‘Introduction,” in Bender, Gerald J. et al (eds.), African Crisis Areas and US. Foreign Policy (Berkeley: Univerity of California Press, 1985), pp. 7–12.Google Scholar On the internationalization of the region, see: Grandy, Kenneth W., Confrontation and Accomodation in Southern Africa: The Limits of Independence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973, pp. 191–227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Legum, Colin, After Angola: The War Over Southern Africa (New York: African Publishing Co., 1976).Google Scholar

3. Marcum, John A, “Angola: Twenty-five Years of War,” Current History, vol. 85, no. 511 (May, 1986), pp. 193–96 & 229-31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. David Singer, J., “The Level-of-Analysis Problem in International Relations,” in Knorr, Klaus and Verba, Sidney (eds.). The International System (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), pp. 77–92.Google Scholar

5. “Namibia: Chronic Transition,” Financial Mail (Johannesburg), vol. 98, no. 14 (January 3, 1986), p. 27.

6. There is evidence that this particular linkage idea originated with the U.S. See: Jaster, Robert S., South Africa in Namibia: The Botha Strategy (Lanham: University Press of America, 1985), p. 86.Google Scholar

7. The earlier period is covered in Klinghoffer, Arthur Jay, The Angolan War: A Study in Soviet Policy in the Third World (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1980)Google Scholar and LeoGrande, William M., Cuba’s Policy in Africa, 1959-1980 (Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, 1980).Google Scholar Later material appears in: Albright, David E., The USSR and Sub-Saharan Africa in the 1980’s (New York: Praeger, 1983)Google Scholar and Albright, “New Trends in Soviet Policy toward Africa,” CSIS Africa Notes, No. 27 (April 29, 1984).

8. Gerald J. Bender, “American Policy toward Angola: A History of Linkage,” in Bender et al (eds.), African Crisis Areas, pp. 110-28; Herbert Howe, “United States Policy in Southern Africa,” Current History, vol. 85, no. 511 (May, 1986), pp. 206-208 & 232-34; and John A. Marcum, “U.S. Options in Angola,” CSIS Africa Notes, No. 52 (December 20, 1985).

9. Jaster, South Africa in Namibia.

10. An early and somewhat speculative account is: Hallett, Robin, “The South African Intervention in Angola, 1975-76: African Affairs, vol. 77, no. 308 (July, 1978), pp. 347–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar More recent data can be found in: Geldenhuys, Deon, The Diplomacy of Isolation: South African Foreign Policy Making (Johannesburg: Macmillan, 1984), pp. 75–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. See Chris Vermaak, “The BOSS Man Speaks,” Scope, June 29, 1979, pp. 16-23, esp. pp. 21-22.

12. Geldenhuys, The Diplomacy of Isolation, p. 79.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid., pp. 82-83; and Hallett, “South African Intervention,” p. 370.

15. See the Guardian (London), August 8, 1979, p. 6.

16. Grandy, Kenneth W., The Militarization of South African Politics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), pp. 19–57.Google Scholar

17. Steenkamp, William, Borderstrike!: South Africa into Angola (Durban: Butterworth, 1983). See also Geldenhuys, The Diplomacy of Isolation, p. 83.Google Scholar

18. Grundy, The Militarization, pp. 1-57. See the substantive evidence from the Vaz diary in “Counting on Colonel Charlie,” Africa News, vol. 25, no. 9 (November 4, 1985), pp. 8-12: “Hawks Ascendant,” Financial Mail, vol. 97, no. 13 (September 27, 1985), pp. 36-41; and Saul, John S., “Mozambique Socialism and South African Aggression,” paper read at the Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, New Orleans, November 25, 1985.Google Scholar

19. Weisfelder, Richard, “Peace from the Barrel of a Gun: Nonaggression Pacts and State Terrorism in Southern Africa,” in Stoni, Michael and Lopez, George (eds.), Foreign Policy and State Terror (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1986).Google Scholar South African statements can be found in: Campbell, R.K., “Support for Cross-Border Strikes,” Paralus (Pretoria), vol. 34, no. 4 (April, 1983), pp. 10–11;Google Scholar Republic of South Africa, Department of Defence, White Paper on Defence and Armaments Supply, 1984 (Cape Town: 1984), p. 3.

20. Robert M. Price, “Creating New Political Realities: Pretoria’s Drive for Regional Hegemony,” in Bender et al (eds.), African Crisis Areas, pp. 64-94; and Jašter, South Africa in Namibia, pp. 110-11.

21. For example see Jaster, South Africa in Namibia, p. 76.

22. Ibid., p. 62.

23. Jaster, , South Africa’s Narrowing Security Options, Adelphia Paper No. 159 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, Spring 1980).Google Scholar