Angolan organizations and a representative of the Portuguese government (General Silva Cardoso at the time), who was assigned to be "arbitrator" and chief of defense and security. 20
TOWARD CIVIL WAR? by C. GABRIEL to influence the relationship of political forces within the government and to wage political battles. The appeals for moderation, the proclamations calling for "increasing production, *and the Nakuru agreement itself all illustrated this right-wing line, which the MPLA leadership had been following ever since the Alvor accords were signed. (For more details, see INPRECOR No. 31.) Then come the MPLA decision to expel the FNLA from Luanda, thus opening a new period of confrontation and civil war. Does this mean that there has been a change in the character of the MPLA leadership? Undoubtedly not, But the relationships between this petty-bourgeois leadership and the masses are extremely complex in the present social conjuncture. MPLA: Past and present In origin and training, the MPLA leadership comes from the urban petty bourgeoisie. (See INPRECOR, No. 2, June 20, 1974, and No. 3, July 4, 1974) Its move to the rural armed struggle allowed the MPLA leadership to build itself a peasant base resting on small-scale village production in areas of extremely backward social development. In this social context, talk of "the end of exploitation of man by man" did not at all have the same sort of repercussions as it does in an urban setting. During the last several years of struggle, while bureaucratic tendencies were rapidly developing within the apparatus, the cities were being swelled with new wage-earners, a result of new trends of investment and industrialization. During the phase following the April 25, 1974, coup in Lisbon, a very important phenomenon arose: the entrance into the MPLA of youth from urban milieus that had radicalized during the recent period; this was especially
the case for students returning to Angola from Lisbon. These elements rapidly took charge of some of the middle level responsibilities in the organization, acting in the framework of "people's power" and the neighborhood commissions. Because of their links with the masses, they constituted a force of considerable pressure on the leadership of the MPLA. Despite their insufficiencies, the Maoistic influences to which they are subject, and their reference to "people's democracy, " these elements sought to express the anticapitalist potentials of the urban mass movement. For them. *the end of the exploitafion of man by man" has a precise anticapitalist meaning, o meaning they have been able to teach the workers movement to some extent. That is why pressure on the leadership of the MPLAinevitably intensified, both before and after the Nakuru accords. For example, there was the communiqué of the workers of Siga, issued after the announcement of the Nakuru conference, which said: "But we, as members and sympathizers, progressives of Siga, we demand that our president and all the comrades of the Central Committee and the Political Bureau refuse to agree to the summit's being held outside the country; on the contrary, they should demand that it be held in the country, in the capital. That is why we workers of the Siga factory support and encourage our dear comrade president Dr. Agostinho Neto, to refuse to give an inch on the question of holding the summit outside the country and outside the capital." In fact, all indications are that the heterogeneity of the MPLA has strongly increased since April 25. There must be many conflicts today, particularly between this new layer and the cadres formed in the armed peasant struggle. This type of conflict comes on top of many others, which, within the bureaucracy itself, involve relations with the African states, relations with UNITA, the Portuguese situation, and so on. But nothing can be explained solely by "pressure from the rank and file." In reality, for a whole period the leadership's attitude toward the mass movement will be determined by the social conjuncture. In fact, in spite of its mulficlassist line, for the moment the MPLA leadership has no bourgeois support at all, whether Angolan or colonial. The negotiations and political battles with the FNLA and UNITA cannot be regulated by interposed bourgeois circles. Today, the mass movement is the MPLA's only decisive argument. This situation can certainly change, either radically through the MPLA suddenly receiving support from bourgeois circles, or not so radically, through the vehicle of an MPLA-UNITA agreement. UNITA, which senses the winds of change in the military situation, could effectively come forth as the "winning horse" by maintaining pressure on the right wing of the MPLA leadership. A person like Lucia Lara represents the right-wing component of the MPLA leadership and tolerates forms of mass self-organization only because he has no political means with which to oppose them. But such a prospect remains improbable, or at least dangerous for the cohesion of the movement. The civil war will thus play a decisive role in determining the relationship of political forces within the MPLA. MPLA counteroffensive While the Nakuru conference was quietly going on, the FNLA, naturally, took advantage of the MPLA's respect for the mythical "legality of Alvor" to open up a real offensive. On June 15 it attacked the northern villages of Forte República, Brito Godins, Caombo, Duque de Bragaça, Cuale, and Cangola. On June 18 the FNLA moved on to other villages, among them Quinculunge, Samba Caju, and Barra do Dande. Supported by its rear areas in Zaire, the leadership of the FNLA then tried to transform the Angolan provinces of Zaire and Uige into real independent and impenetrable bastions. At the same time, the FLA again initiated its practice of intimidafion and terrorism in Luanda. On July 4, after several days of quiet observance of the famous Nakuru accords, the FNLA again took to the attack, striking at the villages of Tango and Kassumba Kambaia in the Cuanza-Norte district. On July 9 in the capital the FNLA opened up with machine guns on the headquarters of the National Union of Angolan Workers, a mass trade-union with a strong implantation (and tied to the MPLA), and on the funeral procession of a woman militant of the MPLA. At 9:00 a.m. on July 10 it attacked the headquarters of UNITA and then moved to attack the MPLA headquarters. The FNLA then concentrated a large number of troops in Luanda and was prepared to take all power and settle accounts with the mass movement. It was under these circumstances that the leadership of the MPLA decided to launch a counteroffensive aimed af driving the FNLA out of Luanda. The operation lasted only a short time (two or three hours) and resulted in complete victory. The July 16 communique issued by Paolo T. Jorge of the Algiers office of the MPLA presented the FAPLA (Forças Armadas Popular de Libertação de Angola - People's Liberation Armed Forces of Angola, the armed forces of the MPLA) as the main protagonist in these clashes and was content merely to mention that the population of Luanda had "hailed" the FAPA troops and helped them empty the offices of the FNLA. Was this another purely military operation? Probably. But this time the consequences directly involve the population's future ability to resist an FNLA offensive to retake the city. It is thus now that the question of the arming of the people, of armed militios, and of military potential is really posed. That is why the Portuguese army is not neutral.
ANGOLA The Portuguese army Much more than in Mozambique, and vastly more than in Guinea-Bissau, the colonial army in Angola is a divided army. Of course, some of the troops, disgusted by the unending war and sensitized by April 25, have made common cause with the MPLA, which they see as "the ally of the MFA." But the existence in Angola of a significant bourgeoisie, combined with the pressure of on urban life that is rather far removed from the scene of combat, has permitted extensive osmosis between the army and the colonial bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie. Coutinho had difficulty keeping control of his troops, especially the air force, Later, General Cardoso threw in with the FNLA and UNITA. Today Macedo, Cardoso's right-hand-man, who is more favorable to the MPLA, has taken over. But whoever the top commander may be, the Portuguese army is divided, and a large fraction of it is prepared to oppose the MPLA. Some Portuguese troops ottacked the MPLA headquarters in Luanda (Villa Alice), killing nearly thirty people. In the wake of the latest clashes, the Portuguese army has begun a general retreat toward Luanda and the big cities, thus abandoning the northern part of the country and making it easier for the Zairois army to provide unrestricted aid to the FLA. In the course of this retreat, the Portuguese army has compelled the entire white population to move into the big cities, to abandon plantations and commercial establishments, and to demand repatriation to Portugal. The Portuguese army has remained neutral in the actual fighting between the FNLA and the MPLA, being content to offer its good offices for possible negotiations. Tia he here a ceo relie the rong. of a stab in the back to the MPLA; in the best of cases it maintains the worst illusions among the mass movement and retards the movement's desire for self-defense. (1) Thus, the only slogan to raise in this regard must be: Portuguese troops out of Angola, all arms and matérial to the MPLA and the popular committees! Although it has been announced that South African troops have entered the southern part of Angola and have dislodged the MPLA from Pereira Deca, the Portuguese general staff in Angola has yet to take a position on this intervention. Those in Portugal who are fighting for the pure and simple boycott of metropolitan troop transports to Angola are doing only half the work that has to be done, The arming of the popular militias and of the MPLA must be included in this battle. And refusal to go to Angola "against imperialism and social imperialism" obviously amounts to refusal to support the MPLA, which is implicitly designated as the "agent of Moscow," On the other hand, to say nothing at all about the presence of Portuguese troops under the pretext that if they 22 are on the scene they can offer a big helping hand to the MPLA is also a grave error. The present situation and the nature of the Portuguese army in Angola excludes such a possibility. Counterrevolution on the march: ENLA and UNITA The FNLA today benefits from a favorable relationship of forces that it lacked on April 25, 1974. Because of this, it has increased its credibility in the eyes of the imperialist factions that support it. Fundamentally tied to and dependent on the Zaire regime, the FNLA depends in part on the relations between Zaire and world imperialism. Mobutu is not a puppet on a string. He is now a dictator who takes advantage of the colossal riches of his country to sell his counterrevolutionary role in central Africa to the highest bidder among the various factions of imperialists. Various alliances and conjunetural influences may be formed and re-formed around the Mobutuist regime and around the squabbles among competitive interests. While recognizing the current privileged alliance between Mobüfü and North American interests, we can say that in the future other pressures may come into play; French President Giscard d'Estaing's trip to Kinshasa could be a harbinger of this sort of development. The MPLA has denounced the existence of an American aerial bridge linking Zaire to an airbase in Angolan terrifory that was graciously abandoned to the FNLA by the Portuguese general staff. The Paris daily Le Monde has also noted the possible existence of French arms deliveries to the FLA and the presence of a French officer on, the scene. At a time when South African troops have penetrated into southern Angola to retake cities held by the MPLA, there is no longer any doubt that the trip of FNLA vice-president Daniel Chipenda to Namibia several weeks ago was decisive in the simultaneity of the military operations. The leadership of the FLA will thus have to draw together and calculate the careful support it receives from here and there, from day to day. The reentry into Angola of thousands of refugees who had moved to Zaire creates an insoluble problem of food shortages in the zones controlled by the FINLA. The refusal of the conference of the Organization of African Unity to approve a Zairois motion condemning Portugal's affitude toward Angola demonstrated the precariousness of the FLA's African diplomatic support; this precariousness is a result not of any sympathy for the MPLA but rather of fear of the economic and military power that a Kinshasa-Luanda axis under the aegis of a Mobutu and a Holden Roberto would represent. For its part, UNITA has been playing the gome of apparent neutrality between the MPLA and FNLA since April 25. Its main priority during this period has been to seek support from reactionary sectors of colons, including the
Angolan Unity Front (FUA - Frente de Unidade Angolana) of the fascist Falção, all in the name of a multiracial Angola. But the flight of the colons back to Portugal has cuf the ground from under the feet of UNITA.(2) That development, combined with the repeated clashes between the MPLA and the FNLA, compelled Jonas Savimbi's organization to make a change in tactics. Basing itself fundamentally on regionalism, UNITA set about to construct its own fief. Implanted south of the Cuanza river, it sought to prevent the war from becoming generalized throughout the South. Savimbi encouraged economic activities in "his" zone, He affirmed that he would guarantee the security of the lives and property of the European population. Rumors were floated that this region might secede under UNITA rule in the event that a generalized conflict broke out in the country. In fact, the southern region is the richest in the country, and the one most heavily penetrated by European interests (the Benguela railroad, the Cassinga mines, etc.). Support from European Common Market circles, especially from French and German interests (Krupp holds the majority of shares in the Cassinga iron mines) is a trump card that Savimbi does not want to lose. But the generalization of the conflict makes it difficult for UNITA to implement this regionalization. That is why we are now witnessing an incredible poker game between the MPLA and the FNLA, with UNITA as the stakes. While Savimbi's troops were making common cause with FNLA forces against the MPLA, the MPLA announced that it was opening negotiations with UNITA, On Sunday, August 17, there was a big mass demonstration in Luanda in support of the MPLA. Lopo de Nascimento, a member of both the MPLA and the coalition government, took the opportunity to tell Agence FrancePresse that an alliance between his organization and UNITA was necessary! At that very moment, the two organizations were closhing in Luso in the Southeast; in Lobito the MPLA was surrounded by troops of the FLA and UNITA acting jointly. Lopo de Nascimento's remark provides a good illustration of the opportunism of the MPLA leadership, which has publicly recognized UNITA's implantation in the South. (See the interview with MPLA leader Agostinho Neto in the May 3 issue of the Lisbon weekly Sempre Fixe.) But it also points out the conflict-ridden character of the FNLA-UNITA alliance, which forces UNITA to utilize its regional "representativeness" for all it's worth. Since UNITA is rather weak militarily, it is prepared to rally to the MPLA depending on the fluctuations of imperialist support to the FNLA. But this in no way eliminates its counterrevolutionary character; it does not wipe out its attacks on the self-organization of the workers and on strikes; it does not eliminate its alliance with certain imperialist sectors. The FNLA and UNITA today constitute the only forces imperialism commands for imposing a neocolonial solution in Angola. Given the already considerable presence of foreign investors in the country, the convergence between the interests of the investors and the ambitions of the FNLA and UNITA place these two organizations in the center of the negotiations. The urban mass movement was making no mistake when it sacked the FLA's "house of the people" (sic) in Luanda and found a series of well equipped torture chambers and dungeons in which dozens of victims were locked up. That is why, once again, the leadership of the MPLA is offering resporses that are inadequate to the future needs of the struggle. MPLA leadership maintains its line In his statement of July 16, Paolo T. Jorge, a member of the MPLA foreign relations commission, set the tone for the organization when he claimed that the prime cause of the new situation was "lack of respect for the Alvor accords, fundamentally on the part of the FINLA, but often in collusion with UNITA." And he added, going a bit further: "In the legitimate concern for overcoming the armed conflicts and arriving at a new common platform for the MPLA, the FLA, and UNITA -in spite of the political and ideological differences and the varying historic antecedents among the three movements — and in order to permit a harmonious development, in order and calm, of the process of decolonization, the leaders of these three organizations met in Nakuru, Kenya, in June 1975 and signed a new protocol more or less reaffirming the fundamental clauses of the Alvor accords. But, once again, the FNLA was not going to respect the new accords, despite (sic) the obvious good faith of the leaders of the MPLA." That is how an important member of the apparatus describes the recent history of his country! In the July 19 issue (No. 14) of its journal, Victoria Certa, which appeared at the height of the counteroffensive, the MPLA published a short article on people's power in which the necessity of developing this power was expressed this way: "The organizational forms of people's power must be strengthened and amplified so that the people may freely express and defend their interests, which are, fundamentally, the interests of the workers and peasants. These classes must be broadly represented in the popular organs, independently of the liberation movements, the tribes, or the races. The people must express themselves in an organized way; they must struggle and freely choose their vanguard. In a communiqué broadcast by Luanda radio, the Political Bureau of the MPLA "launched a vehement appeal to the popular neighborhood commissions to form vigilance groups in all the neighborhoods, composed of conscious and disciplined citizers, with the objective of preventing marginal groups, whether in the pay of reaction or not, from committing acts of banditry such as
ANGOLA murder, theft, vandalism, and violence." The MPLA called on the coordinating body of the popular neighborhood commissions to act "together with the Luanda municipality to study how to offer a practical solution to the problems of burying cadavers, of the lack of water and light, and of other problems within their competence." (A Capital, July 17, 1975.) These statements on people's power remain broodly ambiguous in that they define people's power as simply having a proctical function and not as a strategy for the development of sulf-organization and self-defense as the first form of state power of the toiling masses. The relationship between the MPLA and the state apparátus remains especially obscure because respect for the Alvor accords is asserted repeatedly, and that means respect for a form of bourgeois government. That is the fundamental controdiction that injects the worst illusions Into the mass movement, If MPLA troops today are surrounded by FNLA troops in Lobito, Luso, and Nova Lisboa, hundreds of miles from the FNLA's base area in Zaire, and if UNITA has made the South its fief, these developments have occurred because of the formal equality conferred on the three organizations by the Alvor accords. In the midst of a civil war, of a time when the fate of the Angolan revolution is ar stake, it is irresponsible to cite the Alvor accords as the backdrop for the political batte of the MPLA. This confirms as strongly as possible the nationalist choices of the MPLA leadership. The MPLA leadership lounched its counteroffensive only because its very survival was threatened by the FNLA. Every member of the leodership knows that since the MPLA has no support except that of the mosses, it could rapidly be physically eliminated by the FNLA. But the analyses of the MPLA leadership have completely disregarded the fact that the present unstable relationship of forces is a result precisely of a year and a half of rotten compromises with these agents of imperialism. The leadership continues to offer the masses a moralistic analysis that speaks in terms of "wicked people who refuse to keep their word." In order to struggle against the FNLA, the battle of the Angolon masses must be situated in the framework of the enfire African revolution. The masses of the neocolonial countries must be awakened, and one must not be content simply to wage a battle of words in the councils of the Organization of African Unity. As far os UNITA is concerned, here is the analysis Agostinho Neto presented in the interview published in the May 3 Sempre Fixe: "UNITA today is following the same road as the FNLA, and that is why there is no possibility of our working toge ther within the government. It cannot be said that UNITA is neutral. Of course, the main clash is not with UNITA; but we nevertheless have good reason to think that if UNITA was alone on the scene, its attitude would not be different. Even under these conditions, we still hope that UNITA will take the path of conciliation, the path to real peace." 24
A curious conception of conciliation and peace, after having placed UNITA and the FNLA on the same footing! This sort of reasoning does not help to educate the mass movement. Just the opposite; each statement is carefully mesured so as to satisfy everybody and to leave the door open for new rotten negotiations to establish some kind of "government of unity." It is certainly true that UNITA has now carved itself out a base in the South. But the clock connot be turned back by making a tactical alliance behind the back of the urban mass movement. What is primarily needed to expose UNITA is a body of slogans directed of the peasantry and petty-bourgeois sectors. And if this is being prepared, everything could be called into question once again by polishing up Savimbi's image with a last-minute alliance. Peking and the Angolan counterrevolution For mony months the Soviet bureaucracy was content to support the MPLA without taking a clearly hostile attitude toward the FNLA. Sovier diplomacy was guided partially by respect for the Alvor accords, but above all by the need to keep all options open in face of an uncertain future. But for some fime now the tone has changed. On August 17 Pravda accused the FNLA of being supported by "Peking, the racists of South Africa, and the multinational monopolies that want to maintain control of the natural resources of Angola." Support to the MPLA, which is designated as "the tested revolutionary vanguard in the country" (Krasnaya Zvezda, August 17), is decisive for Sovier diplomacy in southern and central Africa. The defeat of the MPLA would lead to a decisive penetration by U.S. diplomacy and to a retreat from the positions that have been won by the South West African People's Organization (SWAPO) in Namibia and by the African National Council (ANC) in Rhodesia, which represent the best hopes of Kremlin diplomacy. Neverthe less, the Kremlin has already gotten a big assist from the openly counterrevolutionary attitude of the Chinese leadership, It is known that Peking sent more than 200 instructors to the FNLA after the signing of the Zaire-China accords. A comrade of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (French section of the Fourth International) who recently returned from a visit to Angola has reported that on FNLA prisoner revealed the presence of Chinese on the advanced front lines, in Caxito. The explanations of the Angolan situation in the Chinese press today contain implicit denunciations of the MPLA. The July 26 issue of Chine Nouvelle wrote that there is "no conflict of interest" among the various liberation movements in Angola and that the clashes among these movements are due essentially to the "maneuvers of dissension" carried out by the Soviet Union: "On the eve of the independence of Angola and just after the sign-
ing of the Nakuru accords by the three Angolan organizations, the Soviet social Imperialists flagrantly provoked an armed conflict in Angola in order to undermine the independence of this country and gain control of it because of its strategic geographical position." Chine Nouvelle accused the USSR of sending "large quantities of heavy weapons" to Luanda (which means, implicitly, to the MPLA). "Although the OAU recognizes the three Angolan liberation movements, " Chine Nouvelle wrote, "Soviet social imperialism has viciously classified them in three categories: revolutionary, nonrevolufionary, and counterrevolutionary . ... and this despite the fact that the three movements have persisted in the armed struggle for years. On July 12, Shai Tse-min, president of the Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, received an FLA delegation in Peking. The delegation was headed by Hendrik Vall Neto, secretary of state for information in the coalition government. This Individual is the same man who in February had personally led an FNLA commando in an attack on the Luanda radio installations, kidnapping and torturing an announcer who was a sympathizer of the MPLA and mistreating the workers because they had given too good a response to the campaign for people's power. The reception in Peking (broadcast by Hsinhua and monitored in Tokyo) took place just at the time that the MPLA wos driving the FLA out of Luanda. For an anticapitalist struggle! One cannot remain neutral among the three liberation movements under the pretext of a gradualist conception that regards the struggle of "Angolan nationalism" against the Portuguese presence as a first stage in a longer struggle. The international penetration of capital into Angola makes the question of "Portuguese neocolonialism" totally dependent on the submission of the Angolan economy to the imperialist interests that hold shares in the various concessions. That is why the priority task must be to expose the connection between forces like those of the FNLA and UNITA and the interests of the various imperialist factions. (See, for example, INPRECOR, No.31, July 17, 1975.) That is a strong and pertinent critique of the Portuguese reformists who pronounce themselves against any neocolonial solution but remain silent about the agreements Lisbon has entered into with a multitude of imperialist companies, agreements aimed ot plundering Angola. The divisions within "Angolan nationalism" are very clearly reflections of the conflicts between the upholders of an immediate neocolonial solution and a mass movement that has made the first ex-
ANGOLA periments with self-organization and is partially controlled by a petty-bourgeois nationalist leadership. When we talk abouf support for the MPLA, it is the Angolan masses we are talking to, and we tell them: "We support the MPLA because today it is the political and military force in which you place confidence and whose ranks you fill. We support the MPLA because today it is the only military force that is opposing the most brutal reaction that the African revolution has ever seen. But the MPLA will not be able to definitively satisfy the demands for which you are fighting - for the end of all exploitation, for an Angola that is really free of all imperialist constraint. Your leadership believes it can conciliate your struggle with African diplomacy and 'nofional unity' by not carrying out a real socialist revolufion. When we support the MPLA it is your struggle that we are supporting, the struggle of the workers and poor peasants, of the militants and revolutionary cadres of the MPLA. But we warn you against the zigzags of the national leadership, against its illusions and hesitatiors." Convinced that a class line passes through this movement, we believe that the rood that leads to a radicalization of the struggle and to its transformation into a social revolution passes through the construction of an authentic communist leadership. It is thus that the conscious elements of the movement must be able to organize and put forward their own perspectives. In the present period, a class struggle tendency would assert itself by rejecting any new political accords with the FNLA and UNITA, by drawing a critical balancesheet of the previous accords, and by denouncing the formula of coalition government. Such a tendency would go beyond the vague formulas of Maoistic elements about "people's democracy" and would formulate the concrete tasks of the socialist revolution. The development of neighborhood committees and popular militios as preparatory forms of the state power of the masses; the expropriation without compensation of the capitalists; a body of slogans aimed at the peasantry; clear responses on the self-determination of ethnic groups, the use of national languages, the destruction of the present property forms in the coffee-growing zones, etc. - all this should contribute to relaunching a mass movement that has already been tired out by famine and massacre. Break down nationalist illusions by denouncing the masquerade of African diplomacy, by calling upon the Congolese, Zairois, and Zambian masses to mobilize, and by calling for militant solidarity from African revolutionaries and the international revolutionary movement -that is the best response to the appeals for unity issued by a Kaunda (the Zambian president). Such a regroupment of the vanguard would not only lay the basis for a recognized revolutionary leadership, but with UNITA, the question of a unilateral declaration of independence, or many other issues. The risks of the Internationalization of the conflict have not disappeared. 86
There is already talk of a South African military intervention to "protect the Calueque dam on the Cunene River, a region which is claimed by Namibia and in which South Africans have heavily invested in the production of hydroelectric energy. South Africa is also reported ready to assume responsibility for the transport of Zambian and Zairois copper that could no longer be carried by the Benguela railroad. All these factors converge to lend the struggles of the Angolan people a decisive role in determining the future relationship of forces throughout southern Africa at a time when the Rhodesian regime is negotiating its last card and when Pretoria is planning to lock the Namibian people into concentration Bantustans. The MPLA today is fighting for control of the coasts. Moçamedes, Benguela, and Lobito are the scenes of battles that are decisive for supply and logistics. The clashes at Caxito, thirty-five miles north of Luanda, the most advanced point held by the FLA, prove that Holden's troops have at least temporarily failed in their attempts to retake Luando. On August 15 General Antonio Ferreira Maceda, General Cardoso's successor as Portuguese high commissioner in Angola, declared the coalition government incapable of carrying out its responsibilities and decided to assume sole executive power. It was in face of this decision that the MPLA, the sole real master of Luanda, mentioned the possibility of a unilateral declaration of independence. But this juridical formula is not decisive, especially since in the minds of the leaders of the MPLA it could imply new negotiations for diplomatic recognition from a series of African states. In face of the shilly-shallying of Portugal, we must now demand all power to the MPLA, PORTUGUESE, SOUTH AFRICAN, AND ZAIROIS TROOPS OUT OF ANGOLA! FOR INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY WITH THE STRUGGLES OF THE ANGOLAN WORKERS AND PEASANTS! HANDS OFF THE ANGOLAN REVOLUTION! August 22, 1975 Footnotes: 1. The question of air power is decisive in the current relationship of military forces. The first organization that gains access to any aircraft will have every opportunity to turn the situation in its favor fundamentally. 2. For several weeks thousands of Portuguese have been waiting at the airports in Luanda and Nova Lisboa to fly back to Portugal. Some are driving in columns of hundreds of cars toward Namibia, where South Africa lodges them temporarily before transporting them to Portugal. There are anticommunist and anti-MA demonstrations in Luanda nearly every day. The question of these reactionary repatriots is not unimportant for the internal Portuguese situation.