Sub-Saharan Africa’s second-largest oil producer, Angola, Tim Marshall explains (in Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World), is one of the African nation states with natural geographical borders:
It is framed by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, by jungle to the north, and by desert to the south, while the eastern regions are sparsely populated, rugged land that acts as a buffer zone with the DRC and Zambia.
The majority of the 22 million–strong population live in the western half, which is well watered and can sustain agriculture; and off the coast in the west lie most of Angola’s oil fields. The rigs out in the Atlantic are owned mostly by American companies, but more than half of the output ends up in China. This makes Angola (dependent on the ebb and flow of sales) second only to Saudi Arabia as the biggest supplier of crude oil to the Middle Kingdom.
Angola is another country familiar with conflict. Its war for independence ended in 1975 when the Portuguese gave up, but it instantly morphed into a civil war between tribes disguised as a civil war over ideology. Russia and Cuba supported the “socialists,” the United States and apartheid South Africa backed the “rebels.” Most of the socialists of the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) were from the Mbundu tribe, while the opposition rebel fighters were mostly from two other main tribes, the Bakongo and the Ovimbundu. Their political disguise was as the FNLA (National Front for the Liberation of Angola) and UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola). Many of the civil wars of the 1960s and 1970s followed this template: if Russia backed a particular side, that side would suddenly remember that it had socialist principles, while its opponents would become anti-Communist.
The Mbundu had the geographical but not the numerical advantage. They held the capital, Luanda; had access to the oil fields and the main river, the Cuanza; and were backed by countries that could supply them with Russian arms and Cuban soldiers. They prevailed in 2002, and their top echelons immediately undermined their own somewhat questionable socialist credentials by joining the long list of colonial and African leaders who enriched themselves at the expense of the people.
“LOL, LMAO.” (Literally every such case.)
“immediately undermined their own somewhat questionable socialist credentials by joining the long list of colonial and African leaders who enriched themselves at the expense of the people.”
Socialism is mostly a langauge mechanism to get absolute power. The people only matters when it feeds that propose.
“civil war between tribes disguised as a civil war over ideology. Russia and Cuba supported the ‘socialists,’”
Not only:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Angolan_coup_attempt
The author seems not to know of large indoctrinated young men and women. Angola at that time was also growing a black bourgeoisie with university studies, so outside the tribe. Unversities were started in 1968, while this was under that conservative Portuguese dictatorship the l’áir du temps was of May 1968.
Tribe factor matters when communist central government tries to destroy tradictions and traditional power.
Luanda in 1970 before the coup in Portugal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IQni8Go6RM