Inside Angola

Frontline Fellowship field workers have received reports of Marxist atrocities in BEI province in the villages of Camakup, Katabola, Chiuka, Kambandua, Ringoma, Chimbuzoque, Kavango and Ngando. The MPLA (FAPLA) soldiers engaged in gang rapes, looting, indiscriminate murders and summary executions of “counter revolutionaries” and resistance “sympathisers” in these villages. Each of these eight villages were then burnt down, destroying the people’s homes and belongings.

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In CUANZA SUL, MOXICO and HUAMBO provinces, villagers often testify of similar massacres and atrocities committed by the State Security Wing (MINSE) of the MPLA government.

The MPLA leader, President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, on 10 January 1989, at ceremonies marking the departure of the first Cubans from Angola under the Brazzaville accord, told the Cubans:

“Your contribution to our country is unforgettable . . . Your names are engraved in the memories of the Angolan people.”

As if to emphasise in what way they have made an impact on Angolan society, that week Cuban forces killed forty civilians and wounded sixty-one in the indiscriminate bombing of women and children working in the fields outside the villages of Ocivundo and Onguenge, in LUNDA province.

In fact, as a consequence of Cuban military intervention, their violation of the Alvor Agreement of January 1975, and the resultant Civil War in Angola:
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• More than 30 000 technicians left the country.

• 2 500 Factories closed down.

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• Only 8 000 of the 153 000 registered vehicles are still in use.

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• 25% of all children die before reaching age five.

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• 50% of all children suffer from malnutrition.

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• The International Red Cross has to feed over 100 000 destitute people.

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• 1-Million Angolans have lost their homes and been forced to flee as internal refugees.

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• Over $15-billion of war damage has been caused.

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• The Angolan capital, Luanda, is in a shambles. Built by the Portuguese to accommodate 700 000 people, its population has swollen to more than 2-million, most of them refugees from the civil war.

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• The economy has all but broken down completely. The country has no foreign exchange or reserves to speak of and, like fellow Marxist state Mozambique, cannot afford imports.

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• A massive black market has developed in Luanda, and the people there talk of a beer exchange rate, a whisky exchange rate, and so on.

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• Foreign debt is presently estimated at over $4 000-million.

• 30 000 people have been crippled by Soviet landmines alone.

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• 120 000 people have been killed.

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• Countless hundreds of churches have been bombed or burnt to the ground.

To the Angolan people, such an unforgettable contribution must surely be engraved in their memories.