Angola–United States relations

From 1962,[1] during Angola's protracted struggle for independence from Portugal, the U.S. provided covert support to Holden Roberto of the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA).[2] The administration of U.S. President John F. Kennedy also barred Portugal from using American weapons in its colonies, although compliance with this ban was imperfect.[3] Like subsequent presidents, Kennedy, in his policy stance, attempted to balance the U.S.'s multiple interests in Angola. Political imperatives arose from Cold War politics and the U.S. containment policy: although some American policymakers viewed Portuguese colonialism as a stabilising force in Africa, American support for FNLA was calculated to avoid an outcome in which the left-wing, Soviet-aligned Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) gained control of an independent Angola.[4] The U.S. also had significant economic interests in Angola: various American companies operated there, including Gulf Oil in Cabinda; and in 1975, the U.S. was Angola's primary export market (ahead even of Portugal) and its third largest import market.[2] The U.S. was also a close partner of President Mobutu Sese Seko in neighbouring Zaire, whose regime closely guarded its security interests in Angola, including by hosting FNLA insurgents in Zaire.[4] However, after Richard Nixon was elected U.S. President and adopted the so-called Tar Baby Option, the U.S. redoubled its support for the Portuguese colonists and remained publicly neutral towards FNLA, as it did towards all liberation movements,[4][5][6] while occasionally lobbying privately for reform of the Portuguese regime in Angola.[7]

Geopolitical situation, 1978–79.

  SWAPO allies

  South African allies

  South West Africa (Namibia)

  South Africa

By late 1975, Angola had achieved independence but had become the site of a territorial contest between MPLA (later supported by Cuban troops, with Soviet backing) and its domestic rivals, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and FNLA (later supported by South African troops). The U.S. publicly advocated a negotiated political solution to the conflict.[8] However, as observers suspected at the time,[2][4] U.S. President Gerald Ford had already authorised government support to UNITA and FNLA, beginning with the 40 Committee's decision in January 1975 to reinforce aid to FNLA, though to still-modest levels.[9] In July 1975, reportedly at the urging of U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger,[9] Ford approved the covert Operation IA Feature, which was run by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and coordinated closely (or "colluded", as critics claimed[5]) with South African and Zairean efforts in Angola.[10] The operation provided for $32 million in financial support to UNITA and FNLA; $16 million in military equipment, to be supplied to the groups through Zaire; and the recruitment of mercenaries, and some CIA experts, to advise the groups' military commands.[9] South African officials and CIA officer John Stockwell also claimed that the US had known in advance of, and had cooperated with, South Africa's planned invasion of Angola in October 1975.[1][3]

Academic John A. Marcum called the Angolan proxy intervention "the post-Vietnam testing ground of American will and power" in the face of mounting Soviet expansionism.[5] When the operation was exposed publicly, the U.S. Congress passed the Clark Amendment to the Arms Export Control Act, blocking further U.S. support to military or paramilitary groups in Angola.[11][12] However, Stockwell alleges that, the following week, Kissinger, via U.S. diplomats in Kinshasha, assured UNITA that the U.S. would "continue to support UNITA as long as it demonstrated the capacity for effective resistance to the MPLA".[3]

Violent conflict in Angola subsided in early 1976, as MPLA consolidated its control over the country. The U.S., however – though it permitted Gulf Oil to resume its Angolan operations (responsible for about 65 per cent of the Angolan government's foreign exchange)[13] – became the single Western power to refuse to recognise the new, socialist, MPLA-ruled People's Republic of Angola.[4] It vetoed Angola's application for United Nations (UN) membership in June 1976, on the basis of the continued Cuban presence in the country.[4] Although the bid to block Angola's entry to the UN failed, successive U.S. administrations succeeded, until September 1990, in blocking its membership of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.[14]

Jimmy Carter was highly critical of the Ford administration's Angolan policy during his presidential campaign, and members of his administration – especially UN Ambassador Andrew Young – publicly supported taking a less hostile posture towards MPLA. However, by 1977, reportedly under the influence of his National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter too had announced that a Cuban drawdown in Angola was a prerequisite for any diplomatic relations between Washington, D.C., and Luanda.[3][15] Over the next two years, Angolan-backed insurgents invaded Zaire twice, precipitating conflicts known as Shaba I and Shaba II, and, on the latter occasion, provoking U.S. involvement in the Zairean military response.

UNITA rebel Jonas Savimbi meets U.S. President Ronald Reagan at the White House, January 1986.

In the 1980s, UNITA – by then the dominant anti-government force in the ongoing Angolan Civil War – became a beneficiary of the so-called Reagan Doctrine, under which U.S. President Ronald Reagan extended American support to insurgents fighting Soviet proxies or allies worldwide. In 1981, the year of his election, Reagan announced his support for UNITA, urged Congress to repeal the Clark Amendment, and established high-level political contact with UNITA.[16] In February 1986, the Reagan administration informed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that, though it remained committed to a diplomatic solution of the ongoing Angolan Civil War, it planned to prevent a MPLA military victory by providing covert military aid to UNITA, beginning with $15 million in military assistance, primarily accounted for by Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.[16] The announcement followed a meeting at the White House the previous month between Reagan and UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi; and it was enabled by the repeal of the Clark Amendment in 1985.[8] Supporters of the U.S. alliance with UNITA linked it to objectives ranging from outright Angolan regime change to the mere provision of a bargaining chip with which to induce the MPLA-led government to negotiate with UNITA.[16] Though the MPLA government had begun to demonstrate an increased willingness to improve relations with the U.S.,[16] it said the announcement of U.S. support for UNITA amounted to a declaration of war.[8]

Especially in the first half of the 1980s, another cornerstone of Reagan's foreign policy was constructive engagement, which prescribed a conciliatory posture towards the apartheid regime in South Africa. One of the objectives of constructive engagement was to obtain leverage which could be used to resolve Southern Africa's complex of interlocking conflicts – not only the Angolan Civil War, but also the South African Border War and the ongoing South African occupation of Namibia (South West Africa). The architect of constructive engagement, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Chester Crocker, advocated a principle of "linkage", by which South African withdrawal from Namibia was linked to – that is, made conditional on – Cuban withdrawal from Angola.[17][18][19] The Angolan government objected strenuously to this approach, and the announcement of the UNITA aid programme stalled negotiations between 1986 and 1987.[20] However, negotiations resumed, with the U.S. playing a central role, and ultimately resulted in Angola's signature of the Brazzaville Protocol and Tripartite Accord in December 1988.[8][21]

Savimbi meets U.S. President George H.W. Bush, October 1990.

Although the 1988 accords were welcomed as "open[ing] a new phase of American diplomacy",[22] the U.S. failed to capitalise on improved conditions for a thaw in its relations with Angola, partly because of the continued influence of pro-UNITA individuals and groups in Washington.[23] In January 1989, the outgoing Reagan administration proposed to send U.S. diplomats to Luanda, officially to monitor the implementation of the 1988 accords but also to provide a direct channel of communication between the American and Angolan governments. However, the U.S. was unwilling to accommodate an Angolan liaison in Washington, suggesting instead that the Angolans operate through their New York mission to the UN. Unable to secure a reciprocal offer, Angola rejected the proposal.[20][23] An anti-American faction within MPLA argued that the U.S. was "moving the goalposts", failing to follow through on Reagan's implicit promise that a negotiated settlement – and the impending Cuban withdrawal from Angola – would be rewarded by improved relations.[20]

The plausibility of this view was further strengthened by subsequent U.S. policy moves. First, also in January 1989, U.S. President-Elect George H.W. Bush wrote to Savimbi, promising UNITA "all appropriate and effective assistance" from his administration.[24] Second, Bush's appointee as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Herman J. Cohen, expressed "a vigorously pro-UNITA position" during his confirmation hearings.[20] And, third, it transpired that the American budget for aid to UNITA had increased from an estimated $30–45 million in 1988 to $50–60 million in 1989.[23] By 1990, it amounted to up to $90 million;[14] in total, it is estimated that the U.S. provided UNITA with $250 million in weapons assistance between 1986 and 1992.[13] Given that South Africa's disengagement was a condition of the 1988 accords, this made the U.S. UNITA's primary external patron.[20] Although American support for UNITA was weakened somewhat by the fall of the Berlin Wall, and by revelations about atrocities committed by Savimbi, a campaign to step away from the relationship failed to muster sufficient votes in Congress.[23]

Bush's administration avoided a high-profile role in the ongoing intra-Angolan peace process, preferring instead to support a mediation led by Mobutu in Gbadolite.[20] The mediation failed and, amid a resurgence of the Angolan civil war, Angolan President José Eduardo Dos Santos cancelled a planned trip to Washington in February 1990, which the Bush administration did not want to occur until a ceasefire had been attained in Angola.[20] However, the U.S. remained supportive of peace efforts, including those which led to the 1991 Bicesse Accords. When, in September 1992, Savimbi refused to accept the results of Angola's first multi-party elections and launched an offensive against MPLA forces, the Bush administration said that both parties were responsible for the resulting violence, and supported a new round of negotiations to assuage UNITA's "security concerns".[13]

Under President Bill Clinton – whose inauguration was attended by an MPLA representative[25] – the U.S. appeared increasingly impatient with UNITA's intransigence, while MPLA increasingly sought Western partners. On 19 May 1993, the U.S. extended formal diplomatic recognition to the MPLA-led government of Angola, a move viewed as calculated to pressure Savimbi into cooperation with ongoing peace talks.[13][26] Clinton's administration subsequently expressed support for UN sanctions against UNITA, and publicly disavowed any prospect of Angolan regime change by UNITA-led coup.[13] Following the Lusaka Protocol of 1994, Clinton secured congressional support for a UN peacekeeping mission in Angola, arguing that it "represented the last piece in a regional settlement in which the United States had significant economic and diplomatic investment".[13] Between 1995 and 1997, the U.S. funded 30 per cent of the mission's expenditures, amounting to about $100 million in aid.[13] In December 1995, Clinton received Angolan President Dos Santos at the White House, where they discussed bilateral economic relations and Angola's ongoing national reconciliation. On the latter point, a Clinton aide said that "the president put the screws to him [Dos Santos] and we got what we wanted".[27]

UNITA, meanwhile, did not comply with U.S. urging to demobilise, and, into Clinton's second term, the civil war continued in parts of Angola. However, in 1998, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs said, while visiting Angola, that the U.S. government "believes it is time to move our economic relations forward with Angola despite the current political-military problems in Angola".[13] Initiatives included a state-endorsed trade mission to Angola in 1997, the formation of a Bilateral Consultative Commission in 1998, and a $350 million Export-Import Bank loan to U.S. oil equipment exporters in Angola.[13] By the late 1990s, Angola was the U.S.'s third-largest trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa: the U.S. was consistently among its top three import markets and its primary export market. This trade relationship was centred on Angola's large oil industry: the U.S. received 90 per cent of Angolan oil exports, accounting in turn for seven per cent of U.S. oil imports.[13] By 1999, Angola was the second-largest destination for American investment in sub-Saharan Africa, also concentrated in the oil sector.[13]

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Angolan President João Lourenço in Luanda, February 2020

Angola held a temporary seat on the UN Security Council in 2003, and the U.S. and other Western countries reportedly lobbied the Angolan government heavily for its support for a draft resolution which would authorise the use of force against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.[28][29][30]

In 2009, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama declared Angola one of the U.S.'s three key strategic partners in Africa, along with Nigeria and South Africa.[31] Both Obama and his successor, Donald Trump, advanced the bilateral security partnership – including through a 2010 U.S.–Angola Strategic Partnership Dialogue and a 2017 Memorandum of Understanding – with a particular focus on security in the Gulf of Guinea.[31] However, the U.S. and China have sometimes been viewed as competing for influence in Angola.[32]