5.5 Identifying the national interests behind the three countries decisions for intervention
5.5.2 National interests in the context of Angola’s decision
153
It is against the background of these legal dynamics that the following section will try to identify, evaluate and ascertain the interests that motivated the member countries of the coalition of the willing to undertake the decision for intervention.
5.5 Identifying the national interests behind the three countries decisions for
154
that the DRC conflict was putting Luanda’s relations with many of its neighbours at stake.106 The Angolan Ambassador’s statement is further corroborated by the then Angolan Minister of the Interior, Fernando da Piedade dos Santos, who in his address to parliament noted that the deployment of Angolan forces (FAA) by the government was prompted by “state reasons and imperatives of national security.”107 The Interior Minister further explained that the deployment was effected in response to the continued destabilisation of Angola through direct and indirect aggressions.108
In the view of the Angolan Interior Minister, the Luanda government’s argument needed to control effectively the movements and activities of the Jonas Savimbi led rebel National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Uniao Nacional para a Independencia Total de Angola-UNITA).109 Again, a hostile or unfriendly government in Kinshasa would have had a negative effect on the Angolan peace process and the smooth supply of military equipment and movement of UNITA rebel troops from the DRC into Angola.110 It should be noted that
106 Author acknowledges this information availed to him by the Zimbabwe’s Defence Advisor to Angola, Colonel Bernard Dungeni during a courtesy call on the Embassy of Zimbabwe, Luanda, 15 March 2008.
107 See “Angola Parliament pursues debates on troops in DRC” http://www.reliefweb.accessed 25 July 2008).
108 See also “Angola Parliament pursues debates on troops in DRC” http://www.reliefweb.accessed 25 July 2008).
109 As the Angolan Army Chief of Staff pointed out to the author during an interview (Luanda, 15 March 2008), the decision by the Angolan government to deploy troops in the DRC meant that Luanda was also fighting UNITA in a foreign land. The Angolan General went on to say that, for the Angolan government, military intervention in support of the DRC government was meant to pre-empt UNITA from launching its military incursions against the MPLA using the DRC. In fact, the Chief of Staff claimed that the Angolan government’s motive for the deployment of FAA in the DRC was also meant to disrupt UNITA’s lines of logistical support (also see Koyame and Clarke, 2002:214).
110 A senior officer in the Angolan Military Intelligence who opted to remain anonymous revealed to the author during an interview (Luanda, 16 March 2008) that between 1994 and 1997, the Angolan government and specifically the Angolan Military Intelligence had it on good authority that the UNITA rebel movement received significant supplies of military equipment from the Mobutu regime. They also had it on record that the DRC cities of Kinshasa and Gbadolite were used as conduits for military arsenals and other logistics which were delivered by cargo planes from Eastern European countries such as Bulgaria and later on transported and delivered to UNITA bases of Andulo and Bailundo in Angola. These transactions were being carried out by Kinshasa based UNITA agents who also used end user certificates from the DRC government to procure these logistics (also see Nabudere, 2003:57).
155
when UNITA relaunched its offensives in December 1998 on the towns of Huambo and Cuito, the FAA had to repulse these UNITA attacks by flying reinforcements from the DRC (Turner, 2002:86). With the assistance of the Congolese rebels, the Rwandese and Ugandan troops, UNITA managed to capture the town of Maquela do Zombo. That Angolan forces managed to recapture the town of Maquela do Zombo only after a joint operation of the SADC coalition seems to support the claim that the decision by Angola to undertake the military intervention in the Congo was linked to its national security need to destroy UNITA’s launching bases.
The national political interests that informed the government of Angola to undertake the decision for intervention was the country’s subregional obligation to ensure peace and stability by assisting a SADC member state. Nabudere (2003:57) argues that as a member of the SADC Organ on Politics Defence and Security (OPDS), Angola may also have acted in conformity with the SADC procedures of collective self-defence. In the opinion of the government of Angola, the crisis in the DRC was a result of the invasion by Rwanda and Uganda (Carvalho, 1999:99). Whilst the government of Angola recognised that there was an internal political problem in the DRC, its decision for military intervention was reached in response to a call by the Kinshasa government which faced an invasion (Carvalho, 1999:99).
Although Angola’s own experience had taught it that internal problems cannot be solved from the outside, its military intervention to solve the problem of the invasion would create an environment in which the internal problem could also be tackled (Carvalho, 1999:99).
Thus, it cannot be ruled out that the Angolan government could have calculated that like Zimbabwe and Namibia, it also had certain sub-regional responsibilities and obligations conferred upon it as a nation to the sub-region.
156
The Angolan government’s decision for military intervention was premised on the fact that it had committed itself to deploy troops in the DRC at the King George VI (KG6) Extraordinary Meeting of the Interstate Defence and Security Committee (ISDSC) that took the crucial decision for SADC to intervene militarily pending a political solution to the crisis.
In the opinion of the government of Angola, the conflict in the DRC was a result of aggression.111 In the researcher’s view, it can thus be said that the national political interests of Angola were like the national security interests of primacy and also vital in as far as the country’s decision for military intervention in the Congo was concerned. Perhaps the Angolan government realised that any laxity in terms of undertaking a regional obligation to ensure that the change of leadership in Kinshasa was not to be effected through an act of aggression had direct negative repercussions not only to SADC regional peace and stability but to Angola’s national security. Thus it would appear that there was a close link between Angola’s national political interests and national security interests in influencing the government’s decision to deploy troops to defend the Kabila regime. The national security interests and national political interests were of primary or vital importance.
The national economic interests of Angola also influenced the government’s decision for military intervention. Angola contributed some military transport aircraft, advisors and substantial material and logistical assistance to the AFDL’s advance to Kinshasa.112 The support rendered to Kabila by the Angolan government seems to have been crucial in the ouster of Mobutu Sese Seko. It could have been from this support that Angola laid the
111 Interview by author with a senior Angolan Ministry of Foreign Affairs official, Luanda, 25 April 2008.
112 Just like the revelations made to author by the senior ZDF official during an interview (Harare, 13 July 2010), the senior Angolan Military Intelligence officer (Interview with author 16 March 2008) corroborated the same information that during the AFDL’s fight to remove Mobutu from power, Angola, together with Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania provided assistance to Kabila’s rebel troops. The assistance included technical and logistical assistance as well as the provision of military intelligence to Kabila’s command centre.
157
foundation for the construction of very close diplomatic with the DRC. These ties could have resulted in the two countries entering bilateral military and economic agreements.
The government of Angola had offered to assist with technical military training to the new Congolese army. Before the outbreak of the conflict, the Angolan government was also preparing to send a small contingent to the DRC to work together with the Zimbabwean contingent, to lay the groundwork for the integration and training of a new DRC army.113 The military assistance to Congo could have been part of enhancing the Luanda government’s economic drive in terms of investing in the DRC. Thus, the Angolan government could have viewed the invasion as a threat to the relations and investments which were starting to grow between Luanda and Kinshasa. It cannot be ruled out that the invasion could also have appeared to the Luanda government as endangering the lives of a substantial number of Angolan nationals who were motivated to enter into the DRC for formal and informal business activities after the fall of the Mobutu regime.114
The economic drive for Angola’s decision for military intervention stemmed from the possibility of having the National Angolan Fuel Company (Sonangol) gaining control of the DRC’s petroleum distribution and production networks through the military intervention (Turner, 2002:87). The commitment of troops in support of the Kinshasa regime saw the
113 Such an initiative for the reintegration and training assistance of the DRC military by Angola and Zimbabwe could have been an arrangement stemming from the support the two countries offered to the AFDL during the fight to oust Mobutu. It cannot be ruled out that Harare and Luanda wanted to see a professional and well trained DRC military that could fight and defend the sovereign integrity of the Congo and, more specifically, the new Kabila regime.
114 Having completed fieldwork research in Angola, the author managed to travel from Luanda to Kinshasa by road and had a two week stay at Angola’s northern border with the DRC in Matadi in the Bas Congo province before proceeding to Kinshasa. As an eyewitness experience, the author noted that there are extensive cross border activities including trade by citizens of the two countries. These activities are further boosted by the close cultural links that the two countries’ people share particularly those of the western Congo (Bas Congo and those from Northern Angola on the border with Angola). Thus, there is always a regular presence let alone traffic of the two countries’ nationals on a daily basis.
158
Angolan government gaining control of about a 1,000 km oilfield stretch on the Atlantic seaboard, including the DRC, Congo-Brazzaville and its own Cabinda enclave, thus enhancing the expansion of its oil industry (International Crisis Group, ICG, “Scramble for the Congo,” in Anatomy of an Ugly War, ICG Africa Report, no.26 (Nairobi/Brussels; 2000, see also Turner 2002:87). Thus the prospects of having an uncooperative and hostile government in Kinshasa would have made it difficult for Angola to access its oil fields in the Kabinda enclave, which is situated between the DRC and the Angolan mainland.
It can be argued that whilst national economic interests of Angola played a part in influencing the government’s decision for intervention, these interests were not of primary or vital importance like the political and national security interests. In the case of Angola, the country could negotiate or compromise its economic interest. This seems true due to the fact that, after the death of UNITA rebel leader, Jonas Savimbi in February 2002 and the end of the Angola civil war, the government of Angola’s national political interests in relation to the DRC have not been as they were during the civil war in Angola. Yet the two countries still have close economic relations. Thus, the national economic relations were of secondary importance in as far as the decision by the government of Angola to deploy troops in defence of the Kinshasa regime was concerned.
The Angolan government’s argument that its decision to deploy troops in the DRC was premised on the quest to safeguard its national interests was also criticised. There were allegations that Luanda’s political elite had secured profitable networks through Angola’s national oil company, Sonangol, which had allegedly been granted concessions and marketing rights by Laurent Kabila (Taylor and Williams, 2001:75). Though unproven, the allegations against some senior officials in the Kabila and Dos Santos governments in the UN
159
Panel of Experts reports had some impact on argument of elite economic interest as having influenced Angola’s decision for intervention. It was alleged that the close ties in private business deals and more specifically oil business ventures among officials from the two countries could arguably also have been influential in as far as the decision making process that led to Angola’s intervention is concerned.115