One of the key issues in contemporary Western historiography is the assumption that Africa is not part of history and that all events in Africa today play no part in the contemporary flow of historical events. Let us look at the African experience of important treaties with the US.
Angola/ Apartheid
Fidel Castro sent an armed force to support the liberation movement in Angola at a time when apartheid South African troops were outside Luanda. A liberation movement would be skilled in guerilla warfare and have little experience in fixed-position warfare, which would be required to defend Luanda. Cuban troops arrived with canon and training in fixed-position warfare. South African troops now faced troops with better equipment and did an about-face and returned to South Africa. Rather than direct attacks, South Africa focussed on supporting a divisive sectional group, UNITA, led by Savimbi, to develop a civil war.
Soviet strategists were advising MPLA and recommending fixed positional warfare against the South African troops. Fidel Castro believed this approach was destined to fail, and there was considerable disagreement between Castro and the Soviets on this. At this time, the Soviets were faced with an impending economic collapse and were secretly seeking an exit from Angola. During the negotiations with the US, they secretly signalled their wish to exit from Angola. This led to the US recommending to the South African SADF to deliver a bloody nose to the Soviets in Angola, which would lead to the Soviets’ total exit from Africa.
Meanwhile, the Soviets had prepared MPLA for a ‘decisive’ battle at Cuito Canavale. Meanwhile, the SADF moved a major force to Cuito Canavale, denuding troops guarding Namibia. SADF believed they were going to have a decisive battle with the Soviets which would give the Soviets the face-saving excuse to leave Africa. Castro never believed in the Soviet plan for a decisive battle at Cuito Canavale and fought unsuccessfully to change the Soviet plans. (Note 1)
In the meantime joint Cuban and Angola troops moved towards the border with Nambia. Fidel denuded Cuba of its advanced aircraft and anti-aircraft equipment, gambling correctly that Reagan was so embroiled in the Contra scandal that he would have no time for Cuba. SWAPO provided the knowledge of how to move towards the Namibia border without being spotted by the US satellite surveillance systems. Once on the border, the Angola -Cuban troops broke cover. In the meantime, the large SADF force was collected outside Cuito Canavale. Once the Angola-Cuban troops broke cover with their advanced aircraft and anti-aircraft equipment, it became clear that the SADF were encircled. In fact, there was a clear road to Pretoria. This was a catastrophic strategic defeat for the SADF. As Casto stated at the time, this was a battle that would be won without fighting. (Note 2)
Chester Crocker was sent urgently to negotiate an exit for the army of the US proxy, the SADF. Angola team, advised by Cuban ministers, demanded and won tough terms: 1. The immediate independence of Namibia, 2. the unbanning of the ANC and the freedom for Mandela, and 3. elections within a year on a basis of universal suffrage. This agreement was to be guaranteed by the Soviets and the US.
What is most relevant is that after the release of Mandela, 11 February 1990, the unbanning of the ANC on 2 Febraury 1990, the Soviet Union collapsed on 31 December 1991, and the US signalled to the Apartheid South Africans that there was no need to keep to the final point – election under universal suffrage. Several years of uprising followed until finally the banks refused to continue to fund the apartheid regime and negotiations began again with Mandela for ending apartheid. (Note 3)
Clearly, the US approach to the Tripartite Agreement was entirely without genuine commitment. If circumstances change and the US can exploit the new situation then prior agreements can be ignored.
Zimbabwe
Reagan and Thatcher agreed with Mugabe that if he avoided dispossessing the white landowners, they, Britain and the US, would provide the funds for him to buy them out. Mugabe attempted to keep his part of this agreement but then found that both the US and Britain avoided their part of the agreement.
Lessons unlearned
Why did the Russians not take these events seriously? It may well be that they had begun to believe they were going to be accepted as a part of the Great white West, and that this sort of behaviour by Western nations was simply how they treated the unwashed coloured world. Africa is part of history, and African events are historical events worth learning from. A whole generation of Soviet scholars grew up believing that the Soviet Union had nothing in common with Africa, and this attitude was handed over to their successors – the Russian intelligentsia. Even recently, a senior member of the Valdai Club stated that Russia has nothing in common with Africa. This is despite Pushkin, the connection between the Coptic Orthodox church and the Russian Orthodox Church, the role of Russia in maintaining Ethiopia’s independence and the many nobles of African descent in Russia’s early history. In the rush to make themselves acceptable to a racist West, Russian intellectuals ‘cleansed’ their own history.
Ignoring what happened to the South Africa agreement and the Zimbabwe agreement, treating African history as of no relevance to modern Russia, and not seeing them as lessons to be learned was a catastrophically expensive error. This error continues till today in many parts of Russian thinking.
Notes
- Much of the information here comes from a meeting with Jorge Risquet. Risquet regaled his audience with how Chester Crocker had him airbrushed from memorial photographs. He was in retirement but spoke remarkably generously of all participants, without a shred of bitterness or rancour.
- Many in the SADF failed to appreciate the scale fo their deefat because there were no large mounds of body bags. This lack of body bags had negative consequences in that many whites continue to think they could have gone onto win the war but for their lily livered leaders.
- It is true that later, a senior Russian diplomat publicly apologised for Russia’s concealed intention to betray Africa.