Africa-Press – Angola. The Angolan military victory in the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale allowed, among other effects, to derail the plan of some internal and external forces to divide the country into two regions, north and south, according to university professor Isaac Canjengo.
In recent statements in Menongue, on the occasion of the 23rd of March as Southern Africa Liberation Day, the academic stated that the event in question aborted a strategy that aimed to control the entire southern region of Angola by the South African apartheid regime.
This intention was part of the actions that would be put into practice in the event of victory by Pieter Botha’s South African forces, he said.
According to the academic, it is a strategy whose implementation would give shape to the dream nurtured, at the time, by the liberation movements that had previously proclaimed the Independence of Southern Angola.
He stated that in geostrategic and geopolitical understanding, if the South African Army had triumphed with the capture of Cuito Cuanavale, it would very quickly have advanced to Menongue, capital of Cuando Cubango, and continued “without any opposition” to Cuito, headquarters of the neighboring province do Bié, in the center of the country.
The next step, he continued, would be to advance to the provinces of Benguela, Huambo, Huíla and Namibe, thus completing the plan for the territorial division of Angola and the consolidation of control of the southern part.
“With this, the strategic and military plan of dividing Angola into two regions would have been implemented,” he highlighted, adding that, past the municipality of Cuito Cuanavale, in Cuando Cubango, the indivisibility of the national territory would be called into question.
In the same vision, he continued, the slogan of the first President of Angola, Agostinho Neto, according to which “From Cabinda to Cunene, one people and one nation” would also be compromised.
For this reason, Isaac Canjengo insisted that the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale was decisive not only for the integrity of the countries closest to Angola, but also for the geopolitics and geostrategy of the entire African continent.
In this regard, he recalled that the New York Peace Accords of December 22, 1988, resulting from the end of the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, served as a “springboard” for the proclamation of Namibian Independence with the implementation of Resolution 435/78 of the United Nations Security Council.
The same New York Agreements, signed by the governments of Angola, South Africa and Cuba, also determined the withdrawal of all foreign troops from national territory and brought about the end of the racial segregation regime that was then in force in South Africa, he reinforced.
According to the academic, this results in the relevance of commemorating the 23rd of March, in all SADC countries, taking into account the regional scope of the impact of the victory of Cuito Cuanavale, which this year marked its 36th anniversary.
Isaac Canjengo shares, therefore, the opinion that it makes perfect sense to elevate the Memorial of the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale to a World Heritage Site, as it “constitutes a historical landmark” in the registration of military items and a set of study grounds of strategy, geopolitics and military geostrategy.
He also understands that elevating the symbol of the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale to a World Heritage Site would be equivalent to immortalizing and praising the great heroes who fought for the liberation of the people of the region.
“Young people at military academies will find reasons for reflection and in-depth studies of geopolitics and geostrategy there. It is our history, achieved with a lot of sacrifice,” he said.
Genesis of political reform in Angola
Domestically, the historic victory of the Popular Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA) also has its “fingerprints” inscribed in the genesis of political reforms in Angola, according to some observers.
It is considered that the end of the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, on March 23, 1988, prepared the ground for the beginning of the reforms that led to the transition, in Angola, from single-party democracy to multi-party democracy.
The fall of the Berlin Wall, the following year, was a precursor to the end of the Cold War (1947-1991), which fueled the Angolan civil war through the confrontation between the then Soviet Union (now Russia) and the United States, the two sponsors of the two opposing sides of the Angolan conflict.
In between, the New York Agreements emerged, which served as a prelude to the negotiations between the Angolan Government and Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA, which culminated in the signing of the Bicesse Agreements, on May 31, 1991, in Portugal.
Sealed with the historic handshake between Jonas Savimbi and President José Eduardo dos Santos, the Bicesse Accords put an end to the single-party regime and determined the constitutional review to enshrine multi-party system.
Due to these understandings, Angola held its first multiparty general elections the following year, after the transformation of UNITA from a rebel movement into a political party.
For the first time in their history, Angolans were called to the polls, from 29 to 30 September 1992, to elect the President of the Republic and deputies to the National Assembly (Parliament), putting an end to almost two decades of single party rule.
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