By Vitor Ramalho
Africa-Press – Angola. Angola’s economic and financial reasons legitimize the strengthening of cooperation with the USA in a logic of balancing external relations.
For Angola, these interests are related to its debt to China, which is quite high, greater than its debt to Russia, and its debt to the US is residual. Angola’s economic and financial situation requires greater external investment, and the US is not indifferent to the growing military presence of the Afrika Korps, a successor to the Wagner group, in several African countries. Likewise, the US is also concerned about the global competition framework with China.
Angola’s economic and financial reasons legitimize the strengthening of cooperation with the USA in a logic of balancing external relations, with the USA declaring that “Angola is a fundamental partner”.
It is worth revisiting history, however, bearing in mind that in 1955 leaders from Asia and Africa held a conference of the “non-aligned” in Bandung. The “non-aligned” in Africa soon found themselves embroiled in “hot wars” in conflicts of enormous proportions due to alignment with one or other of the then superpowers.
In Angola, the tension between the three movements that took up the armed struggle with aligned dependencies and with whom Portugal established, on January 15, 1975, the Alvor Agreement, led to very serious consequences in the fratricidal war that followed, with the MPLA declaring independence in Luanda, the FNLA in Ambriz and UNITA in Huambo.
The Bicesse ceasefire agreements, signed on 1 May 1991, for national reconciliation and transition to democracy between the Angolan government and UNITA, soon led to the resumption of an even more cruel fratricidal war that continued until 2002.
The current world is now multipolar, as a result of the emergence of new powers, but their interests have not ceased to exist, as can be seen, especially in Africa.
Angola, which is a country with enormous potential, the “non-alignment” that it seems to intend to follow is correct, fair and feasible, representing openness in external relations with mutual advantages, without real dependence on any great power.
Angola is also the only country in Africa where the two main ethnic groups, the Ovimbundu and the Ambundu, without extending to neighboring countries, represent more than 70% of the population. Given that African countries are states seeking to become nations, this particularity of Angola, and the fact that the civil war there involved permanent mobility of combatants for many years, by bringing thousands of citizens of different ethnicities into contact, contributed to the strengthening of identity, facilitated by the strong diffusion of Portuguese as a language of dialogue, today the mother tongue.
It is also worth noting that the commitments already made by the US in relation to Angola, involving the holding of the 17th US/Africa Business Summit in Luanda in June 2025, leading Angola to appoint the respective committee chaired by Minister of State José Massano, are positive in terms of strengthening this national identity. Furthermore, the US will be present in the project to “develop the Lobito corridor”, a railway network of over 1,300 km to Luau, with clear intentions of continuing to Zambia and Tanzania, linking the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, as well as in the expansion of the National Radio of Angola, alternative energy, digital and the rule of law.
In this last area, linked to the consolidation of democracy, it is also important to draw conclusions from the experience gained since the implosion of the former USSR, particularly in the universalisation of the concept of democracy that followed throughout the world. The universalisation of democracy was often limited to the principle that one vote per citizen, which aggravated conflicts, particularly in Africa, due to the lack of attention to the introduction of buffers to defend it.
Mandela understood this as no one else did, agreeing on the transition phase to a majority government, and stating that the government to be formed should include all parties that obtained more than 5% of the votes. Hence the appointment of Buthelezi, from the Inkatha Party, as Minister of Home Affairs and the election of De Klerk as Vice-President of the Republic.
Angola, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary of independence next year, has all the conditions to avoid “failing” by learning from its own history, through a “non-alignment” always in defense and deepening democracy, thus constituting an example, first and foremost, for Africa.
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