The urn holding the ashes of Fidel Castro is seen covered by a Cuban flag on a military jeep on Nov. 30, at the start of an 800-km funeral procession that will reach a cemetery in Santiago de Cuba on Dec. 4. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 1 2016 (IPS)

Among the many leaders who left their mark on history in the 20th century, Fidel Castro – who died Nov. 25 at the age of 90 – stood out for propelling Cuba into a global role that was unexpectedly prominent for a small country, in an era when arms were frequently taken up to settle national and international disputes.

The Cold War imposed certain political choices as well as the consequences in terms of hostilities. By choosing Communism as its path in 1961, two years after the triumph of the revolution, Cuba became a pawn that infiltrated the enemy chessboard, facing the risks posed by such a vulnerable and threatening position.

In Latin America, the “Western, Christian” side mainly degenerated into military dictatorships, nearly all of them anti-Communist and with direct links to the United States, with a few exceptions like the progressive government of General Juan Velasco Alvarado in Peru (1968-1975).

On the other side, guerrilla movements supported or stimulated by Cuba, like the 1966-1967 incursion led by Argentine-Cuban revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara in Bolivia, mushroomed. The military defeat of these movements was a general, but not absolute, rule.

For example, there was the Sandinista triumph in Nicaragua in 1979, and in Colombia the half-decade conflict raged until this year, when a peace deal was finally signed by the government and the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) rebels.

The armed conflicts were not limited to the countries of Latin America. The Vietnam war shook the world in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Communist victory over U.S. forces prevented another country from being split in two, like Korea or Germany.

In Africa, the decolonisation of some countries cost rivers of blood. Algeria, for example, won its independence from France in 1962 after a war that left a death toll of 1.5 million, according to the Algerians, or just over one-third of that number, according to the French.

Against this backdrop, Castro led an incredible set of accomplishments that earned Cuba a projection and influence far out of proportion to the size of a country of fewer than 10 million people up to 1980 and 11.2 million today.

He fomented and trained guerrilla movements that challenged governments and armed forces in several countries of Latin America. Many felt Cuba offered an alternative, more authentic, brand of Communism that contrasted with the Soviet Union’s, which was seen as bureaucratic, based on repression, even of other peoples, and by then bereft of revolutionary zeal.

The defence of social equality, the top priority put on children, advances in education and health, and solidarity with oppressed peoples or nations hit by tragedies around the world are attractive components of Cuba’s style of Communism, despite its dictatorial nature.

Hundreds of thousands of Cubans took part in the mammoth rally held Nov. 29 to pay homage to the late Fidel Castro in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución, attended by leaders from every continent. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños

It was not democracy – a value not highly respected decades ago, not even by the propagandists of freedom in the Western world, who also disseminated, or were linked to, dictatorships.

Cuban troops and doctors spread in large numbers throughout Africa and Latin America, in campaigns providing support and assistance, on some occasions playing a central role.

The action abroad that had the greatest impact was in Angola, where Cuba’s military aid was decisive in the country’s successful bid for independence, by cutting off the advance of South African troops that almost reached Luanda in the attempt to prevent the birth of the new nation, which occurred on Nov. 11, 1975.

For decades, Cuban troops were in Angola training the military and strengthening national defence, along with the Cuban doctors and teachers who helped care for and teach a new generation of Angolans.

The operation in Angola showed that Cuba was more than a mere pawn of the former Soviet Union. On May 27, 1977 there was an attempted coup d’etat by a faction of the governing Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), led by Nito Alves.

Loyal to then President Agostinho Neto, the Cubans helped block the coup. They retook the main radio station in Luanda, which had been occupied by rebels, and returned it to government control. It was a Cuban voice fheard over the radio announcing the success of the operation.

The Soviets were on the side of the coup plotters, according to Angola’s leaders of the time. Diplomats from Moscow were expelled from the country, as were members of the Communist Party of Portugal.

A worse fate was suffered by the followers of Nito Alves accused of participating in the uprising: thousands of them were shot and killed. The number of victims has never been confirmed.

More recently, tens of thousands of Cuban doctors have spread a humane image of Cuba throughout Latin America, after they did so in many African countries. Thousands of them have worked in Venezuela since late president Hugo Chavez first took power in 1999. In Brazil, more than 11,000 Cuban doctors have been providing healthcare in poor and remote areas since 2013.

The Cuban revolution and its achievements are inextricably intertwined with the figure of Fidel Castro, whose leadership was so dominating that he probably would not have needed the rules of his political regime to constantly assert his power and authority over all activities in Cuba.

“Why hold elections?” many Cubans used to argue, in response to the frequent criticism of how long the Castro administration remained in power, without submitting itself to a real vote.

The impression is that his leadership was excessive, that it went far beyond the limits of the Caribbean island nation. His capacity for action was reflected in working meetings held in the wee hours of the morning, as well as in his meetings with visiting leaders.

His hours-long speeches were also delivered abroad, when he visited countries governed by friends, such as Chile in 1971 – governed at the time by socialist President Salvador Allende (1970-1973) – and Angola in 1977, under President Agostinho Neto.

“They don’t have a Fidel,” said Cubans in Angola, to criticise and explain errors committed by the government there, lamenting the lack of such an infallible leader as theirs, in a country whose development they were trying to support.

A product and subject of an era marked by the Cold War, Castro seemed destined to cause controversy, as a historic figure praised by some and condemned as a despot by others. But his political legacy will wane if Communism does not find a way to reconcile with democracy.

Signs in Chinese reflect China’s heavy participation in the construction of the new Angola. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
LUANDA, Nov 27 2012 (IPS)

“In Luanda there are no matches.” This was the first line of a report written by Nobel Literature laureate Gabriel García Márquez in the Angolan capital in 1977.

Soap, milk, salt and aspirin were other products that were hard to come by in a city that, he wrote, “surprised” visitors with “its modern, shining beauty,” although it was actually “a dazzling empty shell.”

The emphasis that the Colombian writer put on the shortages suffered by the war-torn country injured the pride of the Angolans who read his report. But he effectively described the chaos inherited from Portuguese colonialism and the war of independence, a year and a half after Angola became independent.

Today, 35 years later, it is the excesses and glaring contrasts that shock the visitor to this city in southwestern Africa. Shiny new cars on brand-new roads and highways lined by thousands of still-empty or half-built office buildings, apartment blocks and residential towers stand in sharp contrast to the sprawling slums around the city.

Signs on construction sites written in Chinese clearly reflect the Asian giant’s high level of participation in the construction of today’s new Angola.

The most ambitious project carried out by companies from China is the Nova Cidade de Kilamba (Kilamba New City), a huge development designed to house half a million people, 20 km south of downtown Luanda.

When it is completed, the new neighbourhood will have more than 80,000 apartments built for large families – the norm in Angola – in buildings five to 13 storeys high. The development is also to be fitted out with dozens of schools, child care centres, health clinics and shops.

Nearly one-quarter of the buildings have been completed. But almost all of them are empty, even though more than 3,000 apartments were already available when the development was inaugurated in July 2011.

Also involved in building the new city are Brazilian firms, especially construction giant Odebrecht, which is in charge of key projects like electricity and water grids and the construction of roads.

The foreign presence in the massive new developments “is not something to be admired, because it shows that there are no national companies with the capacity to build them,” said one of Angola’s most prominent writers, Artur Pestana, better known as Pepetela, who is also a professor of sociology.

“The Chinese build faster, they work round-the-clock shifts, and they offer almost interest-free long-term loans,” he said. But they employ few Angolan workers and “there are many complaints about the quality of their construction work,” he added.

Meanwhile, Brazilian companies “apparently learned their lesson from a few initial fiascos which made them the butt of national jokes, and they now stand out for the quality of their work,” which enables them to compete with the Chinese, said the author, who has published many historical novels that are critical of the government of José Eduardo dos Santos, president since 1979.

Odebrecht, a Brazilian consortium that operates in 35 countries, became a leader in infrastructure works in Angola after 1984, when it signed a contract for the construction of the Capanda hydroelectric dam on the Kwanza river, 360 km from the capital, built to supply Luanda.

The civil war, which broke out after independence, led to lengthy delays in construction of the dam, which did not begin to generate electricity until 2004.

The end of the armed conflict in 2002 unleashed a wave of investment in the reconstruction and modernisation of Angola, fuelled by the country’s oil revenue and Chinese credit.

Besides the construction of other large hydropower dams, Odebrecht is involved in the production of sugar, ethanol and electricity from sugarcane, and is expanding the waterworks and sanitation in Luanda, while building condominiums, roads and highways.

It is also dedicated to diamond mining, and controls the chain of 29 Nosso Super supermarkets.

It was the first non-oil company from Brazil to begin to operate in Angola with a “long-term outlook,” said Victor Fontes, director general of the Angolan company Elektra, which specialises in power and water grids. He said this had the positive effect of attracting other firms also interested in the long haul, instead of just short-term opportunities.

The director of institutional relations at Odebrecht Angola, Alexandre Assaf, told IPS that the consortium is committed to “continuity” in Angola, above and beyond the effects of wars or the global economic crisis.

Five years ago, only nine percent of the “strategic posts” in the company were held by Angolans – a proportion that has risen to 41 percent, he noted, to illustrate the company’s commitment to local development.

In that group, Assaf included not only directors and managers, but also young university graduates who have been hired by the company to be trained as future leaders.

But Elektra’s Fontes argued that Odebrecht’s “near-monopoly position in some sectors hinders local initiative” by standing in the way of the development of small and medium-sized local firms that could work on smaller-scale projects, such as the upgrading of streets and neighbourhoods, that do not require the involvement of transnational corporations.

In addition, the country pays “more than what is reasonable for certain infrastructure works and services” carried out by the Brazilian company, which are of high quality but are also costly, said Fontes.

He acknowledged, however, that Odebrecht “has brought good management and performance strategies, and the best in the construction industry in the area of workplace safety,” for example.

The challenge faced by foreign and Angolan companies is addressing the serious problems that have accumulated in Luanda, where the population has grown exponentially.

In 1970, Luanda was home to just over 475,000 people, according to the last census carried out by the Portuguese colonial government. Today, the population of the city is over seven million.

But the condominiums and residential towers mushrooming around the city have not curbed the housing shortage, because those in need of homes cannot afford to purchase or rent the new units, which were built for a middle class that is still small. And despite the large number of empty housing units, the prices have not gone down.

A lack of piped water and electricity services are also common complaints in the midst of the construction fever.

The solution is on its way, according to government plans, whose strategic projects are being carried out by Odebrecht. But it will take years to silence the back-up generators heard all around the city during the frequent blackouts, and to ensure a steady supply of piped water.

By Mario Osava
LUANDA, Nov 19 2012 (IPS)

A visitor to Angola might be surprised at the calm surrounding Angola’s accelerated rehabilitation and construction of infrastructure a decade after the end of so many years of war, and at the lack of after-effects like ethnic violence, armed gangs, or the settling of accounts.

IPS correspondent in Brazil Mario Osava interviewed Pepetela – the nom de guerre of Angolan writer Artur Carlos Maurício Pestana dos Santos – to discuss the phenomenon.

Pepetela is a professor of sociology and a former member of the governing People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). He was a guerrilla fighter in the country’s 1961-1974 war of independence from Portugal, and served as deputy minister for education in the first seven years after independence was won in 1975.

He has become one of the most prominent writers in this country in southwest Africa, winning the Camões Prize, the most prestigious award given for Portuguese-language literature, in 1997.

Pepetela believes that Angola has fulfilled half of the ambitions of the anti-colonial war. Credit: CC BY-SA 2.5

His 19 novels and two plays give an overview of the history of Angola, starting with the struggle against Portuguese colonialism. They also reflect his disillusionment with the direction taken by this country, where, he says, “unbridled capitalism” has buried the socialist ideals of his “utopia generation” – the title of one of his novels, published in 1992.

But Pepetela believes that the aims of that generation have been fulfilled “50 percent,” or even “55 percent”. For example, he recognises achievements enshrined in the country’s constitution and laws, such as equal pay for men and women and a minimum of 40 percent female representation in parliament.

Angola’s civil war broke out immediately after independence, and continued to rage, with interludes, until 2002. The conflict, which left over one million people dead, was a struggle for power between two former liberation movements – the MPLA, backed by the Soviet Union and Cuba, and the rebel National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), supported by the United States and apartheid South Africa.

Q: It is admirable that peace has been achieved in such a short time, without the foreseeable fallout of such a long war, like vandalism and pockets of violence. How do you explain that transition? What role have President José Eduardo dos Santos (in power since 1979) and the MPLA played in that?

A: It’s hard to explain, but an important factor was weariness. People got tired of war and violence. They haven’t forgotten what happened – once in a while, a heated argument will break out and MPLA people will make the mistake of proclaiming that they won the war (the other side can’t say the same).

But they are moments of a loss of control that don’t have consequences. José Eduardo had the good judgment to declare that there were neither winners nor losers. That was important.

And he has always tried to follow a policy of integration, especially in the armed forces. Whatever his defects may be, no one denies that he has done this.

Angolans also have a great capacity for solidarity and for maintaining a sense of community, something that is more subjective and difficult to analyse.

Q: I was shocked to hear the idea that the war contributed to national unity. Did the conflict unify Angolans and overcome ethnic divisions?

A: It was an important element in terms of strengthening the idea of “nation”, which is abstract, especially for rural people. The two armies recruited people from around the country, and mixed them up, forcing them to live together and forge bonds, and moving them from one place to another.

Many raised their families outside of their home regions, with people from other ethnic groups. So they began to understand that Angola was much more than the village where they were born. And nearly all of them learned to speak and read Portuguese, another major unifying element.

Q: But what is left of the MPLA’s socialist dream, its anti-colonial struggle or the first few years of independence?

A: Of the socialist dream – nothing. Of the MPLA’s government programme: we have an independent country, which at times has a social democratic discourse, that is betrayed in practice every day.

Q: How could the Angolan economic system be defined, then? State capitalism?

A: In the terminology of the past, yes. I prefer to call it unbridled capitalism in the stage of regulation, and thus on its way to no longer being ruthless.

Q: Of the goals of your “utopia generation” – which 50 percent do you believe have been fulfilled, and which have not been reached?

A: The ones I mentioned: independence, the nation, and peace. The rest is still pending: a more just, more humane society.

Q: How is education doing? Has it responded to the enormous hunger for learning that I saw in the interior of the country?

A: It’s growing in numbers and must keep growing. But quality is still very low – so low that it’s frightening. And that’s true at all levels. Nor is it adapted to serving a policy of sustainable development.

Q: Several people I talked to said the growing numbers of young people moving to the capital were doing so in search of better secondary education, and in search of a university education. Can’t schools in the interior keep young people in the provinces?

A Many primary and secondary schools were built in the interior, in small cities. But that alone is not enough. All of the other structures that keep young people from dreaming about the big city must also be in place.

Q: Do the dominant presence of Portuguese as a national language and the role of music and television attenuate the ethnic divisions?

A: Actually, Portuguese became dominant after independence, posing the risk of causing the disappearance of African languages, which means the loss of many cultural and social roots.

What is missing is the harmonisation of the need to develop both the language of unity and the original cultures. It’s not easy. But the attempts have been merely bureaucratic.

The music here follows Afro-American trends in the United States.

Q: And in literature, what new expressions of “Angolan-ness” have appeared?

A: I don’t think there has been great renovation in literature. The promise fell flat. Few names capable of lasting have emerged. There is a problem: the very poor grasp of the written Portuguese language, which hinders the emergence of young talent. They might be good at story-telling, but if they don’t have a good grasp of the language, it is difficult for them to express their natural talent.

Q: In Angola, will literature have the importance that it had in the formation of the identities of “older” nations, like Portugal or Brazil, or will it be suffocated by the broadcast media?

A: At the start, literature had great prestige, and writers were always consulted by the media about anything that happened, as sort of “doctors of the soul”. But that’s not true anymore.

Today, whoever appears on television, even if it is to present a programme about love between hippopotamuses, has a much bigger audience.

Q: Some of your books of the last two decades – “A Geração da Utopia”, “Jaime Bunda”, “Os predadores”- reflect a profound disillusionment with the political direction Angola is headed in, the corruption, and the loss of the values of the independence struggle. But is the nation that is currently being built still worth it?

A: There are always positive aspects: the fact that we have a regime that, despite its mistakes, is proudly independent; the reconstruction of the roads and other routes of communication, even if it does revolve around the oil industry; the resettlement of populations that were in refugee camps and in neighbouring countries; and the peace that has been achieved.

All of these, despite the shortcomings and setbacks, are undeniable signs that the country has legs to walk on. The urgent need now is the education and training of young people.

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