concentrating most of our attention, organising the centres of revolutionary instruction, using our political activists and
the political commissars who work either
with the population or with the guerrillas, specifically in order to change the
way of examining problems, attitudes to
life and to offer new perspectives to our
people. There is, for example, the structures of traditional organisation with tra:
ditional chiefs who were all powerful
dictators. This structure was to a certain extent broken by colonialism, but
some chiefs were kept to collect taxes
and recruit forced labour. These chiefs
were called Sobas and Sobetas. We still
have traditional organisation in the occupied areas, differences between ethnic
groups which although not fighting each
other do maintain a certain rivalry and
certain differences in social life. And
when, we the MPLA, want to lead the
way to a single nation of the whole
people, we must make a considerable
effort for everybody to understand that
we are integrated within a political unit
which cannot be split into tribal groups.
On the other hand we have a very underdeveloped society, a society where industry almost does not yet exist, a society
which lives virtually from day to day
without seeing the progress the rest of
world is making. Because of the colonialists we were very isolated from the
world. It was them who kept us in this
isolation which thereby helped them to
keep quiet our war of independence. But
in order to keep up with the pace of
world development, it is necessary to
raise the level of education, the level of
political consciousness and also the concept of the nation. And therefore there
must exist within each militant, within
each Angolan, that new mentality. Education is a fundamental problem; more
than 90 per cent of our people are illiterate. Those illiterate people were kept as
such by the colonialists. Only after 1961,
did the colonialists hurriedly start building schools to show the world that they
were developing our country. Only recently have they built high schools and
some secondary schools and technical
schools, but the great majority of our
people do not use these schools, and it is
we the MPLA, who have to organise education for the people. We have set up
primary schools, and since last year we
h?ve had a secondary school and gradually
we are introducing technical instruction,
professional preparation for our young
people. This is one of the aspects of
national reconstruction to which we pay
a great deal of attention, that is, making
men conscious and aware, men aware of
the necessity of defending what we are
gaining at the cost of our blood - independence. After independence there will
of course still be much work to make our
country a modern state. We must maintain a high revolutionary mobilisation of
all the people in order to undertake the
important tasks required for the development of the country. We must not think
that with independence everything will
come. It will be necessary to work, and
work hard, greater and greater efforts will
be needed to preserve the conquests of
the present struggle and to advance further. In material terms, obviously to
reconstruct means to establish industries,
to increase the expansion of the cultivated areas, to train the workers for
new tasks. It means to organise the administration of the populations, to have
well established organised machinery to
direct the whole struggle, a struggle which
has many forms and which therefore presents many problems requiring daily attention. But I stress again, that for us
the essential is the reconstruction of
man by man himself, the fundamental
factor of our revolution.
Q: Enemy action in Mozambique has
been directed towards ((winning over»
the people in the war zones in three ways.
First, brutal repression to intimidate
them: second, their concentration in
strategic hamlets: and, third, promises of
political and economic privileges and advantages. What are the main enemy tactics towards the people in Angola?
A: As far as the people are concerned, the
enemy acts in Angola precisely as he acts
in Mozambique, using the same tactics and
with the same strategic goals. They have
formed units which are called ((Special
Groups)) to fight against us. They have
tried to corrupt our people by offering
them better standards of living than they
had before. They have tried to offer
positions in the civil service, much better
than those offered before the war. They
have tried to foster among our people the
idea that sooner or later Portugal will
leave Angola and there will be autonomy.
All of us know the meaning of Marcelo
Caetano's proposal which pretends to
change the constitution in favour of a
greater autonomy for the colonies. This
is a guise the Portuguese use. They use
material and moral corruption on the one
hand, ond on the other hand they repress
the people with total violence. As regards
repression of the people, there is a distinct difference in their actions now compared with the beginning of the war. At
the beginning of the war, the Portuguese
used to massacre, destroy everything.
They used an indiscriminate scorched
earth policy. Today they do not destroy
everything immediately, but investigate
first what may be of use to them. Thus,
if they attack a village, they do not destroy everything in it immediately. First
of all they arrest some and take others to
the strategic hamlet, and only then do
they act, and with a great violence, committing atrocities, killing those who show
themselves firm patriots, who do not give
in to their methods of corruption. And
the colonialists keep the other part of the
population under their domination, their
control, so that they can use them against
the patriotic forces. Sometimes former
guerrillas and members of the movement
after passing through this process of corruption betray the organisation and give
information not only on the location of
bases, but also on the structure of the
organisation itself. This does not happen
often, but it must be emphasised that it
does happen sometimes, thus a constant
awareness of conspiracy must be maintained in our organisation so that we are
not undermined by the weaker elements
in our struggle, those who are politically
weaker, or who have the spirit of betrayal.
The enemy uses these methods, but we
observe with pride that in the case of the
strategic hamlets, for example, called
"Ndandandas" by our people, they cannot keep these for any length of time.
In the beginning they used to give enough
food and good means of life to the people
in these strategic hamlets. But now they
lack these means. The Portuguese are
embarrassed by the population which
they have to gather around themselves to
protect their headquarters. For the people
are in fact put there to protect the military installations, not to be protected by
them. And so there is lack of food. Yet
at the same time in our zones our people
are much better dressed than the people
who live in the "Ndandandas" — who have
to come to our fields to get some cassava
or to hunt in areas which we control.
Thus a large proportion of those who are
captured by the Portuguese Special Commandos in helicopters to go and live in
the Ndandandas, immediately go back to
a free life in the independent territory of
Angola - not only because living conditions are better, but because their patriotism forces them to return to the areas
where the people exercise control. In
this way the situation in Mozambique
and Angola is similar. Moreover, there is
also a great similarity in the attitudes of
the people who are fighting for their independence in Angola and Mozambique -
their firm determination to win their
freedom.
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