Visions of Freedom.

• Author: Cohen, Herman J.
• Position: Book review

Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa by Piero Gleijeses University of North Carolina Press, 2013, ISBN-13 978-1469609683, 672 pp., Hardcover $40.00, Amazon hardcover $32.00, Kindle $18.19.

The United States did its best to keep the Cold War out of its relationships with the newly independent African states. In 1958, President Eisenhower decided that African neutrality, or non-alignment in the Cold War, would be perfectly acceptable. He wanted to emphasize economic development, and "winning their hearts and minds." Subsequent administrations continued this policy. Significant economic assistance went to African nations that proudly adopted "non-alignment" or just plain neutrality.

In 1974-1975, the Cold War reared its ugly head in Africa, and the United States was unable to dodge it. Surprisingly, the Cold War thrust did not come from the Soviet Union that was only mildly interested in Africa, apart from its support for the liberation movements operating against white Portuguese and South African control over majority African peoples. It was that dirty rat Fidel Castro in Cuba who upset the apple cart, and gave the US heartburn in Africa for thirteen years.

France and England gave their African colonies independence smoothly after long transitions during the 1950s. For Portugal, the independence process for their five colonies in Africa was catastrophic. They waited until the mid-1970s when the newly independent African nations were supporting nationalist insurgencies against them. It took a military coup in Lisbon in 1974-1975 to persuade the Portuguese to give up their colonies.

Independence for the colonies of Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verdi and Sao Tome went well because single nationalist movements were available to take power. But in Angola, there were three nationalist movements that started fighting each other as soon as the Portuguese left. The MPLA was an offshoot of the Portuguese Communist Party. The UNITA group was favored by apartheid South Africa. The FNLA party was supported by Zaire to the north.

In the Angolan internal war, what caught Fidel Castro's attention was the injection of South African armed forces into Angola to fight along side the UNITA guerrillas. With more sophisticated arms, and control of the skies, South Africa was threatening to destroy Cuba's brother Marxist party, the MPLA, and install those UNITA "fascist" bandits in control of the Angolan capital...