Between this quote:
“I am not communist because it serves no purpose. Nor am I a capitalist. Socialism in this country is the only answer. Those who led the country to independence cannot become the exploiters of the people. We want a socialist system, but which? There is the orthodox one and the extremist one. We want the democratic one, social democracy.”
and this one:
“I am against nationalization; it is a disease which saps the strength of a national economy. The real question is the renegotiation of allowable profits. Foreign companies need their profits, they would not invest without them. But the people of Angola need their share. When Angola is independent the investors must know that the people will have a greater share.”
Add his Maoist roots and his attacks on the conservative FNLA for being “western imperialist stooges”, and I’m really wondering why this guy was the Heritage Foundation’s and Reagan’s darling.
The Cold War was indeed a weird period.
Tags: african politics
February 21, 2008 at 4:10 am
The answer to your question is the Sino-Soviet split. The US also supported Pol Pot after the Russian-supported Vietnamese drove him from power and the Chinese invaded Vietnam. What a world, what a world, what a world!
April 8, 2008 at 8:23 pm
[...] free-marketers, and, yes, Western Agribusiness corporations (which, as an aside, adds up to my belief that US alliances with foreign regimes are more often based on weird grand foreign policy ideas and [...]