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AMY GOODMAN: President Biden is in Angola today, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to visit the African country. The trip is also Biden’s first to a sub-Saharan nation as president. Biden is there in part to promote a multibillion-dollar rail project that the U.S. hopes will counter Beijing’s influence in the region. The project would connect the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia to Angola’s Port of Lobito, allowing the U.S. to exploit the region’s vast mineral resources, including copper and cobalt. The ongoing plundering of resources from the DRC by the U.S. and Europe has led to decades of devastating war, poverty and environmental destruction.
President Biden is visiting Angola as the country prepares to mark the 50th anniversary of its 1975 independence from Portugal. Biden is meeting today with Angola’s president. He’s also scheduled to give a speech at the country’s National Slavery Museum.
We’re joined now by two guests. António Tomás is an Angolan scholar and associate professor of anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. He’s the author of In the Skin of the City: Spatial Transformation in Luanda and is completing a new book about the civil war in Angola. And Zenaida Machado is the Angola and Mozambique senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! António Tomás, let’s begin with you. Can you talk about the significance of President Biden, first sitting U.S. president to visit Angola? And tell us about Angola’s history.
ANTÓNIO TOMÁS: Amy, thank you so much for having me.
It’s a historical trip to Angola. It’s a historical visit, particularly in the context of the relationships between Angola and U.S. As we know, Angola and U.S. haven’t been properly friends or foes, in the sense that Angola took the side of communists, pro-Soviet, during the Cold War, right? So, and then the U.S. were supporting the regimes that tried to uproot the emperor from power — right? — first on the side of the Portuguese during colonialism and then on the side of FNLA and then UNITA and so on. The U.S. only recognized Angola’s independence in 1991, 16 years after Angola became independent in 1975. And, of course, it has been an effort of — you know, it’s a victory of Angolan diplomacy, because a lot of people have put money and resources and time to get this trip, to get this visit happening. But it comes also with a lot of problems.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And you mentioned the civil war that occurred, all the great powers that got involved. Also, Cuba supplied up to 50,000 soldiers to support the MPLA in that war. What was the outcome after the MPLA was able to be victorious in terms of the social conditions of the people of Angola?
ANTÓNIO TOMÁS: It has to be said that the U.S. has always been on the losing side in all the major interventions in Angola, right? They were with the Portuguese; the Portuguese lost. There were with FNLA; FNLA lost. They were with Savimbi, Savimbi’s UNITA, and Savimbi, UNITA lost, right? And now they’re with the MPLA, and I believe that MPLA lost the last election, as well. So, the U.S. has always been on the losing side when it comes to Angola.
And, of course, you know, it was a major confrontation of two mighty powers during the Cold War: one the side, the Angola government, the forces of Angolan government, backed by Soviet Union and Cuban troops and so on; on the other side, apartheid South Africa, backed by CIA and supporting UNITA, Savimbi and so on. And it was tragic for the country, you know, because we have still — we’re still facing a lot of problems. We’re still solving problems of the consequences in how the Cold War has played out in Angola, you know, with millions of people dead, millions of people displaced. We still have a lot of landmines that still have to be extracted from the soil. And yeah, the country is still grappling with all these consequences of the Cold War.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And the United States did not recognize Angola’s independence until Bill Clinton was president?
ANTÓNIO TOMÁS: Yes, the United States didn’t recognize Angola’s independence until ’91, when Bill Clinton was president. And so, Angola actually didn’t have normal diplomatic relationships with U.S. until that date. And even when Clinton recognized Angola’s independence, it took a long time, you know, from ’91 to now, because then Angola organized elections after the end of the first Cold War in ’91. So, the Cold War ended in ’91. Angola organized elections in ’92, but then Savimbi didn’t accept the results of the elections. The country went back to war for more 10 years, until Savimbi was killed in 2002. And then, of course, the diplomatic relationships between Angola and the U.S. started to be normalized.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring Zenaida Machado into this conversation, who’s in Mozambique, in the capital Maputo, senior researcher at the Africa division on Mozambique and Angola of Human Rights Watch, previously worked with BBC. If you can talk about the significance, I mean, of this first-ever trip of a sitting U.S. president to Angola and what it means that it is tied to the strengthening of business links, and what these links are? Why is President Biden there, Zenaida?
ZENAIDA MACHADO: Well, thank you so much for having me.
I was listening to the previous guest, and there’s one thing that sticks to my mind: the legacy of the Cold War. And one of the legacies of the Cold War in Angola is the habit of propaganda — I mean, doing things for the world to see. And I think this visit by Biden to Angola is a bit of that, is a visit that tackles the external, not the internal problems of Angola. It’s focused only on business, on a project that will mostly benefit those that will import from the minerals in Central Africa, but less of Angolans, the majority of Angolans.
And if you are in Angola today, you probably feel also the same way, that a lot of this visit has excluded the majority of Angolans. They have been given two public holidays, today and — yesterday and today. They cannot come even close to where the Biden convoy will pass through. And those, for example, that wanted to use this opportunity to freely protest and show the American authorities how much they are aggrieved by the policies that have been adopted by subsequent governments of Angola were not allowed to do so. So, that’s the Angola we are talking about.
So, if you ask what is the significance of this visit to a majority of Angolans, they will probably say, “Well, it’s a big show.” It puts Angola on the map. Angola becomes an important country for the world. João Lourenço, of course, it’s a big achievement, diplomatic, for him. But what about the large part of Angolans that are still living under one USD per day?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Zenaida Machado, I wanted to ask you about the former president, Eduardo dos Santos, and then of his daughter, Isabel dos Santos, and the corruption that developed during and especially toward the end of President dos Santos’s 38 years in office. Could you talk to our listeners and viewers about his daughter Isabel dos Santos and where she is right now?
ZENAIDA MACHADO: I’m not sure where she is at the moment. I know that there is an investigation in a criminal case against her for corruption and embezzlement in Angola and that the Angolan authorities have requested the international community to help find her and bring her back to Luanda to respond for the crimes that she’s accused of.
And for those who follow Angola, I think you know that during the time that her father was president, and that was about four decades, she benefited a lot from the state coffers. She became one of the richest women in the world, and probably or arguably the richest woman in Africa. But she has also had the privilege to run the state oil company. And Angola is highly dependent on oil. Oil is the biggest export of the country and the biggest source of revenue. And the daughter of the president was the one in charge of that state company. There were lots of questions about how she qualified, different from other Angolans, to run a state company. She has claimed over the years that she is as qualified as any other Angolan, because she’s an Angolan citizen. But questions remain as to why the president appointed his own daughter to run the state money.
But it’s not just her. Her own brother also ran the country’s sovereign wealth fund for several years, and he was, towards the end of his mandate, accused of misusing billions of money that was put in that institution that should have gone to the Angolans, to improve the lives of Angolans, and instead were used for the benefit of the family, dos Santos family.
AMY GOODMAN: So, I want to ask Professor Tomás about why President Biden is there at this moment, I mean, to promote the multibillion-dollar Lobito Corridor, that 835-mile railway project connecting the city of Lobito in Angola to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, as well. This show of U.S. investment is meant to counter China’s increasing influence in Africa, a sort of alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Can you talk about that, China’s presence in Africa, and where the U.S. stands in relation to that?
ANTÓNIO TOMÁS: We know why Biden is in Angola. You know, we are in a moment of transition from fossil energies to greener energies. And then, we know, you know, that in the next few decades some minerals will be prepared there, and it’s very important for the economy, for — yeah, for the economy, for the global economy — right? — minerals such as cobalt, lithium and copper, right? And we know that some of the sources of these minerals, some of the largest sources for the extraction of these minerals, are in close to Angola — right? — in the Congo and in RDC and Zambia. And so, this is an opportunity. It’s a way to sort of revitalize, you know, the Benguela Railway that was built by the Portuguese with British and South African interests in the 1900s, so to revitalize this railway and to be able to transport, to be able to ship the minerals from these sources, you know, to the coast, to Lobito, to the Port of Lobito, right?
But we also know that Angola provides something that the U.S. is looking for in terms of creating partnerships in Africa, because Angola is one of the most — politically one of the most stable political regimes in Africa, you know? We have the same ruling party since 1975. We have only — we only had three presidents. One of them stayed in power for almost 40 years, you know? So, to have an infrastructure that runs for more than, you know, 1,000 kilometers, it will require a great deal of security and safety. And U.S., of course, are sure, or at least they want to be sure, that the Angolans can provide that.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, António Tomás, I wanted to ask you — much has been made of the debt that — the $40 billion in debt that Angola owes to China. I should remark that that’s about half of the debt that Puerto Rico owed to the United States bondholders, tiny Puerto Rico. But how is China regarded by the Angolan people? Because it’s been involved in economic development projects in Africa now for decades.
ANTÓNIO TOMÁS: Oh, yeah, this is a — of course. You know, I think it’s important to see when China started to become involved in Angola. That was, you know, after the war, when the boom, the oil boom, was also taking place, you know, so Angola had at this moment a great deal of financial resources and so on. So, China got involved, and China loaned all this money to Angola. And I think now that the country is going through, you know, profound economic crisis, Angola has been struggling to pay these debts. You know, a lot of this money was used for the reconstruction of the infrastructure that were destroyed by the war — [inaudible], dams, bridges and so on. But a lot of this money also was used to enrich, you know, for some people to enrich themselves, and particularly to transfer these amounts of money and to buy property elsewhere, in South Africa or Portugal, in Europe or in U.S., you know? So a lot of this money has been used or has been canalized, you know, has been used for personal purposes, you know? And now Angolans are paying, actually, the debt that the country owes to China. And, of course, China is still involved in a great deal of projects in Angola, in a great deal of construction and rebuilding. And I think this is the place that U.S. wants to occupy.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to end by going to Zenaida. Human Rights Watch has written about how the projects connect with crackdowns on protests in Angola, projects that exacerbate poverty and other conditions for people in Angola, only enriching a few. And you’re speaking to us from Mozambique. I’m wondering if you can also talk about the ongoing nationwide protests there, following the elections in October, when the long-ruling FRELIMO party declared victory. The opposition leader, Venâncio Mondlane, has repeatedly called on supporters to take to the streets over allegations of voter fraud, as well as Mozambique’s debt crisis, corruption and other issues. Mozambique authorities have unleashed a brutal crackdown on protesters, killing at least 24 people. If you can put those two issues together?
ZENAIDA MACHADO: Briefly, let me just end with the Angola element first. I mean, we mentioned that Biden is going to Angola to counter the influence of China, but, unfortunately, we haven’t seen him doing anything different from what China has done over the past decades, which is to do economic and business deals with the government of Angola and forgetting to implement projects that benefit the rest of the population. And unfortunately, Biden seems to have been missing an important opportunity to address serious human rights issues and economic and social inequalities that Angola has been mired with over the past few years. And we wanted to use also this opportunity to once again appeal to Biden to use this opportunity to at least get a public commitment from President João Lourenço that he will investigate the human rights abuses, especially those that were committed by security forces, and hold those accountable to — to account. And, of course, the victims need to see mechanisms of redress.
Now, going to your question about Mozambique, I mean, Angola and Mozambique are very similar countries. They come from very similar backgrounds, long civil wars, huge influence of the Cold War. And as a consequence of that, they have built these security forces that are very heavy-handed, ruthless, prepared to defend the country and the regime in place against an enemy, not necessarily prepared to defend the population and the citizens and the Constitution.
And what we have seen in Mozambique since the elections is exactly that, is a demonstration on how security forces are on the ground to protect the interests of a few group of people that belong to the ruling party, and they’re ready to do anything for that, including killing protesters, unarmed protesters, killing children — we have documented that at least 10 children between 1 and 17 years have been killed by security forces — ready to use live ammunition against anyone that dares to go to the streets and that challenges the government in place.
We have thousands of Mozambicans almost every day going to the streets protesting in different manners, most of it peacefully, against the election results. They believe the elections were rigged. The Constitutional Council is at the moment analyzing the evidence of rigging. But while the Constitutional Council waits to pronounce itself about the final results, the Mozambican people have the right to go out on the streets — the Constitution provides that — to go out on the streets and protest against what they felt was a flawed process. But the security forces have not allowed them to do that. They have used excessive force against protesters. As a consequence, we have dozens of people killed. Our families on the ground are speaking about 67 people killed right now as we speak, and that is for what were six weeks of protest. We have also documented cases where children were killed by live bullets, but many children were also seriously affected by the indiscriminate use of tear gas against residences.
AMY GOODMAN: Zenaida, we want to thank you so much for being with us. We will continue to cover these issues, both in Mozambique and Angola. Zenaida Machado is Angola and Mozambique senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. She was joining us from Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, formerly with the BBC. And we want to thank António Tomás, Angolan scholar, associate professor of anthropology at University of California, Irvine.
Coming up, as President Biden faces bipartisan criticism for pardoning his son Hunter, we’ll speak to the Last Prisoner Project about the group’s call for Biden to free federal prisoners held on marijuana charges. Stay with us.
