Dos Santos Eduardo
President of Angola
Dos Santos, José Eduardo (b. 1942, Luanda, Angola), president of Angola (1979- ) and head of the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola Party (MPLA).
Dos Santos was born in Luanda. He joined the Marxist MPLA's youth organization as a boy and enlisted in its guerrilla army at the age of 19. He was sent to study in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) on an MPLA scholarship from 1963 to 1970. He graduated with degrees in petroleum engineering and radar telecommunications. Dos Santos served as MPLA representative in Yugoslavia and the People's Republic of the Congo (former Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) before being elevated to the party's central committee in 1974. After Angola achieved independence from Portugal in 1975, dos Santos held important ministerial posts in the MPLA government. He was only 37-years-old when he became president on September 21, 1979, succeeding Agostinho Antonio Neto, the first president of Angola.
Dos Santos moved swiftly to consolidate his power within the government. A political moderate and a pragmatic leader, he replaced those in his administration who wanted to govern strictly according to Communist doctrine with competent administrators and technicians. However, his attempts to build on the economic and political work of his predecessor were unsuccessful because of the continuing civil war between MPLA and the National Union for Total Independence of Angola (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA)). The civil war began following Angolan independence when MPLA and UNITA each formed a government claiming to represent the new nation. Each side received aid from foreign powers who saw Angola with its oil reserves as strategically important.
Dos Santos's government had the support of the USSR, which contributed to the cost of as many as 50,000 troops from the Communist nation of Cuba. UNITA was aided by the United States. Angola was also important to South Africa, which ruled South-West Africa (now Namibia) where a black nationalist movement was waging a guerrilla war for independence. South African military intervention in Angola began in late 1975 in support of UNITA's bid to take control of the newly independent country. South Africa invaded again, in support of UNITA in 1981, 1983, and 1987 to 1988. South African troops were finally withdrawn from Angola in 1989 as part of the international agreement leading to Namibian independence.
The South African invasions of Angola helped dos Santos strengthen his control within MPLA, and he was able to make major economic, diplomatic, and political changes. In August 1987 he announced a major economic recovery plan. Blaming the nation's problems on excessive centralization of socialist planning, corruption, and too much bureaucracy, he proposed privatization of some state enterprises, banking reforms, and measures to encourage foreign investment. In 1988 he introduced plans to further liberalize Angola's economy. Small businesses were opened to private enterprises, and joint ventures with international firms were allowed for the first time. Angola also affiliated with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, known as the World Bank.
In foreign policy, dos Santos met with Mikhail Gorbachev, then leader of the USSR, in 1988, to discuss the removal of Cuban troops from Angola. At that time, South African troops still occupied a portion of southern Angola. Dos Santos signed the first of a series of agreements that resulted in the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Angola. South African troops withdrew across the southern border in 1989. Cuban troops left in a staged withdrawal that was completed by May 1991.
In the political arena, in 1990 the MPLA's Third Party Congress pledged to create a multiparty political system, to study the draft of a new constitution eliminating the central role of the party, and to transform its ideology from Marxism-Leninism to democratic socialism.
Dos Santos consistently supported the often frustrating peace process within Angola, which began in earnest in 1990 after Namibia became an independent nation and the Cold War diminished. The May 1991 peace accord brokered by Portugal, the United States, and the USSR put an end to the fighting and led in the fall of 1992 to national elections, in which MPLA and dos Santos ran against UNITA and its leader, Jonas Savimbi. Although MPLA won the parliamentary elections and dos Santos appeared to have won a close victory in the presidential race, the election results became irrelevant when UNITA resumed fighting.
For the first few months of 1993, it appeared as if Savimbi's forces might achieve through war what they had not gained at the polls. The government, however, was able to mobilize international support from UNITA's former allies, the United States and South Africa. In May 1993 the United States government recognized Angola, began pressuring Savimbi to settle the war, and, for the first time, made U.S. aid available to the Angolan government. By late summer 1993, UNITA's offensive had stalled. The dos Santos government returned to peace negotiations, now brokered principally by the United Nations and African nations. A fragile peace was established by the Lusaka Protocol of November 20, 1994, signed in Lusaka, Zambia, in which dos Santos was confirmed as president and Savimbi was offered the vice presidency. In February 1995 the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution establishing a strong international force of 7000 troops to monitor the cease-fire and oversee the implementation of the Lusaka agreement. The 1996 United Nations force was a much more adequate peace-keeping force than the one sent in 1992. Although implementation was slower than anticipated, particularly in the area of UNITA troop demobilization, there were grounds for optimism since both sides realized that they could not achieve a military victory, and that economic recovery and the continuation of democracy depended upon the establishment of a lasting peace.