Angola: Promises and Lies, by Karl Maier
My copy of Angola: Promises and Lies, by Karl Maier, is the 2007 edition of the book first published in 1996. According to Maier, the subject line that I chose for this blog post, “The MPLA steals, UNITA kills” originated from graffiti written on walls during the election in Angola in 1992. The election in 1992 saw a break in the civil war in Angola which had started in 1975, but the conflict flared up again after the election and finally ended only in 2002 after the death of Jonas Savimbi. A terrible war that had a profound effect on Angola, and in fact the graffiti “The MPLA steals, UNITA kills” turned out to be pretty accurate.
I covered some of this topic in my most recent post about Paul Theroux’s book The Last Train to Zona Verde. Maier’s book goes into the war years in more detail, and I will come to that in a moment or two, but in the meantime, I’d just like to mention a series of YouTube videos I found that show travel in Angola a couple of years after Theroux’s trip. They are by Andrew S White, and you can watch them here. White travels by 4×4 and his experiences are different from those of Theroux who was alone and without a vehicle.
After a brief interlude for elections, the civil war resumed when UNITA declared the election results were rigged.
The number of dangerous situations that Maier gets into is unbelievable, but he seems immune from fear. He frequently flies, or drives, into towns under attack or siege, so that he can report on the situation. The most distressing place he describes is Malange, in September 1993, where an estimated 100 people per day were dying of starvation.
His conclusion is that neither side was fighting for principles, freedom or democracy, but merely for power. No wonder Angola, even in peace, turned out to be such a corrupt and badly governed country. This is a remarkable book that reveals a great deal about Angola.