Agostinho Neto: Victory is Certain!

Agostinho Neto: Victory is Certain!

(Excerpts from a broadcast relayed from 1st May Square in Luanda, where Agostinho Neto, President of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) read the proclamation of independence on 11 November 1975 and then addressed the people of Angola)

In the name of the Angolan People, the Central Committee of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, MPLA, solemnly proclaims the independence of Angola before Africa and the world. The Angolan people and the Central Committee of the MPLA will now observe one minute of silence and hereby declare that the heroes who fell for the independence of the motherland will live for ever.

Meeting the people’s most profound aspirations, the MPLA declares our country constituted into the People’s Republic of Angola. During the period between the signing of the Alvor agreement and the present proclamation, the MPLA alone did not breach the agreements signed. As far as the internal lackeys of imperialism are concerned, we have long since ceased to recognise them as liberation movements.

As far as Portugal is concerned, its constant disregard of the Alvor agreements is manifest, among other ways, by the fact that it has systematically remained silent over the invasion of our country by regular armies and mercenary forces. This invasion, already known and reported throughout the world, has not even merited a comment from the Portuguese authorities, who indeed exercised sovereignty only in the areas liberated by the MPLA.

Fascist International Brigade

Moreover, our movement is facing on the ground a sort of fascist international brigade attacking the Angolan people. Portuguese reactionary forces are included in this alliance and are taking part in the invasion of the south of the country. Yet the Portuguese Government not only has not attacked them but has indeed tacitly encouraged them by its silence and passivity. Despite the fact that the puppet organisations under orders from the invading army have long since been denounced by the Angolan people and by all the world progressive forces, the Portuguese Government insisted on regarding them as liberation movements and attempted to push the MPLA into solutions which would be tantamount to an act of high treason against the Angolan people.

Once more we wish to put on record that our struggle was never, and never will be, against the Portuguese people. On the contrary, from today we shall be in a position to cement fraternal relations between two peoples who share historical and linguistic links, as well as the same goal: freedom.

In the Manifesto of its foundation, in December 1956, the MPLA already showed its determination of fighting, by every means possible, for the total independence of Angola. The Manifesto stated that “colonialism will not fall without struggle. It is for this reason that the Angolan people can only liberate themselves through revolutionary war. And this will only be successful with the formation of a front, gathering all anti-imperialist forces in Angola, regardless of the colour of the skin, religious creeds or social positions; it will be victorious thanks to the formation of a vast Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola.”

Galvanising Force

A galvanising and vanguard force of our people, the MPLA heroically began the general armed insurrection of the Angolan people against Portuguese colonial domination on the morning of February 4, 1961.

The long road we trod represents the heroic history of a people who, under the unitary and correct guidance of their vanguard – the MPLA – struggled for the right to be free and independent. Despite brutal oppression and terror imposed by colonialism to defeat our struggle, the Angolan people, guided by their revolutionary vanguard, irrefutably asserted their African and revolutionary personality.

Based on the principle of unity of all sections of the Angolan people around the political line and clear formulation of its aim, defining its allies, friends and enemies, of the MPLA, the Angolan people finally overthrew the Portuguese colonial regime. With colonialism defeated and the recognition of our right to independence materialising at this historical moment, the immediate objective of the MPLA has been achieved. Thus, the People’s Republic of Angola is new born, embodying the will of the people and the result of the great sacrifices of our fighters for national liberation.

Our struggle is not over. Our goal is to achieve our country’s complete independence and build a just society and a new man. The fight we are still waging against the lackeys of imperialism, who shall go unnamed in order to sully this unique moment in history, is aimed at expelling the foreign invaders, those people who want to establish neo-colonialism in our country. The complete liberation of our country and all our people from foreign oppression is thus the new State’s fundamental concern.

Carrying into effect the aspirations of the broad popular masses, the People’s Republic of Angola will, under the guidance of the MPLA, gradually advance towards a democratic state. With the workers and the peasants forming the nucleus all patriots will be united against imperialism and its agents in the struggle for building a society without exploiters and exploited.

The organs of state in the People’s Republic of Angola will under the supreme guidance of the MPLA, and the primacy of the Movement’s structures over those of the state will be assured. However, because of it great vitality and in keeping with the dynamics of the revolution, the MPLA will undergo quantitative and qualitative modifications until finally it will transform itself into a party amidst a vast revolutionary front.

With the proclamation of the People’s Republic of Angola, the Popular Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola, FAPLA, are institutionalised as the national army. The FAPLA, the people’s armed hand, under the MPLA’s firm leadership, are a people’s army whose goal is to serve the interests of the most exploited sections of our people. Steeled in the hard struggle of national liberation against Portuguese colonialism, and armed with the revolutionary theory, they remain a fundamental instrument of the anti-imperialist struggle.

As the liberating force of the People’s Republic of Angola, the FAPLA will have the task  of defending the country’s territorial integrity, and, as a people’s army, will participate in the great tasks of national reconstruction …

Satisfying People’s Needs

Angola is an underdeveloped country. We ought to be deeply aware of the significance and consequences of this fact. The criteria traditionally employed to define underdevelopment are fully corroborated in Angola. They provide a deep mirror of the Angolan people. But to say that our country is underdeveloped is not enough; it is also necessary to add right now that Angola is a country exploited by imperialism; a country which gravitates around imperialism.

These two components together – underdevelopment and dependence – explain why the economy of Angola is so deeply distorted, with a so-called traditional sector and backward regions surrounding the so-called development poles. And they explain injustice in social relations in its full crudeness. On putting an end to colonialism and determinedly barring the way to neo-colonialism, the MPLA declares on this solemn occasion its firm resolve radically to change the present economic infrastructures, and defines from this moment that the goal of economic reconstruction is the satisfaction of the people’s needs.

We have a long way ahead of us. We will have to put our economic and administrative machinery fully to work, combating all sorts of parasitism, gradually putting an end to the distortions among the various sectors of the economy in the various regions of the country, so as to build a state of social justice. The economy will be planned to serve the Angolan man but never imperialism. The struggle for economic independence shall be, as a result, a constant element in our strategy.

The People’s Republic of Angola will launch increasingly into the industrialisation of our own raw materials and even into heavy industry enterprises. However, bearing in mind that most of the Angolan population live off the land, the MPLA has decided to regard agriculture as the basis, and industry as the determining factor, of our progress. The Angolan state will thus be able to resolve with justice the issue of the land and will encourage the setting-up of co-operatives and state enterprises in the interest of the peasant masses.

As for private enterprises, even foreign-owned ones, provided that they are useful to the national economy and the interests of the people, they will, on the latter’s behalf, be protected and encouraged as laid down in our Movement’s broader programme. In its economic relations the People’s Republic of Angola will be open to the entire world. It will accept international co-operation on the unquestionable assumption that the so-called foreign aid shall not be of a conditioned or conditioning character. The long history of the MPLA shows that as the leading force of the People’s Republic of Angola it will never betray the sacred principle of national independence. Our international relations will always be in line with the principle of mutual advantage.

The People’s Republic of Angola will devote particular attention to its relations with Portugal, and, because it wishes them to be lasting ones, it will build them on a new basis, free from any traces of colonialism. The present dispute with Portugal will be approached calmly in order to not poison our future relations.

It is evident that, initially, our economy will suffer from a lack of cadres. In order to meet this shortcoming, a plan for the rapid training of national cadres will be drawn up, and, at the same time, we shall make an appeal for international co-operation in this sphere. Our schools will undergo at all levels a radical reorganisation so that they can actually serve the people and our economic reconstruction.

Our Battlefront

Our people’s revolutionary determination to fight man’s exploitation by man, and the differences which separate us from the enemy, demand of us a new war of liberation which will take the form of widespread popular resistance and will have to continue until the final victory. In this context, the productive sector becomes predominant as a battlefront and a basic and vital factor in the advancement of our resistance. In order effectively to ensure the support of the glorious FAPLA, the People’s Republic of Angola will adopt the measures required to deal with the situation resulting from the invasion of our country. The People’s Republic of Angola solemnly reiterates its determination to fight for Angola’s territorial integrity, opposing any attempts at dismembering the country.

The People’s Republic of Angola sees as a priority and a vital and inalienable task the expulsion from our country of the army made up of South African and Zairean troops, Portuguese fascists, Angolan puppets and mercenaries who represent the combined forces of imperialist aggression against our country. The People’s Republic of Angola proposes to activate and support the establishment of people’s power on a national scale. The working masses will thus exercise power on all levels.

The People’s Republic of Angola sees as an inalienable patriotic duty to give special assistance and protection to those orphaned and those mutilated in the war of liberation. It will make all efforts to completely reintegrate into society all those victims of the war. The People’s Republic of Angola shall reassert once more its firm aim to launch a massive anti-illiteracy campaign throughout country, promoting and propagating free education, rooted in the culture of the Angolan people.

The state will set up, on a national scale, an efficient medical and health service aimed chiefly in the rural areas where the peasant masses who have hitherto been denied this right by colonialism. Another overriding concern of our state will be the abolition of all forms of discrimination based on sex, age, ethnic or racial origin, or religious, and the strict observance of the just principle of equal pay for equal work. The People’s Republic of Angola, under the guidance of the MPLA, shall encourage the emancipation of Angolan women, a right won through their courageous participation inn the struggle for liberation.

Solidarity with SA Struggle

The People’s Republic of Angola declares itself a lay State, with complete separation between the Church and the State, respecting all religions and protecting all the churches, places and objects of worship and legally recognised institutions. The People’s Republic of Angola, aware of its importance and responsibilities in the southern African and world contexts, reiterates its solidarity with all the world’s oppressed peoples, especially the peoples of Zimbabwe and Namibia’s struggle against racist domination.

The People’s Republic of Angola, under the orientation of its revolutionary vanguard – the MPLA – express their militant solidarity with the people of South Africa in their struggle against the oppressive racist regime. They assert once more their fighting and militant solidarity with the peoples of Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, Sao Tome and Principe and with their revolutionary organisations – FRELIMO, PAIGC and MLSTP – comrades in our difficult times and in our common struggle. They assert once more their solidarity with the fighting people of Timor, guided by their revolutionary vanguard FRETILIN. They assert once more their solidarity with the Palestinian people in their just struggle for national right and against Zionism.

From the Cabinda to the Kunene

Having achieved national independence, the MPLA and the Angolan people wish to express their heartfelt gratitude for the help rendered by all the friendly peoples and countries to our heroic national liberation struggle. Our gratitude goes to all the African people and countries who remained on our side, to the socialist countries, to the Portuguese revolutionary forces, and to the progressive organisations and governments of Western countries who understood and supported the Angolan people’s struggle.

The sovereign People’s Republic of Angola will maintain diplomatic relations with all the world countries based on the principles of mutual respect, national sovereignty, non-interference, respect for territorial integrity, non-aggression, equality, reciprocity of benefits and peaceful co-existence. The People’s Republic of Angola, a free and independent African State, voices its adherence to the principles of the OAU Charter and the United Nations Charter. The foreign policy of the People’s Republic of Angola, based on the principle of total independence observed by the MPLA from the outset, will be one of non-alignment. The People’s Republic of Angola will respect its international undertakings, and, equally, the international routes using its territory.

The People’s Republic of Angola, a country committed to the anti-imperialist struggle, will have as natural allies the African countries, the socialist countries and all the world progressive forces.

Comrades, on this moment when the Angolan people are covered in glory thanks to the victories and sacrifices of their best sons, we greet in the People’s Republic of Angola, our first State, the liberation of our beloved motherland. From Cabinda to the Kunene, united in the common motherland, in the blood shed in the cause of freedom, we pay tribute to the heroes who fell in five long centuries of resistance, and shall be worthy of their example. We respect the characteristics of each region, of each population nucleus of our country, for all of us equally offer the motherland the sacrifices its survival demands.

The flag which today flutters here is the symbol of freedom, the result of the blood, toil and tears of our fighting people. It is also the blessed love of the Angolan people. United from Cabinda to the Kunene, we shall vigorously carry on the widespread popular resistance, and shall build our democratic and popular State. Honour to the new Angolan man; eternal glory to our heroes; the struggle continues; victory is certain.

– Agostinho Neto (11 November 1975) –

Source:
Agostinho Neto, “Victory is Certain!”, Sechaba, Vol. 10, First Quarter, 1976, pp. 7 – 16.

Castro Khwela
Good day fellow Compatriots!