Full text of "Dirty Work 2: The CIA In Africa"

¥ • The Cl A in Africa DIRTY WORK 2 The CIA in Africa Edited by ELLEN RAY, WILLIAM SCHAAP, KARL VAN METER, and LOUIS WOLF Preface by Sean MacBride Dirty Work 2: The CIA in Africa was published in the United Kingdom in February 1980 by Zed Press, 57 Caledonian Road, London N1 9DN by arrangement with Lyle Stuart Inc. 120 Enterprise Ave., Se caucus, N.J. 07094, USA ISBN Pb 0 905762 62 2 All rights reserved Copyright © 1980 by C.I. Publications First reprinted, 1982 This book is respectfully dedicated to the peoples of Africa, especially the liberation forces struggling to overthrow the last but powerful vestiges of colonialism and white supremacy. Permissions and Credits “The CIA in Africa: How Central? How Intelligent?” by Rene Lcmarchand, copy- right © 1978 by University Press of America, Inc.; reprinted with their permis- sion and the permission of the author. "The CIA as an Equal Opportunity Employer,” by Dan Schechter, Michael An- sara, and David Kolodney, copyright © 1970 by Africa Research Group; reprint- ed with their permission. “CIA Recruitment for Africa: The Case of Howard University, Washington, D.C.,” from Covert Action Information Bulletin , copyright © 1979 by Covert Ac- tion Publications, Inc.; reprinted with their permission. “The CIA and the Media: An Overview.” by Cyrille Fall, copyright © 1978 by Afrique-Asie\ reprinted with their permission; translation by Mark Richey, copy- right © 1979 by C. I. Publications, Inc. “Media Manipulation in Angola," by John Stockwell, copyright © 1978 by John Stockwell; reprinted with his permission. “The Assassination of Eduardo Mondlane," by Frederic Laurent and Nina Sutton, copyright © 1978 by Editions Stock; reprinted with their permission; translation by Karl Van Meter, copyright © 1979 by C. I. Publications, Inc. "PIDE and SDECE: Plotting in Guinea," by Ken Lawrence, includes extensive quotes from an article in Expresso, Lisbon. Article copyright © 1976 by Jornal Expresso, Lisbon, Portugal; quotations reprinted with their permission. Transla- tion by Mark Richey, copyright © 1979 by C. I. Publications, Inc. "Confession of a ‘Dog of War,’” by Rene Backmann, copyright © 1978 by Le Nouvel Observateun, reprinted with their permission; translation by Karl Van Me- ter, copyright © 1979 by C. I. Publications, Inc. “CIA Said to Have Aided Plotters Who Overthrew Nkrumah in Ghana,” by Sey- mour Hersh, copyright © 1978 by The New York Times Company; reprinted with their permission. “Games People Play,” by Jim Paul, copyright © 1976 by Middle East Research and Information Project; reprinted with their permission. “The Confessions of a Spy,” from Afrique-Asie , copyright © 1978 by Afrique-Asie ; reprinted with their permission; translation by Mark Richey, copyright © 1979 by C. I. Publications, Inc. “The CIA and U S. Policy in Zaire and Angola,” by Stephen Weissman, copyright © 1978 by University Press of America, Inc.; reprinted with their permission and the permission of the author. “A Tough Little Monkey,” by Jack Bourderie, copyright © 1975 by Afrique-Asie ; reprinted with their permission; translation by Karl Van Meter, copyright © 1979 by C. I. Publications, Inc. “OTRAG,” by Informationsdienst Sudliches Afrika , copyright © 1978 by Infor- maiionsdienst Sudliches Afrika ; translation by Heinrich Bercnbcrg, copyright © 1979 by C. I. Publications, Inc. "The Savimbi Letters,” from Afrique-Asie, copyright © 1974 by Afrique-Asie; re- printed with their permission; translation of introduction by Anselme Remy, translation of letters by Karl Van Meter, copyright © 1979 by C. I. Publications, Inc. “Dress Rehearsal,” by Miles Africanus, copyright © 1979 by Covert Action Publi- cations, Inc.; reprinted with their permission. “In Zimbabwe 1,000 Mercenaries Fight Against African Liberation,” by Malik Reaves, copyright © 1978 by Southern Africa magazine; reprinted with their per- mission. “Arms for Apartheid,” by Michael Klare, copyright © 1979 by Michael Klare; re- printed with his permission. All other material in this book is copyright © 1979 by C. I. Publications, Inc. Contents i * Preface Scan MacBride Overview Introduction Philip Agee The CIA in Africa: How Central? How Intelligent? Rene Lcmarchand The French Role in Africa Karl Van Meter British Intelligence in Africa Jonathan Bloch and Russell Southwood The Lagorce Report: The Definition of a New EEC Strategy for South Africa Paulette Pierson-Mathy The Range of Covert Intervention Introduction Philip Agee The CIA as an Equal Opportunity Employer Dan Schechter, Michael Ansara, and David Kolodney ix 1 9 24 36 43 47 50 The CIA and African Trade Unions Barry Cohen 70 Academics: An Overview Ken Lawrence 80 CIA Recruitment for Africa : The Case of Howard University CovertAction Information Bulletin 86 The CIA and the Media : An Overview Cyrille Fall 95 Media Manipulation in Angola John Stock well 98 The Assassination of Eduardo Mondlane Frederic Laurent and Nina Sutton 111 PIDE and SDECE: Plotting in Guinea Ken Lawrence 114 Confession of a “ Dog of War ” Rene Backmann 120 CIA Said to Have Aided Plotters Who Overthrew Nkrumah in Ghana Seymour Hersh 133 Games People Play Jim Paul 137 How the West Established Idi Amin and Kept Him There Pat Hutton and Jonathan Bloch 145 The Confessions of a Spy Afrique-Asie 154 Zaire, OTRAG, and Angola The CIA and U.S. Policy in Zaire and Angola Stephen Weissman 157 A Tough Little Monkey Jack Bourderic 1 82 OTRAG: Missiles Against Liberation in Africa Informationsdienst Siidliches Afrika 1 89 The Savimbi Letters Afrique-Asie 194 Dress Rehearsal Miles African us 205 What Britain Did in Angola Pat Hutton and Jonathan Bloch 210 Cabinda: A Joint Operation Karl Van Meter 218 Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa In Zimbabwe 1,000 Mercenaries Fight Against African Liberation Malik Reaves 223 SIGINT for Namibia Chris Walker 229 Arms for Apartheid: New Evidence of Illegal U.S. Arms Sales to South Africa Michael Klare 232 The CIA and BOSS: Thick as Thieves Stephen Talbot 240 South Africa Gets. Nuclear Weapons — Thanks to the West Barbara Rogers 250 Bibliography 255 Acknowledgments The editors wish to acknowledge the in- valuable assistance of several friends in locating, gathering, and working up the materials for this book, in particular Ken Lawrence in Jackson, Mississippi, and Andy Weir in London. We also wish to thank Mark Richey, Yvonne Williams and Tony Smart for their help in the production of this book. And of course, we thank Lyle Stuart for his un- stinting support of our efforts to contin- ue this series of exposes and of our hopes for diminishing the crimes of the Western intelligence complex. Our day-to-day work is accomplished through the CovertAction Information Bulletin. In this bimonthly magazine we publish the research both of our group and of other friends around the world, aimed at exposing international med- dling by the intelligence complex — par- ticularly, but by no means exclusively, the CIA. We urge interested readers to contact us at P.O. Box 50272, Washing- ton, D.C. 20004. Preface by Sean MacBride, S. C. Before accepting the invitation to write the preface to this book, I had some hesitations. Many different considerations were involved. Having weighed these carefully, I decided that it was my duty to write this preface. The sense of duty that impelled me to write this preface can be subdi- vided under five different headings. First, my deep affection for, and tremendous admiration of, the United States and its people. I came to the conclusion that all the values that made me admire the American people were being eroded by the covert oper- ations of the CIA and kindred secret bodies. In the course of their history, the American people have usually responded generously and spontaneous- ly to the calls of those who, throughout history, have been driven from their own country by persecution, famine, or poverty. Millions of my own countrymen, driven from their own shores by famine and persecution, sought and found a new life and freedom in the United States. The words engraved on the Statue of Liberty at the entrance to New York harbor have a very real and dramatic meaning to many segments of the population of the United States: Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door! The world looked to the United States as the golden gate where the lamp of liberty was shining. (Sean MacBride is the recipient of the Nobel (1974) and Lenin (1977) Peace awards, and of the American Medal of Justice (1978). He was an active participant in the Irish Revolution since his early youth, and served both as Foreign Minister of Ireland and as Representative of Ire- land to the United Nations. He subsequently served as U.N. Commis- sioner for Namibia, and is President of the International Peace Bureau, Geneva.] X Sean MacBride Time after time the United States has generously aided other countries threatened by famine or disaster. The survival of this great tradition is of importance, not only to Americans, but to all freedom loving people in the world. But in my view, the survival of this great democracy is now being grave- ly threatened by the covert criminal actions of the Central Intelligence Agency and its associate services. If the United States is to be protected from this grave danger, it is essential that the activities of this secret agen- cy should be fully exposed to the people of the United States. Second. I am a fierce believer in the democratic system of governments. Among the democracies, the Constitution of the United States can be, and has proved to be, a bastion of civil liberty. However, democracy and the rule of law could not survive side by side with a state agency that engages in covert operations ranging from assassi- nations to levying mercenary armies. Even if there is, now, an attempt be- ing made by some to check the activities of the CIA and the other United States intelligence agencies, the whole concept of a secret government and army within a government is a menace to the democratic system. Third, the existence of a vast intelligence-cum-paramilitary complex, such as the CIA and the other United States intelligence agencies, tends to make the political, legislative, and executive officers of government depen- dent upon the agencies’ intelligence assessments. This is extremely danger- ous. It may well mean that the country’s foreign policy will be framed on the basis of intelligence assessments that are far from reliable or accurate. The entire foreign policy of the United States could become dependent upon the assessments of agents who do not have the necessary background or training. The many, many known false assessments made by the CIA and the other intelligence agencies of the United States establish the unre- liability of such a system. The last instance, Iran, illustrates the position: The CIA operatives were so closely linked to SAVAK and the Shah’s re- gime that they failed to understand what was happening in Iran and seri- ously misled the government of the United States in regard to a vital area of the world. Fourth, the type of mercenary and other support that has been the favor- ite modus operandi of the CIA has done untold damage to the image of the United States and to its influence in the world. Not only that, but in many cases it has been one of the factors that has influenced United States for- eign policy into giving arms, money, and political support to corrupt gov- ernments or movements lacking in any credibility. Thus, through the CIA, the United States became the vehicle for the overthrow of the Greek demo- cratic government and the establishment of a cruel and corrupt military re- gime in Greece. Likewise, the United States became linked with the over- throw of the Chilean government and the assassination of Allende and the establishment of the Pinochet dictatorship. The allies of the CIA have been Preface xi PIDE in Portugal, SAVAK in Iran, BOSS m South Africa, and every dic- tatorial regime in Latin America. In addition, it was used by, or it used, the British, French, and West German secret services in the promotion of covert activities in other parts of the world. Fifth, in a world rocking on the edge of a nuclear holocaust, misinfor- mation, covert action, assassinations, infiltration, and destabilization of governments could easily lead to the “miscalculation, madness, or acci- dent” to which President John F. Kennedy referred, as the dangerous fac- tors that might lead to the destruction of the human race. In kindred situations, the CIA and other such intelligence agencies of the United States government are easy targets for manipulation by the mil- itary-industrial complex and by arms merchants. The bribes and improper influence of the military-industrial complex and of arms merchants have corrupted and destabilized political leaders and governments all over the world. The warnings of President Eisenhower concerning the threat posed by the military-industrial complex must be kept in mind when dealing with CIA assessments and military strategies. These are the five major reasons that prompted me to agree to write the introduction to this book. I regard the work of the editors and their col- leagues, as well as that of the other members of the intelligence community who have turned away from the facile notion that they were serving their country and the cause of democracy by engaging in this vast secret con- spiracy, of vital importance for the protection of human liberty in America and throughout the world. Although the sole responsibility for the Vietnam war cannot be laid at the door of the CIA, that agency did play a large role in both the promo- tion and the direction of the most damaging and disastrous war ever waged by the United States — a war that irretrievably damaged the image of the United States and the morale of the American people. Nothing in the history of the United States has been as damaging to it as the Vietnam war. It is surprising, indeed, that there has been no objective analysis made of all the wrong or misleading assessments that led the United States to get involved in Vietnam or to continue its involvement long after it became ob- vious that the United States could not succeed. Likewise, the covert activi- ties of the CIA in Greece, Chile, Iran, and Angola, and in many Latin American countries, have made the United States appear nondemocratic and imperialist. Its methods, as well as those of its surrogates, are usually immoral and criminal; their activities are destructive of America’s good name in the world. Time after time the assessments and policy proposals made by the CIA have been proved disastrously wrong. The CIA and FBI links with the Watergate episodes illustrated how such organizations could constitute a threat to the American democratic system. The American secret services have come dangerously close to being the secret government of the United Sean MacBride xii States. I am quite certain that the activities and parts of policies of the CIA as we know them are not a true reflection of the best elements in American life. That a state requires intelligence services is a fact of modem internation- al life. However, such services should be limited to securing information to enable the government to ward off possible surprise attacks. The CIA (in some instances in collaboration with the FBI) has acted in a manner that far exceeds its mandate as an intelligence-gathering agency. It has acted as a secret mafia engaged in assassinations, levying war in other countries, and organizing mercenary forces in order to overthrow lawfully estab- lished governments and to destabilize societies, governments, and organi- zations that did not meet with its approval. In most cases, the covert ac- tions sponsored by the CIA had been intended to assist in setting up, or perpetuating the existence of, ruthless, corrupt, and antidemocratic dicta- torships: Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Greece, Chile, El Salvador, Nicara- gua, Brazil and the Argentine are examples. In many cases, covert actions that received the tacit or active support of the United States government were based on or influenced by erroneous or misleading assessments by the CIA. In devious ways, either through the 40 Committee or through ma- nipulation of the organizations of government of the United States, the CIA led the United States into the adoption of indefensible foreign-policy pursuits. In addition to the covert actions for which the CIA was directly respon- sible, its close collaboration with other authoritarian secret services, such as PIDE, BOSS and SAVAK, involves the United States indirectly, but nevertheless in a very significant way, with the covert actions of these oth- er terrorist secret services. Thus it appears more than likely that through its involvement with BOSS, the CIA was privy to the series of covert criminal actions now described as the Muldergate Scandals. General Van den Bergh has claimed publicly his close links with the CIA. In his articles on the Muldergate Scandals, Anthony Sampson claimed that both the CIA and Britain’s MI6 exchanged information with BOSS and that the “Preto- ria station still depends on BOSS reports about revolutionaries” {The Ob- server , Sunday, 21 January 1979). In the same article General Van den Bergh claimed that he was having lunch with a very senior CIA officer. These reports have not been contradicted. The Muldergate Scandals, in which leading members of the South African administration were in- volved, extended far beyond the confines of South Africa. In South Africa they involved a number of criminal offenses; outside South Africa they in- volved bribery and corruption of American officials and direct interference with politics and the press in the United States. The BOSS operations required obtaining the services of “opinion formers and decision makers” in the United States and elsewhere through- out the world. The methods used included bribery and blackmail; murder is also alleged. It is generally believed that if the CIA was not directly in- Preface xin volvcd in the Muldergate covert operations, it was aware of them. In this way the CIA became involved in many of the “dirty tricks” operations of other secret services. Indeed, in a recent book published in England by a well-known defense correspondent, the author states, There have been recent occasions when CIA Dirty Tricks have been so dirty that some individuals in the Agency refused to take part in them, or, having done so, regretted it to the point of resigning.* Still more alarming are the suspicions that the CIA and the Pentagon were aware of, and probably collaborated with. South Africa’s develop- ment of a nuclear capacity. It is now clear that South Africa has acquired a capacity to make nuclear weapons and that this was made possible by the collaboration in the first place of the Federal Republic of Germany and in the second place of the United States of America. If this is so — and the evidence seems to be conclusive* — it would be a gross violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty by both the Federal Re- public of Germany and the United States. It is, of course, possible that such collaboration as there has been in regard to South Africa’s nuclear ca- pacity was undertaken by the CIA and other United States intelligence agencies, including the Pentagon, without the prior knowledge of the U.S. government as such. But this illustrates the grave dangers involved in the covert operations of the U.S. secret services. The disclosures made by John Stock well. Former Chief of CIA Angola Task Force,{t established clearly that the CIA considers itself above the law and disregards the instructions it receives from the United States gov- ernment. The African continent has provided a fertile soil for the covert and destabilizing activities of the CIA. These activities have been responsi- ble in no small measure for the involvement of other countries in the af- fairs of the African continent. While perhaps the present Director of the CIA has been making efforts to confine the CIA to a more limited role, I do not think that he has, as yet, been successful. This book may help him to obtain a clearer view of the damage the operations of the Central Intelligence Agency is inflicting on African states and, ultimately, on the good name of the United States of America. •Chapman Pincher, Inside Story (1978), p. 198. tCervenka and Rogers. The Nuclear Axis (1978). tJJohn Stockwdl, In Search of Enemies (1978). 1 OVERVIEW Introduction by Philip Agee Since World War II political movements in all parts of Africa have sought to end five centuries of subjugation, exploitation, and varying forms of tu- telage imposed by Western powers. But as one colonial power after an- other conceded formal independence to African dominions, they often tried, with different degrees of success and failure, to install dependent re- gimes and institutions that would pose no threat to traditional colonial in- terests: minerals and the labor and infrastructure to extract them; petro- leum and natural gas; markets for food and manufactured products; opportunities for capital investments; and sea routes through Suez and around the Cape. Favorable local political conditions were needed to pro- tect the colonial powers’ nationals who remained after independence and to assure optimum operating conditions for Western corporations. African natural resources and markets continued to be vital to the Western econo- mies. In the 1960s operations by the American government and American companies expanded both in support of, and in competition with, the tra- ditional colonial powers. While competing with European allies for natural resources and markets, the U.S. had set up military bases in Africa and joined the Europeans in opposing the nationalist and anti-colonial move- (Philip Agee, who spent twelve years with the CIA, is the author of In- side the Company: CIA Diary and the co-editor of Dirty Work: The CIA in Western Europe. This article was written in June 1979 for this book.] 2 Philip Agee ments that were supported by socialist countries or whose nationalism and radicalism made them seem threatening, while supporting those which were moderate and pro-capitalist. As in the rest of the world, U.S. policy viewed Africa as a continent where radical and communist influence should be eradicated— a goal that required military support to colonial powers or efforts that would deny real independence to African countries by imposing and sustaining client regimes. Israeli government agencies and private companies, in addition to Americans and Europeans, also established operations, including technical assistance and military training in African countries. For the Africans, however, the problem was to overcome the legacy of colonialism: poverty, illiteracy, disease, and the ethnic, religious, and tribal divisions that crossed the arbitrarily drawn colonial borders. And despite their many differences, African leaders were united, in words and often in action, in opposition to continuing colonialism, neo-colonialism, and white-minority rule. (Some French West African leaders were an excep- tion, however, tending to identify ideologically with the West.) The dilemma for Western powers in post-colonial Africa was not so dif- ferent from that in other continents: how to preserve strategic interests while appearing to respect the right to independence and national sover- eignty demanded by today's standards of international conduct. Rarely could they do both. Almost invariably the Western powers have perceived radical nationalism and communist support to nationalist movements as threatening their interests. Respect for African independence has seldom interfered with measures to counter such threats. Time and again, through secret intervention, overt military action, and support for client regimes, the Western powers have sought to retain control in Africa, fearing that nationalism and communist influence would erode their own security. This book is the second in the Dirty Work series, continuing the attempt made in Dirty Work: The CIA in Western Europe to expose and analyze clandestine operations. It is a collective effort, with participation by well- known scholars and journalists of African affairs, in order to present a wide and accurate account of how the United States and westem-Europe- an governments have tried to intervene, often secretly, to support the po- litical movements and leaders judged favorable to their interests and to de- feat the movements they feared. Because most of the research can be verified only in the West, most of the authors are Westerners, not Afri- cans. No book could possibly detail all the plots, coups, assassinations, merce- nary incursions, bombings, propaganda manipulations, briberies, trade- union penetrations, and secret arms deals. Yet these activities have been going bn without interruption. This book emphasizes attempts at secret intervention; however, these are so intertwined with overt diplomacy, military action, and private eco- nomic activity that they cannot be considered in isolation. Many of the analyses of secret operations in this book include these overt factors. Introduction 3 There is no pretense of trying to “balance” this book by describing simi- lar, or different, activities of socialist nations. Although they may well em- ploy clandestine operations, the frequency and depth of such activities have been modest in comparison with secret intervention by Western pow- ers. Normally, socialist governments do not choose secrecy or pretexts for supporting a movement or government of their choice. Their assistance tends to be public, well-known, and without the stigma attached to politi- cal support, overt or covert, from the U.S. and the former colonial powers. Retardation of national development in Africa quite obviously is not a re- sult of centuries of domination by foreign socialist powers, but of Western colonialism that still seeks to perpetuate control— fearing, almost equally it seems, real African independence and communist influence. But the struggles in Africa today involve far more than East-West rival- ries or the movement to end colonial rule and minority racial domination. Efforts to establish some form of socialism, and corresponding resistance to it, are at the base of contemporary African history. Yet the Western powers, perhaps rightly, cling to their fear that socialism, or any social re- form in Africa, will find its natural allies in the Soviet bloc and thus jeop- ardize enormous Western interests. This fear prevails even though all par- ties seem to agree that, socialist or not, the African countries are inextricably bound to the Western powers by deep needs for the technol- ogy, products, and markets of Western countries. In current conflicts Western diplomacy is in search of “stability” through “moderate leadership” for “peaceful solutions.” Yet African political, economic, and social realities are far from being peaceful, moder- ate, and stable. Nor in many cases are the solutions. These studies of clandestine intervention are not restricted to the Cen- tral Intelligence Agency, because the secret services of the former colonial powers and of Israel and South Africa have at times been as active as the CIA. In addition, there has been important cooperation among Western services in joint operations in Africa. French and British assistance to the CIA in recruitment of mercenaries during the Angolan civil war, and the CIA’s close coordination with South Africa’s Bureau of State Security (BOSS) at the same time, are only two recent examples of such coopera- tion. The world has learned much about the CIA in recent years. Its secret operations are the work of some four thousand career employees of the Deputy Directorate of Operations, also known as the Clandestine Services. These specialists in “dirty tricks” receive essential support from several thousand other CIA employees in administration, logistics, finance, train- ing, and communications. And when necessary, as in Angola, the CIA can call on the U.S. military services for assistance. In the mid-1970s, according to John Stockwell,' the CIA had about 3,000 secret operations specialists posted around the world. Most of them were working from U.S. embassies and consulates, where they were given cover as State Department employees. The Africa Division of the Clandes- 4 Philip Agee f tine Services had approximately 400 people working in the CIA’s Head- I quarters near Washington and in some 40 embassies and consulates in Af- j rica. Stockwell did not reveal just how many people were assigned to African posts or how many were working in Headquarters, but Victor Marchetti has indicated that the CIA had up to 300 operations personnel in Africa at any one time, not counting the communications and other sup- ! port people. 2 Apart from the CIA staff personnel assigned to embassies and consul- ates in Africa, others pose as private individuals under varying forms of “non-official” cover. These may be ostensibly employees of private compa- nies or employees of institutions such as the CIA’s African-American La- bor Center. Others may become professors at African universities, as Jay Mullen did at Makerere University, where he coached Idi Amin’s basket- ball team. 3 Still others are professionals. Kemba Maish, a psychologist at Howard University in Washington, D.C., has revealed an apparently broad CIA program for sending black American psychologists to Africa to produce profiles on left-wing leaders. 4 Non-U.S. citizens, from countries other than that in which they are as- signed by the CIA (the so-called third-country nationals) also serve as op- erations officers under private cover. These individuals may serve an entire career with the CIA, but since they are foreigners, they will always be as- signed to field operations and will never work inside the CIA's staff offices. How many non-official cover operations personnel are assigned in Afri- ca is impossible to know with precision. These are the most difficult jobs for the CIA to fill, since they are so vulnerable without diplomatic status and because of the psychological pressures of separation from the rest of the CIA’s people— the isolation of being “at the end of the line.” Assum- ing the pressures within the CIA for placing greater numbers of operations personnel under private cover continued from the 1960’s to the present, I would estimate that in all of Africa between thirty and fifty operations offi- cers, both U.S. citizens and “third country nationals,” are at work outside the diplomatic missions. The job of these people is to recruit and run spies. Their targets are the host governments where they are serving, local institutions such as trade unions and the media, the representatives of liberation movements, and the foreign Diplomatic Corps, especially the missions of socialist countries. They maintain liaison and training programs with local military and secu- rity services, through which they try to recruit officers of the local services to report on sensitive political matters and the country’s leadership. They also use local services, especially their penetration agents, to tap tele- phones, intercept mail, and provide security cover for buggings and illegal entries. And, most important, the CIA’s officers constantly use, apply, and exploit the information they collect, in order the strengthen the people and institutions they favor and to weaken and destroy those they oppose. Their measure of success varies, of course, depending on the vulnerability of their targets and the Agency’s own priorities. Introduction 5 Unfortunately the British, French, Portuguese, Belgians, and others are even more secretive than the CIA about their intelligence services, and we cannot be precise about numbers of personnel assigned to African oper- ations. But we can be sure that their goals and methods differ little from those of the CIA, although competitive circumstances are bound to occur. And we have strong clues to the methods of these other services from some of their operations already exposed and the obvious interests these govern- ments must protect. Belgian interest in Africa quite naturally has focused on preserving their enormous mining operations in Zaire. Belgian support for mercenary oper- ations in that country in the 1960s complemented overt military interven- tion in the same period. More recently, in 1978, Belgian paratroopers in- tervened to secure mining areas in Zaire’s Shaba province. With a hope for future “stability” in Zaire, Belgium has now joined with France and China in a program to retrain Zaire’s ineffective and unreliable military forces. France, highly interventionist, is the only former colonial power still maintaining troops in Africa. These are stationed in west and central Afri- ca, in Djibouti, and in the Indian Ocean. France uses these forces, and oth- ers like Foreign Legionnaires stationed in Corsica, to protect favored re- gimes in former colonies, and it uses its secret services for the same purposes. France has intervened militarily in favor of Morocco and Mauri- tania against the Polisario independence struggle in Western Sahara. Dur- ing both the 1977 and the 1978 crises in Zaire’s Shaba pronvince, France intervened with military forces, and its secret service (SDECE) helped the CIA recruit mercenaries for Angola while backing its own favored inde- pendence movement, FLEC, in Cabinda.’ Readers will note that French intervention has been consistent and often effective in the short run, and, in the cases of its closest West African allies, in the long run as well. But perhaps France’s most important long-term activity in Africa has been its assistance to the white regime in South Africa where French government and armaments industries have helped to provide near self-sufficiency for that government’s giant war machine. British interests center principally on its former colonies in west and east Africa and on the current struggles for majority rule in southern Afri- ca. With the United States, Britain carries the Western cause in negotia- tions for majority rule in Zimbabwe, but Britain’s greatest preoccupation is with South Africa. Disruption of the South African economy in the 1980s through black nationalist armed struggle would be a near calamity for the British, given their huge investments in and dependence on trade with South Africa. But the British are caught in the middle because they are also highly dependent on trade and investments in former black colonies that are united in support of southern African liberation from white rule. Thus the current struggles in Zimbabwe and Namibia, preludes to the final showdown in South Africa itself, are critical for Britain’s future. British se- curity services, like the CIA, maintain close liaison with South Africa’s BOSS, as they also do with the political police (Special Branches) they ere- 6 Philip Agee ated in their colonies before independence. Secret British support for Idi Amin’s takeover of power in Uganda in 1971 shows that the British are also active, when necessary, in clandestine intervention. 6 But the British government’s most important activity in recent years in southern Africa has been its passive acceptance of sanction-busting com- mercial operations to supply oil and other necessities to Ian Smith’s gov- ernment in Zimbabwe. Similarly it has looked the other way as hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of Britons have been recruited as mercenaries for Smith’s army and other “counter-insurgency” operations. Meanwhile South Africa’s BOSS has operated almost with impunity in Britain to drum up right-wing support for its policies, to harass and keep apartheid’s opponents under surveillance, and going so far as to sabotage the Harold Wilson government by attacking the Prime Minister’s image. Less is known of West German secret activities in Africa, although pri- vate West German commercial operations have been extremely important for the South African economy and, indirectly, for the Smith army’s oper- ations against the Patriotic Front. But West Germany’s most important commercial operation was the transfer of nuclear technology to South Af- rica, enabling that government to develop nuclear weapons, 7 and the estab- lishment of a missile-development program in Zaire wherein the German company OTRAG obtained near sovereignty over a huge area of the coun- try.* Israeli interests in Africa have clashed with Arab and black Muslim states. Practically every African country broke relations with Israel follow- ing the 1973 war. Israel’s closest ally in Africa continues to be South Afri- ca, and it is believed that close relations exist between MOSSAD, the Is- raeli service, and BOSS as a complement to Israel's military assistance to the South African government. In South Africa, the whites are determined to continue their apartheid regime for as long as possible, while seeking to curtail international action against them through token or very limited internal reforms. They have played a key role in setting up the “moderate” Muzorewa government in Zimbabwe, in which minority white power will continue, in the hope that Zimbabwe will serve as a buffer against the black nationalist movements struggling for majority rule in South Africa itself. Similarly in Namibia, the South Africans have defied the United Nations by establishing a client regime that will pose no threat and that will exclude the SWAPO libera- tion movement. Clearly the white South African leaders are seeking to es- tablish perimeters for internal defense that extend far beyond their own borders. The South Africans have not only developed a nuclear- weapons capabil- ity and near self-sufficiency in armaments, but they have also established economic ties with certain African states of considerable importance to them, states that the rulers in Pretoria hope will moderate support for black power in South Africa. Introduction 7 Central to all of South Africa’s survival operations is its secret service, the Bureau of State Security (BOSS). As would be expected, this service has a major role in internal security operations to repress the liberation forces within the country, mainly the African National Congress and any other opposition that exists. But BOSS is also the executive instrument for a vast complex of secret domestic and foreign propaganda and political in- fluence-buying operations. Through 160 secret projects reaching into west- ern Europe and the United States, BOSS spent the equivalent of at least $73 million, between 1973 and 1978. And despite the scandal resulting from revelation of these operations, they continue and no doubt will ex- pand as needed. It is not impossible that the harsh South African reaction in April 1979 to American use of the U.S. ambassador’s aircraft to photograph South African nuclear facilities simply emphasized South Africa’s intention to distance itself from Anglo-American policies in creating its extended re- gional security structure in Zimbabwe and Namibia. Undoubtedly such strains will continue as Western governments press for greater reforms than the South Africans are willing to make. Nevertheless, the South Afri- can regime and the Western powers need each other for economic rea- sons — a fundamental motive for Western opposition to U.N. -sponsored economic sanctions against South Africa. Yet for all the surface differ- ences, collaboration among the security and intelligence services is likely to continue apace. If conservative forces in Western countries, particularly Britain and the United States, succeed in obtaining recognition of the Smith-Muzorewa government and the lifting of sanctions, together with acceptance of a Na- mibian settlement that excluded SWAPO, then the intelligence services of these countries will surely increase their support of white power in south- ern Africa in coordination with BOSS. The long-term result will be even greater misery and death, and still greater hostility toward Western powers when black nationalists eventually achieve victory. The material in this book is organized into several sections. First it pre- sents analyses of the African interests of the major Western powers and their security services. A series of articles follows describing secret inter- ventions in the major categories of operations, such as trade unions, media, and mercenaries, that afFect many countries at once, sometimes the whole continent. Then it details major covert programs regionally and by coun- try. An appendix, researched and prepared by Louis Wolf, attempts to re- peat the effort made in Dirty Work: The CIA in Western Europe , this time to identify the CIA officers assigned to African posts since 1970 with as much of their career backgrounds as can be discovered from public rec- ords. Finally, there is a bibliography of suggested readings. This book gives a broad and coherent picture of the danger to African independence represented by the secret agencies of the United States and other Western powers. Rare is the African country that in recent years 8 Philip Agee could elude intervention by neo-colonialist interests and the retardation of national development that such intervention so often brings. Yet these se- cret agencies are not phantom forces. Their methods can be understood and their people can be identified. Measures to counter their operations can succeed, as their numerous blunders and failures demonstrate. Notes 1. See Stock well's book In Search of Enemies (New York, W. W. Norton. 1978) for an in- valuable account of the Angola intervention by the CIA. 2. Victor Marchetti and John Marks, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, Knopf, New York: 1974, p. 99. 3. Jay Mullen, **I was Idi Amin’s Basketball Czar,” Oregon magazine, May 1979, p. 55, and June 1979, p. 66. 4. See below, p. 87. 5. See below, p. 248. 6. See below, p. 174. 7. See below, p. 280. 8. See below, p. 219. The CIA in Africa: How Central? How Intelligent? by Rene Lemarchand In an African continent understandably sensitive on the issue of sovereignty, we Americans have had a special myth to overcome: the myth of manipulation. I hope that this is dead. I hope that we have been able to convince the African governments that we are not involved in any way in seeking to determine how they are governed and by whom. Thus spoke former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, David Newsom, on March 14, 1973.' In the post-Watergate era such a statement strains credulity. The virtuousness of the intentions conveyed by New- som’s homily is indeed difficult to reconcile with the staggering evidence to the contrary recently disclosed through senatorial investigations, press re- ports, and various other sources. 2 The crux of the problem is no longer whether we can dispel the “myth of manipulation” from popular perceptions of U.S. foreign policy, but whether, in the light of recent disclosures, the extent of U.S. manipulation abroad and its effect on the domestic politics of Third World countries lend themselves to an objective assessment. Prying into the murky underworld of CIA activities raises obvious diffi- culties. Popular reactions to the evidence disclosed by the Church Com- mittee mirror varying shades of indignation, cynicism, and embarrass- [This article, in an expanded form, was firs! presented at a conference on southern Africa organized at the University of Florida in the spring of 1976. It was published in 1978 in Lemarchand, Ed., American Policy in Southern Africa: The Stakes and the Stance. University Press of America.) 10 Rene Lemarchand ment, all of which tend to reflect a generalized sense of uneasiness about the credibility of the moral image we seek to project. Yet there is clearly more at issue here than just a distortion of our national self-image. To put the matter concretely, one is impelled to wonder whether, in particular in- stances, CIA funds, shellfish toxin and cobra venom* falsified information, and ‘‘private” airlines are not the really critical components of the stock of resources at the disposal of Third World political actors, and whether terms like “legitimacy,” “authority,” “charisma,” and the like are not to be treated as mere euphemisms for a far more sinister and effective type of political resource. All this is not meant as an attempt to rehabilitate con- spiracy theories, only to suggest that insofar as the existence of such con- spiracies can be established, they should not be left out of the “account- ing.” As we now realize, “creating political order”' in Africa and elsewhere is a process in which clandestine political and paramilitary activities have of- ten played a determining role. Despite all the sensationalism attending the disclosures of the Church Committee, our knowledge of CIA activities in Africa is still very limited in terms of both real coverage and the circumstantial evidence thus far produced for public consumption. Although I have tried to supplement the facts that are now part of the public record with what little information I was able to collect in the course of my occasional (but deliberately distant) contacts with CIA offi- cials in Africa and the United States, what follows is obviously a very spec- ulative discussion. Furthermore, by virtue of my own geographical area of specialization, and because it happens to include two of the states about which evidence of CIA involvement is most readily accessible, my analysis draws heavily from Angola, Zaire, Rwanda, and Burundi. Finally, the reader should bear in mind that much of what I have to say about the effect of CIA activities might conceivably apply to its British, Belgian, and French counterparts. Indeed, judging from the extensive and apparently reliable evidence recently disclosed by Patrice Chairoff , 4 there seem to be some striking parallels between the style and methods of the CIA in Africa and those of its French equivalent, the Service de Documen- tation Exterieure et de Contre-Espionage (SDECE). The Scope and Centrality of CIA Operations Most African states rank relatively high on the list of polities most vul- nerable to CIA penetration. What makes them ideal targets for covert op- erations is their inherent fragility. The point has been articulated by the former chief of the agency’s Clandestine Services, Richard Bissell, as fol- IoWstV The underdeveloped world presents greater opportunities for covert intelligence collection simply because govern- The CIA in Africa II \ ments are much less highly oriented; there is less security consciousness; and there is apt to be more actual or po- tential diffusion of power among parties, localities, orga- nizations and individuals outside the central govern- ments. BisselFs characterization is an apt summary of the state of affairs prevail- ing in the Congo (now Zaire) from 1960 to 1965, in Madagascar in early 1975, in Angola in 1975-76. It seems hardly a matter of coincidence that all three countries experienced a relatively high level of CIA involvement precisely when their political systems were least stable. Whether covert operations are launched in a foreign state depends on the choices made by Washington in response to particular crisis situations or combinations of events. Spheres of CIA involvement thus tend to con- tract and expand, in an accordian-like fashion, depending on a variety of factors, including the salience of perceived threats to U.S. interests. In their quest for quantifiable evidence some commentators have drawn attention to personnel figures and budgetary appropriations as possible in- dices of the agency’s involvement; yet since both sets of figures are ex- tremely flexible, one wonders what profit, if any, can be drawn from reli- ance on this kind of data. What, for example, is one to make of Bruce Oudes’ contention that “the CIA African budget is in the vicinity of $25 to 30 million a year” and that “no more than a handful, if that, of CIA sta- tions in Africa could have a budget running $ 1 million or more," 6 when we learn that $25 million in arms were shipped by the CIA to the pro-Western factions in Angola during the last three months of 1975? Similarly, to ar- gue that “the CIA’s African division consists of only 300 of the 4,500 em- ployees of the CIA’s clandestine services operations, making it the smallest of the CIA’s geographic regions in terms of personnel,” 7 tells us very little about the actual distribution of CIA personnel in the field or their specific assignments, resources, and activities. A more fruitful way of approaching the question is to focus on (1) the extent to which the field of intelligence operations has been effectively pre- empted by the agencies of the former colonial power and the degree of co- operation that U.S. policymakers can expect of such agencies in matters involving East- West rivalries; (2) the salience of cold-war issues (or issues that are defined in these terms by U.S. policymakers) discernible in the politics of any given African state; and (3) the magnitude of U.S. economic and strategic interests at stake in specific areas. All three factors are inti- mately connected. The first of these variables takes on special significance in the former French territories, particularly where French economic, strategic, or cul- tural interests are being pursued most vigorously and systematically (for example, the Ivory Coast, Gabon, Senegal, and, until recently, Chad). The nearly ubiquitous presence in these states of SDECE and SAC (Service 12 Rene Lemarchand d’Action Civique) “men” — both forming in effect the armature of the Foccard “machine” in Africa, 1 together with the intricate network of in- formal cooperative relationships that have developed over the years be- tween French intelligence agents, technical assistants, embassy officials, and businessmen, has had a strong inhibiting effect on the propensity of the CIA to manipulate African actors. The situation is evidently more complex in those territories where the French presence is no longer much in evidence (Guinea, Congo), and this is equally true, mutatis mutandis, of states like Uganda, Tanzania, or Zanzibar, where British interests have been drastically reduced if not eliminated. Inasmuch as the residual involvement of Western interests in these states has implied corresponding limitations on the presence of U.S. corporate interests the result has been to seriously narrow the range of opportunities for CIA intervention. How far “preemption” by European intelligence networks has in fact operated to limit the spread of CIA covert activities in Africa can best be understood in the light of the impact of cold-war issues on the attitude of European and American policymakers and of the resulting patterns of re- lationships that have developed among their respective intelligence com- munities. The intrusion of cold-war rivalries in Africa has given rise to two very different types of relationships between the CIA and Western intelligence agencies. In some instances Western intelligence agencies seem to have estab- lished a cooperative relationship with CIA officials. I refer specifically to the situation that developed in Rwanda from 1962 to 1965. During these years the Rwanda elites were almost entirely dependent on Belgian securi- ty officials for information concerning the guerrilla activities mounted by Tutsi* exiles from Zaire, Uganda, Tanzania, and Burundi. The head of the Rwanda Surete was a Belgian national, a former Force Publique major, who had close relationships with CIA operatives in Rwanda, Burundi, and Zaire. He stayed on the job until 1968. Until then it was the Belgian- manned Surete that in fact constituted the eyes and ears of the CIA in Rwanda. The Belgian intelligence agents, were remarkably adept at col- •Many of these exiled Tutsi elements became attracted by communism, but ideological considerations played a minor role in this phenomenon. Many of them, after all, had been strong supporters of the Rwanda monarchy prior to the revolution of 1959-60. Their sympathies for the communist world, and particularly'for Mao’s China, arose out of the exigencies of the Rwanda revolution. In the face of the overwhelming support given to Hutu “revolutionaries” by the Belgian administration and the church, they felt that a pragmatic alliance with China was their only hope of political salvation. Thus many Tutsi exiles ended up in China in 1963 and 1964. There they received intensive training in guer- rilla warfare, and some eventually joined the rebellion in eastern Zaire before being pushed back into Burundi by the counteroffensives of Eu- ropean mercenaries and Zairian troops. The CIA in Africa 13 iecting information, recruiting informants, penetrating inyenzi 9 networks in exile, and occasionally indulging in the same kind of lethal gamesman- ship that has come to characterize some of the CIA operations elsewhere in Africa. A similar type of cooperative relationship appears to have developed be- tween CIA and Belgian intelligence agents in Burundi from 1962 to 1964. By 1964, however, the rebellion in eastern Zaire had reached alarming pro- portions, and when the “pro-Chinese” faction emerged in Burundi the United States initiated covert operations in Burundi and Zaire. Cuban ex- ile pilots were hired by the CIA to fly bombing missions against rebel posi- tions along the Fizi-Baraka axis; the agency set up its own “private” air- line, the so-called Western International Ground Maintenance Operations (WIGMO), which served as a convenient cover for a variety of CIA-relat- ed activities, including the training of mercenaries near Albertville; 10 CIA operatives were hastily dispatched to Bukavu, Goma, Bujumbura, and Ki- gali (in a reenactment of the measures taken after the rise of Lumumba to power, in the summer of 1960); and ultimate responsibility for the coordi- nation of these and other activities was vested in the hands of the CIA “boss” in Zaire, Lawrence Devlin. Throughout the rebellion very cozy re- lations existed between CIA officials and their Belgian counterparts; a par- ticularly friendly rapport was established with the former head of the Bel- gian Surete in Zaire, Colonel Vandewalle, who later assumed the dubious distinction of leading the Fifth Mechanized Brigade of mercenaries into Stanleyville in November 1964." In sharp contrast, a highly competitive if not openly antagonistic rela- tionship emerged between Portuguese and U.S. intelligence officials during the brief term of office of Rosa Coutinho as Governor of Angola in 1974. That Coutinho used his authority to facilitate the entry into Angola of sub- stantial though unknown quantities of Soviet military hardware for the MPLA is a well established fact. The nexus of interests between Coutinho and Neto, backed by strong ideological affinities, was seen by Kissinger as thoroughly incompatible with the spirit of detente , ultimately resulting in what one observer described as “one of the largest covert operations un- dertaken by the U.S. outside Indo-China.” l? CIA involvement in Angola stemmed from the radically divergent appraisals made by U.S. and Portu- guese officials of the cold-war implications of the struggle between pro-So- viet and pro-Western (and pro-Chinese) factions. In Gabon in 1964 and in Madagascar in 1971, the activities of the CIA were seen by French intelli- gence operatives as posing a direct threat to their proteges, to Leon M’ba in Gabon, and to Tsiranana in Madagascar, and hence as an indirect threat to themselves. By contrast, the involvement of French “barbouzes” in the internal poli- tics of Zaire in 1963-64 was viewed as little more than a mild irritant by Washington, as a fumbling attempt on the part of the Foccard networks to steal the thunder of the CIA in an area where the latter had already ac- 14 Rene Lemarchand quired a far stronger position than the French could possibly hope to gain for themselves, no matter how hard they tried . 13 The outcome of these maneuverings, in any event, was precisely the opposite of what had hap- pened in Gabon and Madagascar a few years earlier. In both states French efforts to denounce the existence of alleged CIA “tricks" resulted in a drastic curtailing of the agency’s activities; in Zaire, on the other hand, the CIA station emerged as all-powerful, with little effort on its part to add to the discredit SDECE and SAC agents had already cast upon themselves through their own ineptitude. On the whole, the scope and intensity of CIA involvement in Africa seem partly determined by the perceived threats to U.S. interests posed by African actors — who, rightly or wrongly, are identified as “enemies" — and partly by the extent of cooperation that can be expected of European intel- ligence agencies in coping with such threats. Whether African actors are seen as friends or enemies also depends on the relative compatibility of their policies with the magnitude of U.S. eco- nomic and strategic interests at stake in specific areas. Thus Zaire and Ni- geria are generally seen as areas where a basic reorientation of economic and diplomatic choices by African actors would meet strong resistance from U.S. policymakers and possibly lead to countermoves by the CIA. This is particularly true of Zaire, which is strategically situated in the heart of the continent, and in which American investments are substantial. Not unnaturally, a very cozy relationship has developed over the years between Mobutu and his CIA patrons: Aside from the fact that Zaire “is presumed to be a symbolic battleground between East and West, where the success or failure of one’s clients would have repercussions throughout Af- rica ," 14 the important fact is that the CIA did play a determining role in “winning the battle," largely because in picking Mobutu as its ally it also “came up with the right man at the right place .” 15 Mobutu owes a very large personal and political debt to his CIA mentors, and whatever efforts and resources were “spent" on Mobutu turned out to be a highly produc- tive investment from the standpoint of U.S. corporate interests. While the CIA continues to play a critically important role in making Zaire “safe for U.S. capitalism," the very magnitude of U.S. corporate in- terests in Zaire constitutes an additional motive — as well as an excellent “cover” — for the maintenance of an extensive CIA network on the scene. If the case of Zaire is any index, the relationship between CIA activities and U.S. corporate interests is circular: While CIA operations may play a decisive part in preparing the ground for the intrusion of U.S. corporate interests, these in turn provide further justification for CIA involvement — as well as the alibis and technological facilities deemed necessary for the conduct of intelligence operations. The quality of evidence of CIA involvement in Africa poses yet another problem. It is not because the evidence happens to be plausible that it is xhand The CIA in Africa IS 3 gain these I hap- rench in a d, the d to selves \frica by nd intel- ds on •. eco- id Ni- lomic itance CIA. the ntial. years re “is re the it Af- le in also very fforts oduc- aking te in- ellent icene. vities )lay a •orate ent — »r the ther it is necessarily conclusive. At times the element of fraud is easy to detect (as' when the assassination of Prime Minister Pierre Ngendadumwe in Burun- di in 1965 was blamed on the CIA by his political opponents); sometimes, however, the source from which the evidence is drawn gives us no hint of whether it is accurate — only an impression of plausibility. Thus, the infor- mation leaked to the French press in 1971 that the U.S. ambassador to Madagascar, Anthony Marshall, might have acted hand in hand with the CIA station chief in Tananarive, John F. “Jack” Hasey, to plot with Tsiranana’s rival, the Vice-President Andre Resampa, 16 might have been accurate, but it is equally reasonable to assume that the evidence was fabri- cated by French intelligence operatives. Again, the evidence may be “revelant” but incomplete. It may leave out some critically important qualifiers, along with the suplementary informa- tion that one would need to make sense of what is being revealed. One is left with bits and pieces of information that are hardly sufficient to get “the full picture.” Consider, for example, the statement made by Sidney Gottlieb in his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee in Oc- tober 1975. Gottlieb, who in 1961 happened to be the head of the CIA’s Technical Services Division, said that “the agency prepared and sent to Zaire a dose of lethal poison intended for use in an assassination attempt against former premier Patrice Lumumba in 196 1.” 17 This extraordinary disclosure certainly tells us a great deal about Washington’s attitude to- ward Lumumba and about what might have been the role of the CIA had not Lumumba been done away with through other means. But this may only be the tip of the iceberg. Gottlieb’s testimony tells us nothing of the alternate plans which might have been developed by the CIA, of the part which CIA agents might have played in those or other “contingency plans,” of the relationships existing at the time between U.S. and Belgian intelligence networks, of what part, if any, the CIA played in operating the transfer of Lumumba to the Katanga, of the allegation I heard in Kinshasa in 1960 that the CIA provided Mobutu with the money he needed to pay his troops in exchange for shipping Lumumba to his executioners. Nor in- deed does Gottlieb’s testimony give us as much as a hint of the sub-rosa activities he was conducting in Bukavu in late August 1960. (I met Mr. Gottlieb in Bukavu in August 1960. He introduced himself as a Canadian businessman, who knew Lumumba, and was eager to displace Belgian in- terests in the Kivu.) In brief, the mere fact that the CIA did contemplate getting rid of Lu- mumba through a dose of lethal poison still leaves open the question of the role actually played by the agency at this critical juncture of Zaire’s politi- cal life. In spite of these reservations the evidence is not always so fragmentary or unreliable as to preclude a rough reconstruction of sequences of events in which the role of the CIA appears to have been central, or at least sig- nificant from the standpoint of the internal politics of African states. For l f: 16 Rene Lemarchand example: (1) the CIA played a direct role in influencing Kasavubu’s deci- sion to depose Lumumba on September 5, 1960, and in ushering in Mo- butu as the “impartial arbiter” of the conflict between the President and Prime Minister; (2) CIA operations — ranging from the hiring and training of mercenaries to the procurement and maintenance of Skyraider bomber fighters and B-26s — were certainly instrumental in defeating Soumialot’s Popular Liberation Army during the 1964 Zairian rebellion; (3) CIA agents, mostly operating from Rwanda, not only kept in close touch with opposition leaders in Burundi during the “pro-Chinese” interlude of 1964 — 65 but also provided them with “technical advice” and probably financial support in an attempt to turn back the tide; (4) CIA agents were largely re- sponsible for planning Moise Tshombc's hijacking in June 1967, and there- fore indirectly responsible for the abortive anti-Mobutu mercenary-led coup that followed Tshombe’s surrender to the Algerian authorities; (5) CIA agents played a significant role in manipulating the outcome of the 1967 elections in Somalia: The rise to power of Prime Minister Mu- hammed Egal was said to have been “facilitated” by “thousands of dollars in covert support to Egal and other pro-Western elements in the ruling So- mali Youth League party prior to the 1967 presidential elections’ V* (6) similarly, the CIA was directly involved in “facilitating” the rise to power of Colonel Richard Ratsimandrava, in Madagascar, in February 1975 — shortly before members of the Mobile Police Group killed him and re- placed him with Didier Ratsiraka; 19 (7) to this must be added the well-pub- licized and wide-ranging activities of the agency in Angola: the shipment of massive quantities of arms and ammunition through Zaire, cash pay- ments to Holden Roberto and Jonas Savimbi, the hiring of mercenaries in Europe and the United States, and the supervision of logistical operations on the ground both in Zaire and Angola. Much of the evidence for these other examples of CIA involvement in the internal affairs of African states is part of the public record. So far, however, surprisingly little has been said of what it all means from the standpoint of political development. It is easy to see how intelligence activities might fit into the context of U.S. aid policies (assuming that slogans can be elevated to the level of poli- cies): their primary purpose is to make sure that Third World governments will not succumb to communist subversion, a goal which apparently can best be achieved through another kind of subversion. The logic of this proposition is of course highly questionable. Especially in point here is Donal Cruise O’Brien’s contention that a fun- damental shift has taken place over the last decade in the scale of priorities of U.S. policymakers, with the notion of “institutional order” taking prece- dence over “democracy.” 20 It is at this level that one can best grasp the na- ture of the contribution made by intelligence activities to the developmen- tal goals of U.S. policies in Africa: If development requires organizational strength, covert manipulation is presumably one of the ways in which the latter can be attained. The CIA in Africa 17 Another point concerns the economic side of the developmental equa- tion. Leaving aside for the time being the covert activities of the agency, and focusing instead on its policy prescriptions, it may be worth our while to consider the implications of the 1974 CIA study on the strategic aspects of food resources. In the terms of the report, these resources “could give the U.S. a measure of power it never had before, possibly an economic and political dominance greater than that of the immediate post-World War II period.” 21 That food has indeed become one “of the principal negotiating tools in our kit,” as Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz put it in 1974, is by now common knowledge, and the implications of this policy are by no means confined to the African continent. What is significant is that the CIA should engage in this kind of general policy recommendations instead of confining its role to intelligence analysis; equally noteworthy are the reper- cussions which the implementation of such a policy might have on those African states that are most cruelly affected by resource scarcities. The point I wish to emphasize is that the maintenance of “institutional order” through covert manipulation abroad would seem to tie in logically with the sort of leverage accruing from the use of food as a strategic weap- on, the former acting as the stick and the latter as the carrot. Although covert intervention is perfectly consonant with the official ten- dency noted earlier to conceptualize development in terms of short-run po- litical benefits, and with the primacy accorded to institutional order, this policy is obviously very difficult to reconcile with the requirements of long-run political and economic development. The dilemma is perhaps best expressed in Richard Bissell’s own words: 22 Covert intervention is usually designed to operate on the internal power balance, often with fairly short-term ob- jectives in view. An effort to build the economy of an un- derdeveloped country must be subtle, long continued, probably quite costly and must openly enlist the coopera- tion of major groups within the country It is not surprising that the practitioners within the U.S. govern- ment of these two types of intervention differ tempera- mentally and in their preferences for friends, methods and ideologies. The dilemma cannot be resolved by an act of faith — by a sense of confi- dence in the long-term benefits of a transplanted form of democracy — or by an act of contrition— by the recognition that since the “dirty tricks” of the CIA are incompatible with our value system they ought to be corrected and sanctioned. The setting up of guidelines and procedures to control CIA activities abroad is no substitute for the elaboration of a meaningful set of long-term developmental policies. In much of Africa CIA activities occurred by default as much as by design. This is not the place to engage in a critique of various development theo- 18 Rene Lemarchand ries, except to note the critical significance of legitimacy as a precondition to, or expression of, development. Legitimacy, in brief, is what allows po- litical actors to enhance their capacity to fulfill certain developmental goals; although this may sound like a truism, what is perhaps less obvious is that the most likely candidates to claim the mantle of legitimacy in Afri- ca are seldom those that are considered the “safest” from the standpoint of CIA standards. It is, after all, in the logic of a nationalist movement that its degree of popular legitimacy will tend to increase in proportion to its anti-imperial- ist, and by implication anti-Western, orientation — at least in the early stages. When power is deflected from its original source of authority its quotient of coercion increases; or else the distributive output of the politi- cal system must somehow compensate for its loss of legitimacy. It is quite true, of course, that the coercive and distributive capacities of African ac- tors have at times increased spectacularly as a result of their clientelistic ties with the CIA. Yet to the extent that this relationship becomes public knowledge, the legitimacy of the political system is inevitably called into question. Bribery and repression become routinized, and political actors tend to look upon their CIA connections as the best guarantees of their own political survival. A vicious circle develops in which every effort made by African clients to restore the credibility of their public image leads them to rely more and more heavily on their CIA patron. Although the case of Zaire is sometimes cited by U.S. officials as a prime example of successful covert intervention, it also shows just how counterproductive CIA connections may be in terms of legitimacy. Con- sider, for example, the sequence of events that took place in 1967: In an ef- fort to allay suspicions that he was overwhelmingly dependent on the CIA (a fact that had become patently clear during the 1964 rebellion if not ear- lier), Mobutu decided in 1967 to assume a more radical stance, and in or- der to give a substance of “authenticity” to this new look, plans were made to bring Tshombe back from Spain and then stage a public execution of the “neo-imperialist” stooge. For this primary reliance was placed on the CIA. The operation proved eminently successful, at least in its initial stage: On June 30, Tshombe's plane was hijacked over the Mediterranean and after a forced landing in Algiers the leader of the Katanga secession was surrendered to the Algerian government. At this point, however, it became apparent that Boumedienne was unwilling to deliver Tshombe uncondi- tionally to Mobutu, a fact the CIA had failed to anticipate. Nor did the CIA forsee that as a consequence of the hijacking, an attempt would be made a few weeks later by mercenary forces to bring off a coup against the Kinshasa regime, which in effect made Mobutu all the more dependent on his CIA patrons. Mobutu’s determined efforts to prove that he is not a stooge of the CIA are also the most plausible explanation for his allegation, in 1975, that a The CIA in Africa 19 plot had been hatched within the Forces Armees Zairoises involving the hand of the CIA. Not only did this patently fabulous claim enable him to publicly dissociate himself from the CIA at a time when congressional hearings threatened to bring into the open his occult relationship with the agency, but it also gave him a convenient pretext to get rid of a number of high-ranking officers within the army. What remains unclear is the extent to which Mobutu’s latest ploy is lia- ble to backfire, and whether the expiatory victims chosen by Mobutu will not find supporters within and outside the army to seek some sort of re- venge, possibly in the form of an army coup. Extolling the virtues of auth- enticity is barely enough to conceal the fragility of Mobutu's role. In addition to the threats the CIA poses to the legitimacy of its African clients, the question arises as to what impact CIA connections may have on processes of national integration. On the surface the evidence appears anything but conclusive. At no time, to my knowledge, did the CIA try to encourage the Katanga secession; indeed the support which the agency gave to Mobutu was entirely consistent with Washington’s policy of restor- ing and maintaining the territorial integrity of the Zairian state. The Ango- la situation, on the other hand, offers a classic example of the divisive ef- fect of covert activities on the process of national unification. As I have argued elsewhere , 21 the effect of our policies in Angola has been to render the task of national reconciliation impossible. By giving mas- sive unilateral support to the FNLA-UNITA faction — through CIA channels and thus even before the Soviet- MPLA military connection was firmly established — American policymakers (in effect Kissinger) have forfeit- ed whatever opportunities existed at the time of promot- ing a rapprochement. Once we made it clear to Holden Roberto and Jonas Savimbi that the U.S. government would support them to the hilt, financially and militarily, their expectations of success were raised to the point where any concession to their rival appeared unnecessary if not downright counterproductive. Except for Angola, where contacts with Holden Roberto were established by the CIA long before independence, I know of no example of such a de- liberate and systematic effort on the part of the CIA to create or exploit ethnic or political divisions within a nationalist movement prior to indepen- dence. The same cannot be said of the FIDE or SDECE . 24 Where the divi- sive implications of CIA activities emerge in their most sinister light is at the level of elite interactions in the period immediately following indepen- dence. In a number of instances the contacts established by African leaders with CIA operatives enabled them to raise their stock of resources as well as their expectations to the point where they felt sufficiently confident to 20 Rene Lemarchand create new parties, concoct plots and coups, or simply refuse to agree to a compromise which under different circumstances would seem the most ra- tional option available. This, at least, is what my reading of CIA involve- ment in states like Zaire, Burundi, Angola, and Madagascar tends to sug- gest. The “ divide et impera” facet of CIA involvement must be analyzed not only in terms of the political-exchange relationships worked out with po- litical opponents or factions within any given state, but also, and perhaps more importantly, at the level of the attitudes that are fostered by the CIA among its indigenous clients. What is involved here, in essence, is nothing less than an attempt to hamper the growth of individual loyalties to the newly emergent state. The following statement by Bissell is again instruc- tive in this respect: 25 The U.S. should make increasing use of non-nationals, who, with effort at indoctrination and training, should be encouraged to develop a second loyalty Such career agents should be encouraged . . . with a prospect of long- term employment to develop a second loyalty The central task is that of identifying potential indigenous al- lies— both individuals and organizations — making con- tact with them, and establishing the fact of a community of interests. What this statement reveals is a conscious and deliberate attempt on the part of the CIA bureaucracy to manipulate the attitudes of “potential in- digenous allies” in ways that are profoundly detrimental to the growth of national loyalties. It brings to light the importance of “indoctrination and training” in operating appropriate shifts of loyalty, and shows how pros- pects of “long-term employment” may be used by CIA officials to nurture a proper cast of mind among their potential allies. The implication is that only through continuous and intimate contacts with nonnationals can “ca- reer agents” be recruited into the agency and transformed into “loyal” auxiliaries in their home states. Such practices may constitute one of the most serious disabilities faced by Third World governments in their at- tempt to achieve a minimum level of national integration. Finally, something must be said of the institutional constraints imposed upon African client governments as a result of their CIA connections. Giv- en the range of activities included under the rubric of “covert action” — namely, (1) political advice and counsel; (2) subsidies to an individual; (3) financial support and technical assistance; (4) support of private organiza- tions, including labor unions, business firms, cooperatives, etc.; (5) covert propaganda; (6) private training of individuals and exchange of persons; (7) economic operations; and (8) paramilitary or political action designed to overthrow or to support a regime 26 — it is easy to see how such activities, whether individually or cumulatively might positively hamper the adapt- ability, autonomy, and coherence of African institutions. The CIA in Africa 21 Trade unions, student associations, and church organizations may be- come so heavily dependent on CIA subsidies and advice as to lose all re- sponsiveness to their respective constituencies. Their organizational goals may become almost exclusively geared toward the collection of secret in- formation, espionage, propaganda, and so forth, to the detriment of their normal brokerage functions. Coordinated responses to environmental chal- lenges become virtually impossible in these circumstances, if only because of the very nature of the reward system which operates to substitute exter- nal goals for internal ones, and individual gratifications for collective ones. Not only the adaptability but the autonomy of political institutions is likely to be endangered by the spread of covert operations. The point here is not merely that the autonomy of an institution diminishes in proportion to its degree of dependence on an external agency; even more pertinent is the extent to which CIA activities operate to strengthen the dependence of political institutions on particularistic groups and interests — ethnic, re- gional, family, or clan interests. In a number of cases the net result of CIA involvement in the internal politics of African states has been to greatly accentuate the dependence of their institutions on ethnic and regional particularisms, and sometimes on a very special category of occupational groups — i.e. mercenaries. The case of Zaire from 1964 to 1967, and Angola in 1975 and 1976, are obvious ex- amples. The intrusion of mercenary forces into the political process of these states has yet to be fully elucidated; 27 that it has' had a profoundly detrimental influence on the stability of their political and military institu- tions is nonetheless undeniable. The vulnerability of African institutions to CIA penetration threatens their cohesiveness for much the same reason that it lessens their auton- omy. Sub-rosa maneuverings, personal animosities, and conspiratorial atti- tudes are expected patterns of behavior among individuals engaged in co- vert activities. The injection of valued resources (usually in the form of cash) into the domestic environment of African states introduces a new structure of opportunities for opportunists at the same time that it sets the stage for underhanded maneuverings and mutual suspicions among them. The competitive impulses unleashed through various forms of covert “as- sistance” or “advice” carry profoundly disruptive implications; further adding to the fragility of political institutions is the sense of cynicism and self-centeredness which inevitably accompanies involvement in covert op- erations. Maintaining a proper esprit de corps and solidarity in these cir- cumstances is an impossible task. What happens to the cohesiveness of po- litical institutions in an environment saturated by CIA influences is perhaps best illustrated by the so-called Binza Group in Zaire — a loose as- semblage of politicians whose only bond of solidarity stemmed from their various connections with CIA agents and whose brief life-span in the early sixties testifies to its utter lack of cohesion, discipline, and efficiency. 28 The Binza Group is indeed a prime example of institutional anemia. The time has come to recognize the CIA for what it is — not just a 22 Rene Lemarchand “spook factory” but an institution which in varying degrees and through different instrumentalities has had and continues to have a largely negative effect on the process of development of Third World countries. And the same, of course, applies to its foreign counterparts, most notably its French counterpart. If so, it is no longer possible to accept at face value the disputable claim made by some analysts, either explicitly or implicitly, that the main impediments to Third World development are essentially in- ternal. Notes 1. Quoted in Current Foreign Policy (Department of State; Office of Media Services) Pub- lication 8701, May 1973, p. 4. 2. See in particular Victor Marchetti and John Marks, Tht CIA and the Cult of Intelli- gence (New York, 1974), and Robert L. Borosage and John Marks eds., The CIA File (New York, 1976). Other works of interest on the CIA. but of a lesser caliber, include Patrick McGarvey, CIA: The Myth and the Madness (Baltimore, 1972), Andrew Tully, CIA: The In- side Story (New York, 1962), and David Wise and Thomas Ross, The Espionage Establish- ment (He* York. 1967). 3. The phrase is borrowed from the much-quoted work by Professor A. Zolberg, Creating Political Order ( New York. 1965). 4. Patrice Chairoff, B ... Comme Barbouzes (Paris, 1976), esp. pp. 69-91; see also, "Les pions de la France a Cabinda," Le Nouvel Observateur, January 20, 1976, p. 27. 5. Sec Appendix 1, in Marchetti and Marks, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, p. 362. 6. Bruce Oudcs, "The CIA in Africa", Africa Report. July-August 1974, p. 49. 7. Ibid. 8. The origins of the Service d'Action Civiquc and its relationship to the SDECE are viv- idly described in ChairofT, pp. II ff; the determining role played by Jacques Foccart in the implantation of French intelligence networks throughout French West and Equatorial Africa— partly through fake corporations, partly through personal connections, and partly through the infiltration of development agencies such as the Bureau pour 1c Developement de la Production Agricolc (BDPA>— emerges with special clarity from Chairoffs narrative, pp. 83-94. 9. Inyenzi, meaning "cockroach" in Kinyarwanda, was the term commonly used in Rwanda to refer to the armed raids mounted by Tutsi refugees in exile against the govern- ment of Gregoire Kayibanda. For further information on the etymology of the term, see F. Rodcgem, "Sens et role des noms propres cn Hisloire du Burundi," Etudes d'Histoire Afri - caine. VII (1975), p. 79. For a discussion of the historical background to the Rwanda revolu- tion, see my Rwanda and Burundi (London and New York. 1970). 10. See the comments by Ted B. Braden, himself hired in Brussels through CIA agents to serve in Zaire in the mid-sixties, in Ramparts. October 1967; further references to WIGMO are found in Congo 1967 (Bruxelles, 1968), pp. 341, 350, 356, 362, 510. 11. Vandewalle’s role during the rebellion is made abundantly clear by his candid and highly instructive account of mercenary activities, L'Ommegang: Odyssee el Reconquete de Stanleyville. 1964 (Bruxelles, n.d.). 12. Gerald Bender, "Angola: A New Quagmire for U.S.?” Los Angeles Times. December 21, 1975. 13. A specific example of the activities conducted in Zaire by French intelligence oper- ative is the abortive plot reportedly carried out against Mobutu by a former OAS (Organiza- tion de 1'Armee Secrete) Delta commando (known under the nickname of "Petite Soupe"); for further details, sec Chairoff, op. ciL , p. 78-79. The CIA in Africa 23 14. Roger Morris and Richard MaUzy, "Following the Scenario: Reflections on Five Case Histories in the Mode and Aftermath of CIA Intervention,” in Borosage and Marks, The CIA File. p. 35. 15. Tully, CIA: The Inside Story. 16. Bruce Oudes, "The CIA in Africa." 17. Quoted in Saint Petersburg Times, Oct. 12, 1975. 18. Morris and Mauzy, "Following the Scenario . . p. 38. 19. See Tad Szulc, "Kissinger’s Secret Empire,” Penthouse. June 1975, p. 50. 20. Donal Cruise O’Brien, "Modernization, Order, and the Erosion of a Democratic Ideal.” Journal of Development Studies. VIII, 4 (July 1972), pp. 352-378. 21. Sec The Manchester Guardian. January 4, 1976 (weekly edition). 22. Marchetti and Marks, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, p. 365. 23. In a letter to the Editor of the Gainesville Sun. December 28, 1975. 24. See for example the extraordinary account of the so-called Operacao Safira mounted by the Portuguese secret service (PIDE) against the PAIGC in Guinea-Bissau in 1973, in Expresso (Lisbon), January 24, 1976. Organized by Barbieri Cardoso, Deputy Director of the PIDE (who apparently derived part of his inspiration from Edward Luttwak's Coup d'Etat, a kind of do-it-yourself instruction manual published in 1968), the aim of the operation was to take advantage of the tensions allegedly existing between Cape Verdian and Guinean ele- ments so as to encourage the capture of the party leadership by pro- Portuguese Guinean ele- ments. The April 1974 coup in Portugal was apparently the decisive factor preventing the op- eration from being carried out. Interestingly, SDECE was tangentially involved in the operation. See also the account of the so-called “Operacao Mar Verde" directed against Sc- kou Toure’s regime in 1970, with the active cooperation of the PIDE and General Spinola, in Expresso, January 3, 1976. See below, "PIDE and SDECE: Plotting in Guinea." 25. Marchetti and Marks, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, p. 367-8. 26. Marchetti and Marks, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, p. 364. 27. See, however, the instructive discussion by J. Gerard-Libois and B. Vcrhacgcn, "La Revoltc dcs Mercenaires” in Congo 1967. and Vandewalle, L'Ommegang. 28. For a more detailed discussion, sec M. Crawford Young, "Political Systems Develop- ment," in John N. Paden & Edward W. Soja. eds., The African Experience, Vol. I (Evanston, 1970) pp. 467-68. The French Role in Africa by Karl Van Meter French Imperialism in Africa Soon after the end in 1976 of the CIA’s intervention in the armed conflict provoked in Angola, President Agostinho Neto of Angola declared that “the French territory, and more precisely its capital, has become the prin- cipal center of subversive movements which plot against different African countries In a word, France is the sanctuary for all the reactionary organizations who issue their subversive propaganda against the progres- sive regimes of Africa.” 1 Unfortunately, this has been true since the begin- ning of French decolonization in Africa following World War II. But neither the war nor the inevitable decolonization process changed France’s capitalist economic structure. Measured by any general economic indicator, France is far behind the United States, the Soviet Union, and West Germany, and cannot compete openly with them in the international arena. To make up for this weakness, France has been willing to wage a desperate and dirty fight to keep its hold on former colonies, though often unsuccessfully, as was witnessed in Indochina and later in Algeria. After these two monumental defeats in the 1950s and early 1960s, France adopt- ed a neocolonial strategy of granting statutory independence while clutch- ing on to that which was absolutely essential to it: the economic benefits obtained from its former colonies. Even without considering the money spent to purchase oil, France has an important trade deficit that would be impossible to cover if it were not making a tremendous profit in its former colonies. However, in order to continue to enjoy the economic boon of neocolonialism, France has had to rely heavily both on its secret service’s dirty -tricks and on open military intervention in order to “protect” its neo- [This article was written in June 1979 for this book] The French Role in Africa 25 colonies from indigenous progressive leaders or movements and from for- eign competition for economic dominance. Since the beginning of the cold war, capitalist countries have tended to compromise instead of going to war over client nations in the Third World. So the French SDECE (Service de Documentation Exterieure et de Contre-Espionage) and armed forces have spent their time fighting libera- tion movements in Africa while entering only occasionally into conflict with their American counterparts, the CIA and the Pentagon. Sometimes client nations become so repressive and discredited internationally that no other country tries openly to obtain an economic advantage which would challenge the role of the dominant nation. A clear example of this type of situation is the regime of Bokassa I in the Central African Empire. Who would dare invest there to compete with France for economic domination? Economic dominance in client nations can be typified by considering the percentage of the modem sector of the economy controlled by the domi- nant nation. For France, in the case of the Ivory Coast, it is 50 percent; in Cameroun, 55 percent; in Senegal, 57 percent; and in Gabon, 65 percent. Moreover, these client nations supply at low prices the raw materi- als that are absolutely necessary for the survival of the French economy: aluminum from Cameroun, phosphates from Senegal, oil from Gabon, and uranium from Niger. One of these client nations, Upper Volta, is in fact the poorest of all Africa, with ninety dollars per capita average annual in- come in 1975. The loss of this economic dominance would certainly bring about great changes in France itself, and that is why the regimes of these client nations are so firmly supported in spite of their corrupt and often re- pressive nature. Economic dominance can also be used as a covert means of support for other regimes. In early 1976, the Gabonese company Affretair was discov- ered to be busting U.N. sanctions by flying produce in and out of Rhode- sia. The company was dissolved and integrated into Air Gabon and rela- tions with Rhodesia were said to have been stopped. Then it was discovered that two small companies had been created, Air Gabon Cargo and Cargoman Ltd. With much the same personnel and equipment they were continuing the illegal commerce with Rhodesia. 2 In this way, Gabon was serving as France’s surrogate in supporting Ian Smith’s regime. In a similar fashion, France’s client states were the first African nations to accept the strategy of “dialogue” with the racist regime of South Africa. On April 19, 1971, President Senghor of Senegal announced that he ac- cepted the “dialogue.” On April 28, 1971, President Houphouet-Boigny of the Ivory Coast made a similar declaration, and later secretly received South African Prime Minister Vorster, another first for an African nation. On June 6, 1971, the Central African Republic formally recognized South Africa and, as part of the “dialogue,” received financial aid. And, on July 6, 1971, Gabon announced its intention to accept the “dialogue” with South Africa. This was only one aspect of France’s overall support of the apartheid regime. 26 Karl Van Meter In the wake of South Africa’s disastrous invasion of Angola in 1975, France’s client nations in Africa were obliged to abandon the strategy of “dialogue.” Since then the French government under President Giscard d’Estaing has attempted to invent new means of assuring its economic dominance over its clients. While in the Ivory Coast during a trip in Janu- ary 1978, Giscard d’Estaing announced the creation of a “Euro- African Solidarity Pact” which would fortify France’s economic relations in Africa and guarantee military support to endangered clients. German officials viewed the scheme as a means of spreading France’s financial burden while France would continue to reap the economic benefits. 1 President Giscard has now replaced this pact, which obtained little backing, with an even more grandiose scheme called the Euro-Afro-Arab Pact, which he announced during his trip through Africa in June 1979. The manifest lack of enthusiasm on all sides means that this proposition is also bound to fail. At the same time, rivalry among the capitalist countries has been increasing in Africa. At the European Common Market summit conference in London in 1977, Belgian Foreign Minister Van Elslande stated: “Paris is particularly interested in Zaire’s mineral wealth, and the Belgians consider this a form of international rivalry.” But such rivalries probably will not keep them from supporting the racist regime of South Africa, which they consider to be of strategic importance. % Military Intervention If economic dominance is the raison d'etre of French imperialism in Af- rica, the only means of sustaining such a situation is by the intervention of secret services and the armed forces with their bag of dirty tricks, ranging from bribery and assassination to the creation of false liberation move- ments and full-scale armed warfare. In fact, France is the only former co- lonial power that still has troops in Africa on a permanent basis. There, with limited military potential, it can often successfully play an interven- tionist role without excessive risks. Moreover, most western allies encour- aged France in this direction. Though formally controlled by the Minister of Defense, military inter- ventions in Africa are directed by the “action service” or “Seventh Bu- reau” of the SDECE, the French equivalent of the CIA. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, one of the units directed by the action service was the 1 1th Half-Brigade of Shock Paratroopers, called the 11th Choc. It had bases at Calvi in Corsica and at Perpignan in southern France. The 11th Choc was dissolved in January 1962, and Colonel Roussillat, who was ap- parently responsible for the “action service,” was replaced in the SDECE by Colonel de Froment. 4 Other units of the “action service” active today include the 1st Paratrooper Regiment of the Naval Infantry (1st RPIMA), based in Bayonne, France, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Mi- chel Franceschi and Commander Leblanc; 3 the 2nd Regiment of Foreign The French Role in Africa 27 Legion Paratroopers (2nd REP) based in Calvi in Corsica under the com- mand of Colonel Philippe Erulin, who is known to have tortured French nationals during the Algerian war; 6 and the 13th Regiment of Dragoon Paratroopers, who use the base of Benguerir near Marrakesh, Morrocco. 7 These are the dirty-work units of the SDECE used for armed interventions in Africa, and there have been many. Intervention in Chad In I960, France granted Chad its independence and installed President Tombalbaye, but the northern half of the country remained under French military administration until 1965. Due to Tombalbaye’s corruption and his favoring of tribal kin, an armed revolt broke out on November 10, 1965, in Mangalme against the regime’s tax collectors. The FROLINAT (Front for the Liberation of Chad) was then created in 1966 at Nyala, a town in the Sudanese province of Darfour, but underwent many splits, some of which the French secret services probably encouraged. In August 1968, French paratroopers intervened to defend Tombalbaye’s regime against the FROLINAT. They remained until June 1971, but other mem- bers of the French armed forces stayed in Chad until October 1975, when they were asked to leave. There was an attempted coup in August 1971 that failed. In August 1973 the leader of the Chad opposition, Dr. Outel Bono, was assassinated in Paris, under obscure circumstances. 1 In April 1974 the French anthro- pologist Frangoise Claustre was captured and held for a ransom for almost three years. The French secret services seem to be deeply implicated in this affair, since the large ransom was not only paid, but Mrs. Claustre’s cap- tor, liissene Habre, was later to become Prime Minister. Then, on April 13, 1975, the Chad army overthrew the regime and Tombalbaye was killed. He had long since become useless to the French government. Gen- eral Felix Malloum then came to power. In April 1977 there was another attempted coup d'etat, and in July 1977 French fighter aircraft had to intervene against the FROLINAT guerril- las. In May 1978, French troops intervened again to keep the FROLINAT from taking the capital, N’Djamena. On July 27, 1978, a DC-3 bought in France by Michel Winter and flown by Roland Raucoules disappeared and is suspected of having landed in Chad. Winter was a former French colo- nial paratrooper who saw action in Indochina and Algeria, where he joined the right-wing terrorist OAS. After that, he worked for the SDECE and fought as a mercenary in Biafra. The pilot, Raucoules, was also a for- mer OAS member, mercenary in Biafra, and a member of Agin ter Presse.* He had served as a personal bodyguard for President Bongo of Gabon and was a member of the first mercenary invasion of the Comoro Islands orga- •See below, "The Assassination of Eduardo Mondlane." 28 Karl Van Meter nized by Bob Denard for the French secret services. Neither the DC-3 nor the two men have been heard from since. In August 1978, Hissene Habre, the captor of Claustre, became Prime Minister, while Felix Malloum remained head of state. In February 1979, Malloum and Habre fought against each other and, as always, against the FROLINAT. Such are the politics of an unstable French client nation. Intervention in Western Africa In 1958, Ahmadou Ahidjo, who had been installed by the French, was directing the Trust Territory of Cameroun. The opposition to French neo- colonial rule was organized around the Union of the Peoples of the Camer- oun (UPC), which had been founded and led by Ernest Ouandie and Felix Moumie. After the bloody repression of 1958, Ouandie led a revolt and guerrilla warfare against the pro-French Ahidjo regime. He was captured and executed many years later on January 15, 1971. His forces were fight- ing against French troops long after Cameroun’s supposed independence in 1960. Felix Moumie was forced into exile in 1958 and actively sought support for the UPC and the guerrilla war throughout Europe. In Geneva in late 1960, a friend, a call-girl named Liliano Ferrero, introduced him to a French secret-service agent, William Bechtel. A few days later, Moumie died from a strong dose of poison. Fourteen years later, the Swiss authori- ties finally opened proceedings against Bechtel for the murder of Moumie. 9 On April 5, 1975, Ahmadou Ahidjo won reelection for his third five-year term as President of Cameroun by a “vote” of 