Annotations for Countries: Angola

Focusing next on one country where Secretary of State Rogers was welcome, namely Brazil, Opinião from Rio de Janeiro, and Marcha, the Uruguayan paper comment on the international implications of President Medici's recent visit to Portugal. 

Opinião reports that on his recent trip to Portugal, Brazil's President Medici was asked by Portuguese authorities for support of Portugal's colonial policy in Africa. Portugal, which is increasingly isolated within the United Nations because of this policy, is seeking diplomatic support and perhaps military aid, for its policy of maintaining colonies in Africa, despite world opinion and strong movements for national liberation in these colonies. 

The Portuguese press, pointed up a dilemma in Brazilian foreign policy. For over a decade, Brazil has been interested in extending its economic and diplomatic influence in Africa. Brazil's official position is that it will try to penetrate Africa on all fronts. However, as Marcha points out, there are only two doors to Africa, through the Portuguese colonies or by way of the independent nations of Black Africa. 

If the Brazilians support the Portuguese, they will have access to the markets of Angola and Mozambique and will win favor with the white supremacist government of South Africa. Yet if Brazil chooses to support Portugal, it will be siding with the colonial powers and will anger and alienate black independent African nations. As Senegal's representative to the United Nations expressed it, "Brazil must choose between justice and injustice, between supporting an Africa free of colonialism and supporting Portugal." 

Marcha concludes that the Brazilians will most probably support Portugal, because it wants to become a great power and sees more immediate advantage for itself in close ties with South Africa. Opinião is not so sure of this and sees Brazil's position as still neutral. However, Opinião concludes that Brazil will have to make a decision soon. This from Opinião of Rio de Janeiro and Marcha of Montevideo. 

African liberation struggles and the oil crisis will soon be felt in Latin America. And from Latin America, a British weekly journal, comes a report by an African diplomat who said that in deciding to mount a common front against Zionist expansions and colonial racism in Africa, the organization of Arab Unity has planted the basis for a nationalist movement for the colonial peoples, which will transcend the frontiers of Africa and the Middle East. 

The same diplomat said that the Arab states, which were not members of the OAU, had requested that Nigeria deal on its own account with the question of oil supplies to Brazil, since Brazil was outside the limits of the African continent. In the view of some African diplomats, Nigeria's position as a leader of the OAU and at the same time, the world's eighth-largest exporter of oil must inevitably lead it into conflict with the Brazilian government. 

Brazil is one of the largest importers of Nigerian oil and one of the biggest investors in the development of the Portuguese colonial territories in Angola and Mozambique. Last year, not only did Brazil negotiate still closer economic ties with Portugal, but the Bank of Brazil also opened branches in Portugal's African possessions. Some observers believe that Nigeria is now on the verge of giving an ultimatum to Brazil. Either Brazil openly proclaimed support for the national liberation movements in Africa, including the recognition of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau proclaimed on 24th of December. 

Or Brazil will be included in the oil embargo against Portugal and the other colonialist countries. The Brazilian foreign ministry has already indicated its concern at the decisions taken at the OAU meeting and their implications for Brazil. Last week, government sources in Brasilia warned of increases in the price of petroleum derivatives and Petrobras included increased the price of petrol by 10%. 

The result of an oil embargo for Brazil in the view of most observers could be to bring current development plans to a complete stop. Although a large part of Brazil's energy demands are met by hydroelectric power, it has no other effective energy sources. Its coal reserves are comparatively small and of poor quality. While the development of a nuclear energy is still in its infancy. With the switch away from prospecting for local oil reserves to dependence on foreign supplies, Brazil appears to have placed itself in a highly vulnerable position. 

The whole of the current development program is to a greater or lesser extent dependent upon petroleum, and the loss of Nigerian oil could not be easily made up from other sources. If Nigeria does give Brazil an ultimatum, the Brazilians might find themselves having to consider reversing their well-established policy of support for Portugal. In view of the blood ties that exist between the two countries, the implications of such a decision could be profound and cause even more dissatisfaction within Brazil. 

According to the British News weekly, Latin America, Brazil's growing interest in black Africa was clearly revealed by the visits earlier this year to that continent by the Brazilian foreign minister. In the view of most observers, this sudden interest had been forced upon Brazil by the urgent need for more markets for Brazil's manufactured products and a reasonably reliable and cheap source of raw materials for its industries. 

On the face of it, the more advanced countries of black Africa, such as Nigeria, offered ideal prospects, but these are marred by Brazil's extremely close ties with Portugal and its African territories of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea, and by a rapidly growing commercial relationship between Brazil and South Africa. 

In all its negotiations with Africa, Brazil has maintained an equally distant position between the interests of black Africa and of the colonial powers of Portugal and South Africa. The reason is not far to seek. Brazil's relationship with Portugal is long and very close, and the large Portuguese element in the Brazilian population is an ever present pressure group. More important, Portugal provides a gateway to Europe for Brazilian products by the back door and through its African colonies, a gateway to Africa. 

Although Brazil's relations with South Africa are a very recent origin, they have been strengthened fast. Trade between the two countries has passed the $90 million mark, which is more than Brazil's trade with all of the countries of black Africa combined. Direct air services between the two countries have recently been initiated and a firm invitation for South Africa to invest in Brazil was extended by Brazil's foreign minister at this year's session of the United Nations General Assembly. That report on British interests and black Africa from the British News Weekly, Latin America.