ANGOLAN REVOLUTION
PARIS, Feb, 17.«=.The United Secretariat. of the Fourth International today issued a statement indicating its position on recent developments in the movement seeking Angolan independence, In particular, the Fourth International called attention to the increased weight of the Angolan National Liberation Front in relation to other movements engaged in the freedom struggle. ,
_ "The most effective way-in which revolutionary Marxists can help the Angolan freedom fighters find their way to the program of socialism," said the United Secretariat, “is to participate actively in the struggles led by the FLNA, to help them obtain material support in fighting against Portuguese imperialism, and to back them in resisting every neocolonialist maneuver, above all those emanating from American imperialism,"
The full text of the resolution is as follows:
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Since the summer of 1963, radical changes have occurred in the national revolutionary movement of the Angolan people against Portuguese imperialism.
On the one hand the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola [MPLA] has become badly split and weakened, the majority of its members, under the initiative of Viriato Da Cruz, leader of the radical left wing, having broken with Dr. Agostinho Neto who united with dissident neocolonialist and feudal organizations,
On the other hand the Angolan National Liberation. Front [FLNA]
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has been officially recognized by the Organization of African Unity [ova] as the only really combat organization and it has been reinforced by the entrance of numerous former members of the MPLA, The Revolutionary Government of Angola in Exile [GRAE] set up by the FLNA has been given "de jure" recognition by nine independent states of Africa, including Algeria.
At present the MPLA forces remaining in emigration are virtually cut off from the Angolan underground; whereas the guerrilla forces | under the leadership of the FLNA are undertaking, after a lull, increasingly broad military action against Portuguese colonialism, not. only in the Bakongo region, but also in other districts of Angola, strengthening the position of the Revolutionary Government among the > Angolan Tshokwés, Luenas, Umbundus, Bailundos and Kimbundus, thereby overcoming in practice the drawback of.Bakongo preponderance within the Union of the People of Angola [UPA], out of which the present movement evolved, This national expansion -has been accompanied by a vigor-= ous campaign of the FNLA against tribalism., co
The promise of help from the African states has not materialized on the necessary scale due to pressure from neocolonialist and openly imperialist forces, Thus the FLNA leadership is being forced to turn more and more towards revolutionary sources for aid, including the workers states, above all China, That this leadership has given indi-~ cations of being willing to turn in this direction is an encouraging sign. . . ‘
On the programmatic level, the FLNA is, of course, far from the perspective of revolutionary socialism and its leadership is not immune to neocolonialism and the pressure of imperialism, However, once a dynamic mass movement is launched, it cannot remain static, In the very process of the struggle, the great programmatic questions will inevitably come to the fore, These include the necessity for |. constructing a revolutionary=socialist party, the need for a revolutionary land reform, nationalization of the major means of production, a-clear break with world imperialism and the establishment of fraternal relations with the workers states,
The most effective way in which revolutionary Marxists can help the Angolan freedom fighters find their way to the program of social-~ ism is to participate actively in the struggles led by the FLNA, to help them obtain material support in fighting against Portuguese imperialism, and to back them in resisting every neocolonialist maneuver, above all those emanating from American imperialism,
PROGR3SS REPORT
Almost nineteen years after the end of World War II, the monthly testing of air~raid sirens in France came to an end in the departments of Seine, Seine-et-Oise, Seine-~et-Marne and Oise, From now on the tests will be held only every two months.
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