Hot Spots

HOT SPOTS

by Derek Van Pelt

Angola, the south-west African battleground which has become the scene tor a scramble for its natural resources since getting its independence from Portugal months ago, may well be the U.S.' next Vietnam, according to Rep. John Conyers of Detroit, who held a press conference on behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus on Monday, December 22, in order to  attempt to insert some comprehensible information into the deluge of media hysterics the daily press is treating us to these days.

Conyers, pointing out that the embattled M.P.L.A. was widely considered the legitimate government of Angola when the mother country withdrew in November, called tor the withdrawal of involvement by all outside parties including the United States, the U.S.S.R., South Africa, Zaire, and Cuba -  until the 42-member Organization of African Unity can meet on January 10 to try to resolve the mess. In doing so, Conyers indicated that the U.S.S.R. and Cuba are supporting the popular majority government and are somewhat less culpable than the U.S. and South Africa - who I are teaming up to try lo retain hegemony in the southern part of the continent.

According to Conyers, the CIA. which is more active in Africa than any other continent at this point, has already covertly spent some $25 million in support of rival "liberation movements," and another $25 million is already too far along in the "pipeline" to stop now, although the Senate's aid cutoff resolution will be going to the House for a vote this week. The prize at stake includes Angola's diamond mines, coffee plantations. and other ample resources coveted by multinationals based in the U.S. and South Africa.

Warning that Angola could become even a worse debacle than Indochina, due to the volatile conditions throughout much of Africa. Conyers also called for the removal of Secretary of State Kissinger, the denial of confirmation to Daniel P. Moynihan as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., and the ouster of the Ford administration in the fall elections. Further, he demanded the expulsion of South Africa from the U.N. and the cessation of all American economic and political relations with the imperialistic apartheid regime.

Conyers, who will be meeting in New York later this week with representatives from the M.P.L.A. and Guinea-Bissau in an effort to explore solutions to the conflict, emphasized that the Angolan conflict is not only of paramount concern to black Americans, but should be the central focus at this point for everyone who opposed the U.S.' ill-fated adventure in Vietnam.

According to New York Times reports, the CIA has been helping out the F.N.L.A., led by Holden Roberto, brother-in-law of Zaire President Mobutu, since 1962. Aid to the F.N.L.A. has been conveniently funneled through exponentially-increasing financial support for Mobutu's army. U.S. assistance to the other "liberation movement," UNITA, has been somewhat more recent. Both organizations are making use of white mercenaries from Portugal, the U.S., and elsewhere.

Back in the U.S.A., one of the more interesting documents to be pried loose by the Senate Intelligence Committee in recent weeks is an FBI directive which ties the 1969 murder of four Southern California Black Panther leaders by Ron Karenga's "US (United Slaves) Organization" to the Bureau's infamous COINTEL-PRO program. The murders of Panthers John Huggins, Bunchy Carter, Sylvester Bell, and John Savage -the last two never prosecuted-by US members, plus a series of violent and harassing actions against Panthers by Karenga's henchmen, followed a letter from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's office to thirteen local Bureau offices, urging as follows:

"In order to fully capitalize upon BPP and US differences as well as to exploit all avenues of creating further dissension in the ranks of the BPP, recipient offices are instructed to submit imaginative and hardhitting counterintelligence measures aimed at crippling the BPP."

These "imaginative and hardhitting measures" included the mailing of cartoons to Panther offices in Los Angeles which clearly suggested that Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, David Hilliard. and other Panther leaders were scheduled to receive the same treatment as Huggins and Carter.

Turning to private-sector conspiracy, the coming months may yield very enlightening information indeed on the question of a national effort by major energy corporations to do the same thing with natural gas they apparently did with oil two years ago -- that is, to create an artificial "shortage" by withholding reserves until the federal government lifts price controls, resulting in windfall profits.

Last June, the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations finally got its hands on the books of seven major natural gas producers, and has been plowing through the data ever since in an attempt to determine if the companies have been lying a bout the extent of their reserves. Ever since 1968, when the gas industry lost a court challenge to federal price ceilings, the companies have been claiming declining reserves, although recent government investigations have suggested that reserves off the shore of Louisiana amount to anywhere from 24 to 40 per cent more than the industry says.

I lie gas companies say that only through deregulation will they have the money to drill for new gas. But Federal investigations have found that the gas majors keep three sets of books on reserves -- one for the IRS, one for getting bank loans,and one for the Federal Power Commission, which sets price ceilings. We 'II let you guess which set has the lowest figures.