Three-Way Fight for a Rich Prize

This time it's not a racial war. The whites are out of it. The blacks are at it again, gnawing at each other's throats. You go to bed at night if you've a bed, you wake up in the morning if there is a morning, and you've slept and what is gone is gone. That's all.

--Angolan Journalist Job de Carvalho

Such is the depth of despair today in Angola, where three black liberation movements are fighting over who will hold power after the vast West African territory becomes independent of Portugal on Nov. 11. In three weeks of violence, mainly in the capital city of Luanda, at least 500 people, mostly blacks, have been killed and thousands of others wounded. The casualties resulted from a murderous vendetta among the liberation groups that fought a 13-year guerrilla war against the Portuguese.

The biggest and best-financed of the groups is the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (F.N.L.A.), headed by the mercurial, missionary-educated Holden Roberto. It has its headquarters in Kinshasa and is backed by Roberto's brother-in-law, Zaire President Mobutu Sese Seko. With numerous foreign mercenaries in its employ, the F.N.L.A. is said by its rivals to be supported by capitalist business interests. Its chief rival is the Moscow-oriented Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (M.P.L.A.), backed principally by students and intellectuals in Luanda and strongly supported by the Portuguese Communist Party. The third group is the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (U.N.I.T.A.), headed by Jonas Savimbi, a onetime disciple of Che Guevara turned moderate, who controls much of rural Angola and is said to have the backing of Portuguese businesses with interests in the country.

In a treaty signed in January, the three were brought together under Portuguese aegis to form a transitional government for Angola's 6 million people (5.4 million blacks, 500,000 whites, 100,000 mestizos). The government's task was to administer the territory and prepare for elections for a constituent assembly in October and independence the following month. But last week, as Portugal's Foreign Minister Ernesto Melo Antunes flew to Luanda to try to sort out the bitter squabble, the prospect for elections seemed remote at best, and there were fears that the factionalism could degenerate into civil war.

Hardly a night passes without some clash in Luanda's muceques (slums) between the F.N.L.A. and the M.P.L.A. Last week the trouble spread to Nova Lisboa, Angola's second biggest city, where local sources reported that 30 civilians had been killed in clashes. "Mortar, machine guns, automatic pistols, rifles, hand grenades. Suddenly all the muceques are aflame," says De Carvalho. "Nobody can get in, nobody dares go out. It's war, but they're not fighting it out in the bush like they used to." So far the U.N.I.T.A. has managed to keep out of most of the fighting, but it has drawn closer to the pro-Western F.N.L.A.

Enormous Wealth. The fighting has sent thousands of whites scrambling to get out. Those who have fled, mostly women and children, tell tales of murder, pillage and rape by rampaging Angolan soldiers. One woman told TIME'S Martha de la Cal how she, her husband and two children had been held in their house for three days without light, water or food. "Then the men with guns ran in and demanded our money. I escaped with the children, but they took my husband away, and he is still there."

What complicates the situation is Angola's enormous wealth. In addition to potential oil reserves rivaling those of Kuwait, there are huge American, Belgian, West German and South African investments at stake. The M.P.L.A. and some Portuguese officials charge that Zaire's President Mobutu is not only behind the F.N.L.A. but has fomented a separatist movement in the oil-rich enclave of Cabinda in hopes of annexing it to his own country.

The conflict has grown increasingly worrisome to Lisbon, which has all it can do to handle political factionalism on its own turf. As Antonio de Almeida Santos, Minister for Interterritorial Cooperation, put it: "Portugal would not stand for another war. It would be irresponsible to throw our people, our revolution and our future away for another Angola in flames." With that in mind, Lisbon handed down a stern list of decrees that put the Portuguese armed forces in charge. Civilians and off-duty soldiers of the rival factions will be disarmed in order to stop the bloodletting.

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