Eight Years after the Terror

Every morning at 8:15 A.M., the internal Angolan Air Service has a DC-3 ready to fly north to Carmona. In a far corner of the Luanda airport apron lies its mate—a dusty unused model which belonged to Moise Tshombe; it arrived one day in 1964 with a load of gold from Congo Kinshasa, was parked, and had not moved at Tshombe’s death. This is Monday morning and the plane is full. The director of the Commercial Bank of Angola is going to open yet another branch in this once unhappy region; young soldiers and officers are returning from local leave with their arm-shields blazoned “Tudo por urn, um por tudo,” automatic rifles casually slung on shoulders, and bandoliers bulging with cartridge cases—all carefully labeled as passenger’s luggage to be carried inside the plane itself—since no soldier may be separated from the tools of his trade. Women and children, in bright party frocks, returning home after seeing a medical specialist, fill all the narrow seats of the plane.

A brief glimpse of the Atlantic Ocean gently swelling against a steep shoreline, dotted with a number of small fish factories, and flight number 402 passes through two thousand feet of cacimbo cloud into hazy sunshine. Refreshments are not served on this or on any internal Angolan route, so now there follows the dead period—an hour of glare, and contemplation of the endless sad grey cotton-wool.

DN

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David L. Niddrie

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Every morning at 8:15 A.M., the internal Angolan Air Service has a DC-3 ready to fly north to Carmona. In a far corner of the Luanda airport apron lies its mate—a dusty unused model which belonged to Moise Tshombe; it arrived one day in 1964 with a load of gold from Congo Kinshasa, was parked, and had not moved at Tshombe’s death. This is Monday morning and the plane is full. The director of the Commercial Bank of Angola is going to open yet another branch in this once unhappy region; young soldiers and officers are returning from local leave with their arm-shields blazoned “Tudo por urn, um por tudo,” automatic rifles casually slung on shoulders, and bandoliers bulging with cartridge cases—all carefully labeled as passenger’s luggage to be carried inside the plane itself—since no soldier may be separated from the tools of his trade. Women and children, in bright party frocks, returning home after seeing a medical specialist, fill all the narrow seats of the plane.

A brief glimpse of the Atlantic Ocean gently swelling against a steep shoreline, dotted with a number of small fish factories, and flight number 402 passes through two thousand feet of cacimbo cloud into hazy sunshine. Refreshments are not served on this or on any internal Angolan route, so now there follows the dead period—an hour of glare, and contemplation of the endless sad grey cotton-wool.