Angola, South Africa and the CIA
Jonas Malheiro Savimbi (August 3, 1934 - February 22, 2002) led UNITA, an anti-Communist rebel group that fought against the MPLA in the Angolan Civil War until his death in a clash with Government troops in 2002. http://congressandlaw.blogspot.com/search/label/African%20affairs
With support from the governments of the United States, the People's Republic of China, South Africa, Israel, several African leaders (Félix Houphouët-Boigny of Côte d'Ivoire, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, King Hassan II of Morocco and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia), and foreign mercenaries from Portugal, Israel, South Africa, and France, Savimbi spent much of his life battling Angola's Marxist-inspired government, which was supported by weapons and military advisers from the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Nicaragua (under the Sandinistas). The war ultimately became one of the most prominent Third World conflicts of the Cold War.
Chester Arthur Crocker (born October 29, 1941) is an American diplomat who served as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 1981 to 1987 in the Reagan administration. Crocker, architect of the U.S. policy of "constructive engagement" towards apartheid South Africa, is credited with setting the terms of Namibian independence.
The Namibian War of Independence, which lasted from 1966 to 1988, was a guerrilla war, which the nationalist South-West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) and others, fought against the apartheid government in South Africa. South Africa had administered what was then still known as South West Africa since it captured the German territory during World War I. The war ended with the independence of Namibia on 21 March 1990 and elections which saw SWAPO win 55 of 72 seats in the National Assembly of Namibia, enabling them to form a national government.
Gulf Oil was a major global oil company from the 1900s to the 1980s. The eighth-largest American manufacturing company in 1941 and the ninth-largest in 1979, Gulf Oil was one of the so-called Seven Sisters oil companies. Prior to its merger with Chevron, Gulf was one of the chief instruments of the legendary Mellon family fortune; both Gulf and Mellon Bank had their headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Gulf's former headquarters, originally referred to as "the Gulf Building" (now the Gulf Tower office condos), is an art-deco skyscraper. The tallest building in Pittsburgh until 1970, when it was eclipsed by the U.S. Steel building, it is capped by a "step pyramid" structure several stories high. Until the late 1970s, the entire top was illuminated, changing color with changes in barometric pressure to provide a weather indicator that could be seen for many miles.
Gulf Oil Corporation (GOC) ceased to exist as an independent company in 1984, when it merged with Standard Oil of California (otherwise known as SOCAL or Chevron). However, the Gulf brand name and a number of the constituent business divisions of GOC survived. Gulf has experienced a significant revival since 1990, emerging as a flexible network of allied business interests based on partnerships, franchises and agencies. The network trades worldwide using the slogan "Your Local Global Brand."
Gulf, in its present incarnation, is a "New Economy" business. It employs very few people directly and its assets are mainly in the form of intellectual property: brands, product specifications and scientific expertise. The corporate vehicle at the center of the Gulf network outside North America is Gulf Oil International Ltd (GOI), a company registered in the Cayman Islands since 1985. The ultimate holding company of GOI is Amas Holding SA (Luxembourg), an investment trust. Gulf's research and product development base is in Mumbai, India. Its business development function is run from London, United Kingdom. The company's focus is primarily in the provision of downstream products and services to a mass market through joint ventures, strategic alliances, licensing agreements, and distribution arrangements.
Class struggle is the active expression of class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, leading ideologists of communism, wrote "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle."
Marx's notion of class has nothing to do with social class in the sociological sense of upper, middle and lower classes (which are often defined in terms of quantitative income or wealth). Instead, in an age of capitalism, Marx describes an economic class.
Membership of a class is defined by one's relationship to the means of production, i.e., one's position in the social structure that characterizes capitalism. Marx talks mainly about two classes that include the vast majority of the population, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Other classes such as the petty bourgeoisie share characteristics of both of these main classes.