A decade after Angola’s devastating civil war ended, this African nation is rebuilding quickly and wants Israel to take an active role in the work.

LUANDA − We flew 600 kilometers into the heart of Angola’s savannah in order to visit a diamond mine, but we didn’t see a single diamond. A tough South African security officer, accompanied by two grim-looking female Nepalese guards, dogged our every step with increasing suspicion, as if we had come to steal diamonds.

The security officer allowed us to look out over the mine and observe the heavy machinery digging up the red earth and loading it onto big trucks, which drove away in clouds of dust.

He let us approach the plant where the ore is separated from the soil, but not the processing plant, where the ore is sifted to determine the concentration of diamonds.

We − a group of Israeli journalists − were visiting the Catoca mine, not far from the border of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as guests of the Angolan government. After a two-hour flight from Luanda, on an old Beechcraft executive airplane, we landed on an asphalt strip surrounded by natural forest.

For 15 years, the Catoca Mining Society has been operating the world’s fourth largest diamond mine, an open pit 120 meters deep, with plans to go down to 600 meters. It employs about 1,500 local workers. Employment conditions at the mine seem to be reasonable, relative to the continent’s standards. One of the executives told us that workers are paid a minimum of $500 a month and an average of $1,200.

The mine’s owners reap huge profits. Due to the secrecy, it was hard to obtain exact figures, but we learned from various sources that the company extracted about 7 million carats’ worth of diamonds in 2009. Its turnover was about half a billion dollars and its profit was about $70 million.

There are four main partners in the mining company: the Angolan state diamond company Endiama ‏(33 percent‏), the Russian diamond giant Alrosa ‏(33 percent‏), the Brazilian engineering company Odebrecht ‏(16‏) and Israeli diamond trader Lev Leviev ‏(18 percent‏), through Daumonty Financing, which is registered abroad for tax purposes.

It was recently reported that Leviev was selling his share for hundreds of millions of dollars to China Sonangol International Ltd., Angola’s national oil company. However, even without the mine partnership, Leviev’s Angola diamond business is flourishing: He owns a polishing company here and he is a partner in another mine and in Angola’s diamond export company. During our visit, we learned that billionaire Arcadi Gaydamak was also in town.

From arms to agriculture

A few months ago, Gaydamak, formerly a business partner of Leviev’s, filed a $1 billion suit against the businessman in a London court. According to Gaydamak, who in the 1990s brokered an $800-billion arms purchase for Angola, he was the one who opened the door for Leviev’s diamond deals there. Leviev denies this claim.

Gaydamak has had his ups and downs with Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and his top officials. After a Paris court acquitted Gaydamak of illegal arms trading, earlier this year, he has been making efforts to repair his standing in Angola.

According to unofficial estimates, there are 200 to 300 Israelis working in Angola. A few of them, like Leviev and former Shin Bet official Haim Boro, are in the diamond business.

Others represent firms like Gilat Satellite Networks, the Ashtrom construction group, a land-mine clearing company and agricultural consulting firms. Also active in Angola is Brig. Gen. ‏(res.‏) Zeev Zacharin, who in the 1990s trained the Congolese dictator’s presidential guard and subsequently linked up with Gaydamak.

Zacharin claims he no longer has any connection with Gaydamak, and is now running farms in the country. The largest Israeli company in Angola today is the Herzliya-based LR Group. The company, owned by three former air force pilots ‏(Roy Ben-Yami, Eytan Stibbe and Ami Lustig‏), initially sold arms and defense equipment to Angola, including aerial radar, unmanned aircraft and helicopters.

At the beginning of the 1990s, the Angolan government, under the socialist ruling party MPLA ‏(the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola‏) and President dos Santos, desperately needed arms to fight its rival, UNITA ‏(the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola‏), led by Dr. Jonas Savimbi. It sought help from Gaydamak, LR and Israel Military Industries, which sold it the light arms that allowed its forces to keep Luanda from falling to Savimbi.

Angola’s civil war began in 1975, immediately after Portuguese rule ended, and it lasted for 27 years. There were three sides to the fighting − the MPLA, UNITA and a third, smaller force commanded by Holden Roberto ‏(see box‏). Meanwhile, a parallel battle was being waged in Angola as part of the Cold War. The Soviet Union and Cuba supported the MPLA; the CIA, South Africa, Zaire and Israel initially helped Holden Roberto and later Savimbi. The war killed hundreds of thousands, wounded millions and destroyed the country’s infrastructure. It ended in February 2002, when Savimbi was killed.

According to the prevailing version, Savimbi was captured by government special forces after his forest hideout was found, with the help of Israeli intelligence equipment. But that’s not what really happened. The Angolan army did use unmanned planes manufactured by Aeronautics Defense Systems in Yavneh, which were provided through LR, but it was not they who found Savimbi. He was captured and killed with the help of intelligence information from government agents.

The unmanned planes and radar systems did help the government expose the smuggling of “blood diamonds” sold illegally to several Israeli diamond dealers. The proceeds funded Savimbi’s arms acquisitions, assisted by Israelis to some extent. A source involved in Israeli arms sales estimates that over the past two decades, Israeli companies sold about $300 million in arms and defense equipment to the Angolan government. Half of this was a controversial deal to provide satellite photographs from Imagist, a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries.

Hungry for investments

Currently most of Israel’s military aid consists of training of police and army pilots. Israel purchases about $300 million in Angolan oil a year − about 15,000 barrels a day, 7 percent of Israel’s consumption.

The Angolan government, say officials here, “wishes to establish the relations on a basis of mutuality between governments.” A senior government official said: “We want agreements with your defense ministry and homeland security, like the ones we have with Spain and the United States, and we don’t want you to send us for courses and training with private companies.”

Angola is hungry for investments, and its potential is tremendous. This is a huge country, with an area of 1.25 million square kilometers − six times the size of Israel − and a relatively small population of about 18 million. It is rich in oil, diamonds, wood, water, fish and arable land. Its 1,600 kilometers of coast are ideal for tourism and vacationing.

“The relations between the two countries are good, but there is room for improvement,” says State Minister Carlos Maria Feijo, one of the administration’s strongmen. “We want you to invest in agriculture, roads and construction.”

During the decade since my last visit to Angola, many things have changed: Multistory buildings have popped up along Luanda’s skyline, Western hotels have been built and modern restaurants have opened. There are more roads, and even some traffic lights.

There has been a huge increase in the number of vehicles and traffic jams. The government is now planning to build a million housing units mainly through Chinese companies and several Israeli contractors, including LR.

Nevertheless, it is still hard to do business in Angola. The bureaucracy is tough, sewage flows in the streets, the sidewalks are cracked and the roads are full of potholes. Morbidity is high: 5 percent of the population has malaria, and 2 percent is HIV-positive. Life expectancy is short: 47 years for men and 51 for women. Poverty is evident on nearly every street corner. Per capita income is about $300 a month.

Luanda has infrastructure for about 1 million people, but it has nearly 5 million residents. They live in rickety houses and slums, reminiscent of the Gaza refugee camps. The president and his generation refuse to take responsibility for the situation and blame everything on Portuguese colonialism, which ended in 1975.

One of Angola’s main problems is corruption. Government officials address each other as “comrade,” but wear $100,000 Cartier watches. The tremendous wealth is concentrated among a few tens of thousands of officials and government cronies.

Nevertheless, there are also signs of a slight change. Ten years ago it was forbidden to utter the word “corruption” here. Now, government officials like the director of the country’s investment agency, Aguinaldo Jaime, are willing to acknowledge its existence. But Jaime qualifies his statements. “It exists everywhere, not only in Africa,” he says.

This article is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Tamar Golan, Israel’s first ambassador to Angola.