ANGOLA, CORRIDORS AND CONCESSIONS: The New Face of Corporate Extractivism

by Dio Cramer

Introduction

In the 21st century, the narrative of "development" in Africa continues to be mediated by external actors who mask the reproduction of colonial structures of subordination. In Angola, this phenomenon is embodied in the concessions model, a historical practice that hands over vast portions of the territory and its resources to foreign companies under the guise of "strategic partnerships."

This article draws on the notion of "Africa of Concession Companies," coined by Samir Amin , to examine how contemporary corporate extractivism in Angola perpetuates colonial logics under new legal, media, and diplomatic guises. Through logistics, mineral, and oil concessions, structures of dependence are maintained with the active participation of local elites who act as managers of foreign interests.

I. The “Africa of Concession Companies”: foundations of a historical model

In the 1970s, Samir Amin classified certain regions of the African continent as zones dominated by concession companies, that is, foreign corporate conglomerates that extracted wealth without generating production chains or domestic industrialization. Similar to colonial logic, these companies operated with legal support from the state, used local coercion structures, and limited themselves to exporting raw materials to external decision-making centers.

The concession, as an economic, legal, and geopolitical regime, perfectly served the transnational corporate network of the common West . This allowed, and still allows today, cheap access to raw materials and products with little or no processing and low added value. By blocking the emergence of productive national bourgeoisies, it also prevented any real political autonomy in African states. The local state thus became an intermediary mechanism for legitimizing and facilitating international contracts of plunder.

Concessionary companies bring in foreign capital, personnel, and expertise; they extract, transport, and trade resources on international exchanges; and operate under legal frameworks protected by bilateral treaties, arbitration clauses, and investment protection mechanisms. This architecture was designed to guarantee predictability for foreign investors and undermine popular sovereignty.

Today, the model has become more sophisticated. The structure once dominated by firms like CFAO, Union Minière, and Société Générale des Colonies is now occupied by giants like Glencore, Anglo American, TotalEnergies, De Beers, and Trafigura. The top-hatted colonist has been replaced by the suit-and-tie transnational manager. But the logic remains one of outbound production, internal dependence, and assured impunity .

II. Exemplary cases in Angola: the continuity of the model

Discussing the large extractivist corporations operating in Africa implies entering a terrain where economics intersects with geopolitics , and where the boundaries between investment and domination often become blurred. These entities are structural pillars of an international system that survives on the extraction of value under profoundly asymmetrical conditions, and therefore, they should never be overlooked when addressing this topic. Among these corporations, prominent actors derive not only from their technical or financial capacity, but also from their historical role in controlling the African continent's strategic resources.

Particularly emblematic are conglomerates such as De Beers and Anglo American , whose origins date back to the heart of the British colonial project in Southern Africa and whose evolution has positioned them as central agents in the contemporary architecture of global extractivism .

De Beers , founded in the late 19th century in South Africa, quickly established itself as a cartel with global reach in the diamond trade. Its connection to the British imperial project was more than symbolic. From the outset, the company served as an instrument of territorial and financial consolidation of colonial rule , operating as a state within a state (Deep State) in territories such as the former Rhodesia and South Africa. With the entry of the Oppenheimer family, the company strengthened its hegemony, coming to control over 80 to 85% of the global diamond market during the 20th century. [1]

Anglo American emerged as a complement to this logic. It was founded in 1917 by Ernest Oppenheimer, and its expansion into sectors such as gold , coal , and base metals consolidated an industrial empire with tentacles across several continents. The two companies operated in symbiosis for decades, structuring the extractive economies of entire countries and directly influencing their public policies , mining codes , and budgetary priorities . [2]

During the Cold War , this web of interests showed its Ideological flexibility. In Angola, for example, when the United States was forced in the late 1980s to cut direct support to the UNITA party , a rebel movement during the Cold War, under pressure from Congress, the financial vacuum was filled through parallel channels. [3] De Beers provided indirect support to the guerrillas in exchange for privileged access to diamonds from rebel-held areas. This practice not only financed the continuation of the war but also served as a model for other similar conflicts, notably in Sierra Leone and Liberia , popularizing the term "blood diamonds . " [4]

While exploiting these parallel financing networks, these same companies presented themselves in international forums as defenders of legality, transparency, and social responsibility. This duplicity reflects a structural characteristic of contemporary extractive capitalism: the ability to circumvent free market rules while simultaneously funding institutions that promote those same rules. Take the case of the Brenthurst Foundation , an organization that perhaps few among those interested in Angolan history and geopolitics are familiar with, but which was behind the Platform for African Democrats (PAD) , the same organization behind the scandalous event aimed at bringing together Adalberto Costa Júnior, current president of the UNITA party, with several other public figures, statesmen, and former statesmen, before being dissolved in June 2025. [5] Indeed, this very foundation, since its founding in 2002 , has been actively funded by the Oppenheimer family , which is paradigmatic. This foundation acted as an influential think tank that aimed to promote economic reforms by advising African governments and shaping the discourse on development and good governance from a perspective aligned with the interests of transnational elites.

It is in this context that it becomes necessary to reevaluate the presence of these corporations in Africa not as neutral actors or development partners, but as central elements of a system that reproduces dependency. Their economic power, built through monopolies , opaque concessions , and alliances with local elites , is amplified by a network of institutional influence that allows them to define the rules of the game. When we speak of economic sovereignty or industrialization in Africa , we cannot ignore the architecture of power that these companies helped build and continue to sustain.

Among the examples of the involvement of these corporations in Angola, the following cases stand out:

1. In 2022, the British multinational Anglo American began copper prospecting in the Upper Zambezi region of Moxico province, eastern Angola, near the so-called "copper belt" of the DRC and Zambia. This region is historically known as one of the most exploited areas of African mineral extraction. Anglo American's presence in this territory symbolizes the continuation of a paradigm of plunder where mining occurs without coordination with local processing projects, without industrial processing in Angola, and without any concern for fostering internal production chains. The enclave logic prevails: the ore is exported raw, the profits are expatriated, and the country remains trapped in an economy dependent on primary extraction and unstructured exports. [6]

2. In February 2024, the multinational De Beers signed a memorandum of understanding with Endiama, Sodiam, and ANRM to reactivate its activities in Angola. The agreement includes the revaluation of kimberlite deposits, the expansion of alluvial mining, and the promotion of Angolan diamonds in international markets. [7] However, the structure of the deal remains faithful to the logic of colonial concessions because foreign capital operates with contractual and tax privileges, sets the pace of extraction, and channels profits abroad, while the rhetoric of sustainability, inclusion, and social responsibility is recycled as a diplomatic smokescreen. The De Beers model does not represent a rupture, but rather the elegant continuation of a regime of expropriation disguised as foreign direct investment.

3. The partial concession of the Lobito Corridor to Trafigura, through the Lobito Atlantic Railway (LAR) consortium, represents a logistical shift with profound geostrategic implications. By redirecting the flow of copper and cobalt from Central Africa to the Atlantic, it breaks the logic of eastern ports (under Chinese influence) and imposes a new infrastructure under Western control. This maneuver, promoted with the support of the Biden administration, reconfigures Angola's role as the epicenter of a new Atlantic mineral export axis. However, this process is far from recent. As early as 2010, Trafigura attempted to capture the same railway through AngoFret, operated by Mariano Marcondes Ferraz, and the DT Group, comprised of key figures from the former regime of President José Eduardo dos Santos, such as "Dino" and "Kopelipa." [8] The 2022 concession merely formalizes and legitimizes an arrangement that had already been incubated for more than a decade, using political, business and legal networks originating from the José Eduardo Dos Santos era [9] .

4. Between 2009 and 2011, Trafigura operated with near-absolute control over the Angolan fuel market through its subsidiary Pumangol. Investigations conducted by the Swiss Public Prosecutor's Office revealed a web of systematic corruption, involving payments of more than €4 million and $600,000 in bribes to senior executives at Sonangol Distribuidora [10] . In 2025, the Federal Criminal Court convicted the company and several of its managers, including Michael Wainwright and Paulo Gouveia Júnior, of corrupt practices and violation of corporate governance duties under Article 322 of the Swiss Penal Code [11] . Despite this, the company returned to Angola and was placed in charge of the Lobito Corridor with US support, highlighting the degree of structural impunity enjoyed by global extractive actors [12] .

These cases demonstrate how Angola's concession model is based on a tripod of transnational corruption, political reorganization, and diplomatic reconversion. The same actors accused in court of criminal practices continue to benefit from multimillion-dollar contracts, shielded by an international legal framework that rarely holds Western corporations accountable for crimes committed on African soil. Contemporary Angola thus becomes a global showcase for how economic colonialism reinvents itself through modern concessions, state capture, and the neutralization of international law under the guise of economic globalization.

III. Strategic implications

Angola remains tied to a structurally dependent model of international integration.

The rhetoric about reforms, diversification, and attracting investment lacks the material power to change the matrix of subordination. As Samir Amin rightly denounced , "Concessions Africa" is not a metaphor. It is a living system, fueled by local elites who mediate plunder and by international institutions that guarantee the legal and political protection of foreign operators. Angola's economic sovereignty has been mortgaged to the logic of transnational capital, disguised as a strategic partner [13] .

This diagnosis converges with Walter Rodney 's warnings about underdevelopment as a product of an active relationship of exploitation and with several progressive thinkers' criticisms of neocolonialism as the highest stage of imperialism. Furthermore, Issa Shivji 's analysis of the complicit role of African elites in managing dependency [13] should be added , as well as the concept of the "comprador bourgeoisie" developed by Frantz Fanon to describe the class that mediates foreign capital without modifying the structures of production. The combination of these theories shows that Angolan dependence is neither an accident nor a delay, but rather a functional architecture of a world economy whose usefulness lies in being a permanent supplier of raw materials and a passive recipient of imported technology and capital.

Conclusion

The nature of extractivism in Angola goes beyond the economic dimension. It is an ideology, a form of power organization that transforms deposits into instruments of external domination and local elites into agents of plunder. The history of concessions, from late colonialism to post-civil war neoliberalism, reveals a pattern of structural permanence. Breaking this cycle requires more than administrative reforms or political change. It requires rupture. It requires the reappropriation of strategic resources by the people. It requires a new economic and political contract that places sovereignty at the center of national reconstruction. As long as the concession regime persists, Angola will be a nation rich in resources and poor in destiny.