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Angola
14-year war by MPLA, FNLA, and UNITA led to sudden Portuguese departure, plunging country into Cold War proxy conflict.
- Independence
- November 11, 1975
- Before
- Portuguese West Africa
- Metropole
- Portugal
- Leader
- Agostinho Neto
- Transition
- Armed Insurgency
- Movement
- MPLA (Agostinho Neto); FNLA (Holden Roberto); UNITA (Jonas Savimbi)
Portugal's Settler Colony
Portugal established a colony at Luanda in 1575, and for centuries used Angola as a source of enslaved people for Brazil. Under the Estado Novo, coffee, diamonds and later petroleum drove growth whose profits flowed to a small settler class. Portuguese immigration, encouraged after 1961 to hold the colony, raised the European population to about 330,000 by 1974, while Africans faced forced labour, forced cultivation and scant schooling.
1961 and Three Rival Movements
Violence erupted in 1961: the Baixa de Cassanje cotton workers' revolt in January, the 4 February attack on Luanda's prisons and police posts, and the 15 March UPA uprising in the north, followed by brutal reprisals. Three movements emerged, the MPLA, FNLA and, from 1966, UNITA, divided by regional and ethnic bases, ideology and foreign patrons, and at times fighting each other as well as Portugal.
Independence amid Civil War
After the Carnation Revolution, the Alvor Agreement of 15 January 1975 set up a transitional government of all three movements, which soon collapsed into war. With Cuban troops and Soviet arms, the MPLA held Luanda against the FNLA and Zairean troops advancing from the north and a South African column from the south. Agostinho Neto proclaimed the People's Republic of Angola on 11 November 1975, as Portugal withdrew without formally handing power to any movement.
Chronology
- January 1961 — Baixa de Cassanje revolt of cotton workers
- February 4, 1961 — Attack on Luanda prisons, later celebrated as the start of the armed struggle
- March 15, 1961 — UPA (later FNLA) uprising in the north
- April 25, 1974 — Carnation Revolution in Lisbon
- January 15, 1975 — Alvor Agreement
- November 11, 1975 — Independence proclaimed by the MPLA in Luanda
Aftermath
The civil war became a major Cold War conflict, with Cuba and the USSR backing the MPLA and South Africa and the United States backing UNITA. Neto died in Moscow on 10 September 1979 and was succeeded by José Eduardo dos Santos. Fighting continued, with interruptions, until UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi was killed on 22 February 2002; a peace agreement followed in April 2002.
Legacy
Angola's independence was immediately overtaken by one of the Cold War's most destructive conflicts, which killed hundreds of thousands and displaced some four million people. The MPLA has governed continuously since 1975.