Angolan War of Independence
The Angolan War of Independence was a protracted struggle against Portuguese colonial rule that lasted from the late 1950s until the mid-1970s. Portugal had claimed Angola as its territory since the mid-15th century, establishing a harsh colonial system that exploited the local population, primarily through forced labor. The rise of nationalist movements in the wake of World War II led to the emergence of several groups advocating for independence, notably the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA), Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola (FNLA), and União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA). Each of these factions had distinct leadership and ethnic bases, leading to a complex and often violent struggle for supremacy among them.
Though initially resistant, the Portuguese government was ultimately compelled to negotiate after a military coup in Portugal in 1974. This transition period was marked by infighting among the nationalist factions, culminating in separate declarations of independence on November 11, 1975. The MPLA, supported by foreign allies including Cuba and the Soviet Union, managed to establish control over the capital, Luanda, while UNITA and FNLA maintained power in other regions. Despite achieving independence, Angola soon plunged into a civil war fueled by Cold War dynamics, as external powers continued to support rival factions, shaping the country's subsequent political landscape and development challenges.
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Angolan War of Independence
At issue: Angola’s struggle for independence from Portugal
Date: 1961–1975
Location: Angola (southwest Africa)
Combatants: Portuguese vs. Angolans
Principal commanders:Nationalist/Angolan, Agostinho Neto, Holden Roberto (1925- ), Jonas Savimbi (1934- )
Result: Nationalist victory and control of the newly independent country by the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA)
Background
Portugal claimed control of Angola as its colonial territory as early as the mid-fifteenth century. Angola soon became the destination of adventurous Portuguese men of fortune and was also viewed as an open field for Christianization. From the sixteenth through the eighteenth century, it became a source of thousands of slaves shipped to Brazil, the Portuguese colony in the New World.
After slavery was abolished, the Portuguese crown virtually abandoned the colony, paying it attention again only when it seemed Portugal might lose the colony during the nineteenth century European scramble for Africa. Following the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, Portugal attempted to prove its effective control of its colonies by initiating major agricultural, forest, and mineral exploitation programs through concessionaires. The premiership of Antonio Salazar in Portugal (1930–1958) replaced the concessionaire companies with Portuguese entrepreneurs and government investment schemes.
From the beginning, Portugal had followed a policy of assimilation in its African colonies. However, until the 1960’s, most Africans were primarily a source of a forced labor under a system known as contrato, which divided the Africans into the assimilated and the nonassimilated, or indigenas. Indigenas, who until independence constituted more than 95 percent of the Angolan population, had no rights. Their land could be expropriated at will by the government and the European population, and they could be forcibly recruited for manual labor for up to nine months a year. African indigenas were also forced to grow certain cash crops such as cotton, sugarcane, peanuts, corn, sisal, and rice, which were sold to Portuguese companies known as gremios that had the right to set the price. Poverty, illiteracy, and disease were the consequences.
Dissent was repressed in the colonies. When the nationalist movement swept over Africa following World War II (1939–1945), the Portuguese government increased its intolerance of aspirations of self-government and independence, imprisoning thousands, murdering hundreds of others, and using prison dungeons to discourage rebellion. Through its secret Policia Internacional para a Defesa do Estado (PIDE), Portugal created a true police state.
Action
The Portuguese vowed to hold on to Angola and refused to negotiate with the incipient nationalist movements, so Angolans began to wage a guerrilla war against the colonial state. In 1956, the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA) emerged near Luanda in the Mbundu area. From its inception, the MPLA faced a major problem in that it courted and selected its leadership from among only Marxist intellectuals and Angolans of Luso-African origin, causing much resentment within the rest of the population. Eventually, the confirmed leader became Agostinho Neto, a medical doctor who had escaped detention in a Portuguese prison in Lisbon. In 1962, the MPLA was allowed bases in Léopoldville (capital of the independent former Belgian Congo), but it was soon forced to abandon its unsafe headquarters there. It resumed its guerrilla activities from Congo-Brazzaville in 1963, just north of the Congo River, attacking the Cabinda enclave and eastern Angola. By the late 1960’s, the MPLA had managed to secure eastern Angola, inflicting severe casualties on the Portuguese troops in the districts of Moxico, Cuando-Cubango, Lunda, and Bié.
The Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola (FNLA), led by Holden Roberto, emerged and fused with the Uniao Popular de Angola (UPA) and the Partido Democratico Angolano (PDA) in March, 1962, thus compromising the unity of the nationalist movement against the Portuguese in Angola. Supported mainly by the Congolese ethnic group, the FNLA made Léopoldville its headquarters and created a government in exile. It focused its guerrilla activity on northern and eastern Angola but often clashed with MPLA forces. In 1966, a third major guerrilla movement was founded by a former member of the FNLA, Jonas Savimbi, who had attended a Swiss university before his appointment in 1962 as a foreign minister of the government in exile. Savimbi called his movement the União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA). With its ethnic base mainly among the Ovimbundu of central and eastern Angola, the largest ethnic group in the land, UNITA fought at first from the foothills of the Bié district, opening what the Portuguese called the eastern front.
Eventually, Portugal had to bring 60,000 troops to fight in Angola, detaining many suspects, massacring thousands, and increasing the repressive nature of its colonial regime. Reports state that from 1958 to 1963, the Portuguese killed more than 20,000 Angolans. The revolutionary forces also killed many Portuguese soldiers, colonial settlers, and Angolan sympathizers. What complicated the situation was the fact that each nationalist movement had its own external supporters, reflecting the Cold War between east and west. The former Soviet Union, Cuba, and many Eastern European regimes financially and militarily supported the MPLA as a Marxist front. The FNLA was at one point backed by the United States (through the Central Intelligence Agency) until December, 1975, and also by Joseph Desiré Mobutu’s Zaire. UNITA eventually received the backing of the United States, South Africa, and Zambia.
The war against Portugal ended in April, 1974, when young Portuguese army officers overthrew the government of Premier Marcello Caetano in Lisbon and sought a negotiated settlement with the nationalist movements in the various colonies. A tripartite government of the major nationalist movements was established in Luanda, with the Portuguese assisting in the transition. However, in June, 1974, fighting erupted among the three factions, leading to three declarations of independence on November 11, 1975: one in Luanda by the MPLA, one in Carmona (later Uige) by the FNLA, and the other in Nova Lisboa (later Huambo) by the UNITA. The Portuguese army had vacated Angola on November 10, 1975, without declaring in whose hands they had left the reins of power.
Although the MPLA, assisted by its allies, controlled the capital of Luanda, the seaboard towns, and some inland cities such as Sa da Bandeira, FNLA activities were confined to the north of the country, in the Zaire and Uige districts. UNITA, at times operating with strong support from South Africa, which was attempting to check the advance of the Southwest African People’s Organization (SWAPO) from southern Angola, controlled the center and the Huambo and Bié districts.
Aftermath
Given its control of Luanda and the important seaboard towns and the strong support it received from Cuban troops on the ground, the MPLA prevailed and began to garner international recognition in December, 1976. Relying on oil extracted by the Gulf Corporation, the People’s Republic of Angola, led by the MPLA, attempted to rebuild the country. However, the obstacles were many, including further warfare waged by UNITA, which continued to enjoy open support from South Africa and clandestine assistance from the United States as long as Cuban troops occupied Angolan soil. Angola was thus entangled in the web of the Cold War.
Bibliography
Adams, Ismail. The War: Its Impact and Economic Transformation in Angola. Belleville, South Africa: University of the Western Cape, 1996.
Andersen Guimaraes, F. The Origins of the Angolan Civil War: Foreign Intervention and Domestic Political Conflict, 1961–1976. London: Macmillan and St. Martin’s Press, 1997.
Andrade, Mario de, and Marc Olivier. The War in Angola: A Socio-Economic Study. Dar-es-Salaam: Tanzanian, 1976.
Azevedo, Mario. “Zambia, Zaire, and the Angolan Crisis Reconsidered: From Alvor to Shaba.” Journal of Southern African Affairs 2, no. 3 (July, 1977): 275–284.
Crocker, Chester A. High Noon in Southern Africa: Making Peace in a Rough Neighborhood. New York: W. W. Norton, 1992.
Somerville, Keith. Angola: Politics, Economics, and Society. London: Frances Pinter, 1986.