As pressure for decolonization mounted, the departing colonial regimes attempted to transfer power to moderate and stable local governments committed to continued economic and political ties with the West. Political transitions were not always peaceful; for example, violence broke out in Anglophone Southern Cameroons due to an unpopular union with Francophone Cameroon following independence from those respective nations. The Congo Crisis broke out with the dissolution of the Belgian Congo, after the new Congolese army mutinied against its Belgian officers, resulting in an exodus of the European population and plunging the territory into a civil war which raged throughout the mid-1960s. Portugal attempted to actively resist decolonization and was forced to contend with nationalist insurgencies in all of its African colonies until 1975. The presence of significant numbers of white settlers in Rhodesia complicated attempts at decolonization there, and the former actually issued a unilateral declaration of independence in 1965 to preempt an immediate transition to majority rule. The breakaway white government retained power in Rhodesia until 1979, despite a United Nations embargo and a devastating civil war with two rival guerrilla factions backed by the Soviets and Chinese, respectively.