Angola from past to present | Conciliation Resources Angola from past to present Angola from past to present From military peace to social justice? The Angolan peace process Publication date: David Birmingham When Angola achieved independence in 1975, a war was raging between competing national liberation movements and their foreign backers. Guus Meijer and David Birmingham revisit Angola’s colonial period and the independence struggle that followed and ask how the resulting social and economic divisions shaped and were manipulated by the warring parties. The article describes the introduction of authoritarian one-party rule under the MPLA and the impact of natural resource development and international and regional powers on the conflict. Tracing the conflict up to the signing of the Luena Memorandum, the authors conclude that Angola’s peace remains incomplete and that the country faces many challenges in achieving social and democratic reconstruction. Read full article Angola from past to present On 11 November 1975, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) declared Angola's independence and installed Agostinho Neto as its first President in the former Portuguese colony's capital at Luanda.

This outcome had long seemed uncertain and indeed even unlikely; the MPLA had not only had to deal with its own serious internal troubles and disaffections, but had also had to take on the Portuguese colonial army and the two rival armed movements, each backed by powerful allies. Holden Roberto's National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) had initially been the most powerful of the three competing national liberation movements and in the autumn of 1975 it came close to capturing Luanda from the north, backed by a heavily armed force supplied by President Mobuto Sese Seko of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). In the south, two armoured columns of a South African invasion force, acting in military coordination with the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), led by Jonas Savimbi, almost reached Luanda before they were stopped by Cuban troops which had been rushed to the assistance of the MPLA. The independent Angolan state was thus born out of turmoil and violence and amid serious national, regional and global rivalries. This heritage with its deep historical roots was to influence the unfolding of events for a long time.

Angola, like most African countries, grew out of a conglomerate of peoples and groups each with its own distinct history and traditions. Gradually small local nations and states came into contact with each other and historical developments drove them to share a common destiny under increasing Portuguese influence. Long before the arrival of the Portuguese, Bantu-speaking communities had established a farming economy over most of the territory. They had absorbed many of the scattered Khoisan-speaking populations and developed a successful pastoral dimension to their agriculture as well as building up trading economies. One of the most successfully diverse market centres became the town of M'banza Kongo around which the Kongo kingdom evolved. Further east the concept of state formation related to the political ideology of the Lunda peoples while in the south later kingdoms took shape in the highlands of the Ovimbundu people. Angola under Portuguese rule Although the first Portuguese traders, explorers and soldiers set foot on this part of the African coast from 1483, modern colonisation of the whole territory was only formalised four centuries later after the Berlin Conference of 1884-85.

Wide stretches of Angola experienced colonial rule for less than a century, and even after 1900 armed revolts broke out and resistance movements sprang up as among the Ovimbundu and the Bakongo from 1913, until the last northern resistance was put down in 1917. During its century of overrule the colonial regime left crucial marks on Angolan society. Its discriminatory legislation, particularly the Statute of the Portuguese Natives of the Provinces of Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea, separated the indigenous population from a tiny elite of 'civilised' individuals (or assimilados) who enjoyed some of the rights of Portuguese citizens. In 1961, after the start of an armed liberation struggle, the statute was revoked but the changes were only cosmetic. The Portuguese policy of racial and cultural discrimination had a profound and lasting impact on the later social and political development of Angola as an independent country. Social divisions created by colonialism continued to exercise a strong influence on the relationships between groups and on the attitudes of individuals. Racial mistrust manifested itself in the conflicts between as well as the tensions within the liberation movements. Deeply entrenched suspicion played a decisive role in Angola's recent political history.

The conflicting interests of rural dwellers and people living in urban centres are in part another source of tension which independent Angola inherited from the colonial state. Portugal, like the other colonial powers, was primarily interested in extracting riches from its colonies, through taxation, forced labour and the compulsory cultivation of marketable crops such as cotton. Under the guise of a 'civilising mission', the colonial state was heavily influenced by its own distinctive variety of Catholic fundamentalism, invented by the semi-fascist dictator António Salazar. An ideology developed under the banner of luso-tropicalism, a supposedly specific Portuguese way of harmonising Portuguese manners with the customs of peoples in the tropics. In Angola economic extraction was later supplemented by migrant influences when Portugal needed to dispose of excess population. In the 1950s and 1960s Angola received many thousands of poor white peasants and entrepreneurial settlers from Portugal. They created a colony of European descent which, although smaller than the Portuguese communities in France or Brazil, was larger than the rival colonial one in Mozambique.

During the colonial period, and particularly under the corporatist 'New State' and its colonial charters perfected by Salazar when he graduated from finance minister to Prime Minister in 1932, Angola's political and economic developments were crucially linked to the motherland. In 1969 Marcelo Caetano succeeded Salazar as Prime Minister and continued to insulate Portugal's colonies, and especially the crown jewel that was Angola, from the winds of change that blew concepts of independence over Africa in the 1960s. Instead of preparing for independence, as the other colonial powers had reluctantly done after the Second World War, Portugal tried to strengthen its imperial grip. As a weak state, politically isolated and economically backward, Portugal resorted to special measures to hold on to its colonies and in 1954 it euphemistically renamed them 'overseas provinces' in an attempt to avoid the attentions of United Nations inspectors. Economically, both Portugal and Angola were always at the mercy of trends and developments in the wider global economy, determined by powers beyond their control.

It had been the world economic crisis of the 1930s which had led to the impoverishment of Portugal and to the crystallisation of Salazar's authoritarian regime. In the 1950s, when Portugal aspired to become a member of the United Nations and yet keep its colonies, it was agricultural crises and opportunities that caused impending upheavals. The relative poverty of the southern highlands and the boom in coffee prices in the north drove thousands of Ovimbundu peasants to become migrant workers on the coffee estates. There they were subjected to humiliation by white colonists and to resentment by the Bakongo who lived there. Continuous rivalries between various elites have played an important role in Angola's recent history. The FNLA embodied the aspirations of the northern elite focused on Kinshasa but with some cultural links with the old Kongo kingdom. The MPLA had its heartland in the territory of the Mbundu people of the Luanda hinterland but included many groups in the urban centres including some who descended from the old assimilated families of black Angolans and others who were the mixed-race children of modern colonisation.

UNITA became the expression of a third political tradition and embodied the economic aspirations of the Ovimbundu and their merchant leaders on the southern planalto. To a large extent the ethnic identification of these movements has come about as a result of conscious political manoeuvring by each leadership rather than as a genuine expression of popular sentiment and aspiration. Over time the social and political factors of identity and cohesion have become real. Angola's historical society can be characterised by a tiny semi-urbanised elite of Portuguese-speaking 'creole' families – many black, some of mixed race, some Catholic and others Protestant, some old-established and others cosmopolitan – who are distinguished from the broad population of black African peasants and farm workers. Until the nineteenth century the great creole merchants and the rural princes dealt in captive slaves, most of whom were exported to Brazil or to the African islands. The black aristocracy and the creole bourgeoisie thrived on the profits of overseas trade and lived in style, consuming large quantities of imported alcoholic beverages and wearing fashionable European costumes. In the early twentieth century, however, their social and economic position was eroded by an influx of petty merchants and bureaucrats from Portugal, who wished to grasp the commercial and employment opportunities created by a new colonial order.

Although effective occupation only had a relatively short duration and elements of pre-colonial continuity persisted, colonialism nevertheless brought major social changes in urbanisation, in formal education, in religious practice, in farming techniques and in commercial linkages. These changes affected all sections of society and all parts of the country, albeit to an uneven and variable degree. There is a tendency noted above to view Angolan society, and indeed other African societies, as fundamentally split between a 'modern' sector, influenced by 'Western' (or European) values, and a 'traditional' one governed by pre-modern systems of unchanging norms and historic ritual practices. Such views, expressed in political and public discourse, tend to over-simplify the socio-cultural base of both the MPLA and UNITA when in fact each had to manage its relations with appropriate 'traditional authorities'. Angola presents a rich variety of influences and mixtures all deeply marked by the colonial experience as well as by the so-called Afro-Stalinism of the post-independence years. 'Traditional' concepts are now being transformed to adapt to the challenges of life in the present and the future.

There is no part of Angola, however remote, and no sector of Angolan society, however 'traditional', which is not in some way linked to the 'modern' world of a globalised economy and its culture and communication systems. The struggle for national liberation While colonial rule never went unresisted, a more focused armed struggle for independence only started in 1961, after the Portuguese had bloodily repressed a mass protest against colonial conditions in the north. Hundreds of white planters and traders (estimates vary between 250 and 1,000) and thousands of black farm workers were killed, and many more fled the country, forming a fertile recruiting ground for an emerging anti-colonial cause. nationalist political activity and resistance occurred initially under the banner of the Union of the Peoples of Angola (UPA), a predecessor of the FNLA. In Luanda and the coastal cities much older associations had long expressed the nationalist sentiment of Angola's African population.

This urban-based nationalism also incorporated assimilados and mestiços of Luanda and Benguela who had organised the Angolan League in the 1910s and the Let's Discover Angola (Vamos Descobrir Angola) movement in the 1940s under leaders such as Viriato da Cruz who later became founders of the MPLA. The 1960s saw a major military and political confrontation between the Portuguese colonial regime and Angolan nationalism. The country also experienced the early manifestation of divisions within the nationalist movement that were to mark political life in Angola for many years. The protagonists were the FNLA, the MPLA, which subsequently tried to claim responsibility for an attack on a Luanda prison on 4 February 1961, and UNITA which emerged in the mid 1960s. The date of the prison attack was later officially celebrated as the beginning of the armed struggle. The anti-colonial struggle launched in 1961 was fought with guerrilla tactics, gradually increasing in scope to reach from the north to the east of the country.

On the diplomatic front nationalists worked from bases in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa), Conakry and Brazzaville, as well as from Lisbon and Paris. The FNLA received political and military backing from African countries and from China and the US. In 1962 it formed a Revolutionary Government of Angola in Exile (GRAE) which the organisation of African Unity (OAU) initially recognised as the legitimate successor to colonial rule. Some African countries later transferred their allegiance to the MPLA which, though its military record was poor and its leadership continuously suffered from internal conflict, gradually outmanoeuvred its rivals politically and diplomatically to gain pre-eminence in 1975. The FNLA was no freer from internal dissent than the MPLA and in 1964 Jonas Savimbi left the 'government in exile' in which he had served as Minister for Foreign Affairs. He accused the FNLA leaders of being militarily ineffective and heavily dependent on the US. He also denounced nepotism and the authoritarian leadership of Holden Roberto. After visiting a number of mainly communist countries Savimbi founded UNITA in 1966.

By exploiting the feelings of exclusion in Angola's largest ethnic group, the Ovimbundu, Savimbi built up his own constituency in the centre and south of the country. Initially he conducted small guerrilla operations inside Angola before establishing a network of supporters abroad. None of the armed movements succeeded in effectively threatening the colonial state in Angola. The end of this 'first Angolan war' was brought about indirectly through domestic pressure in Portugal and the growing dissatisfaction of the Portuguese military fighting the colonial wars in Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau. In April 1974, junior officers belonging to the Movement of the Armed Forces (MFA) toppled the Salazar-Caetano regime in Portugal and began the process of decolonisation. In 1974, however, a frenzy of diplomatic and political activity at home and abroad mitigated against a negotiated independence. In 1975, as the will to retain imperial control over Angola dwindled, fighting broke out in many provinces of Angola and also in the capital, Luanda, where the armies of the MPLA, the FNLA and UNITA were intended to maintain the peace with joint patrols.

In January 1975, under heavy international pressure, the colonial power and the three movements had signed an agreement in Alvor, Portugal, providing for a transitional government, a constitution, elections and independence. This Alvor Accord soon collapsed, however, and the transitional government scarcely functioned. In the subsequent confrontations the FNLA received military support from Zaire with the backing of China and the US, while under Agostinho Neto the MPLA gained ground in particular in Luanda with support from the Soviet Union and from Cuban troops. On 11 November 1975 Angola became independent. The FNLA and UNITA were excluded from the city and from government and a socialist one-party regime was established which eventually gained international recognition, though not from the United States. Angola under one-party rule From 1975 until the late 1980s Angolan society was moulded along 'classical' Marxist-Leninist lines. A dominant, but increasingly corrupt state sector was controlled by the ruling party. Private business, with the exception of the activities of foreign oil companies, was restricted and organised religion, including the Catholic Church, which had held an official place under the colonial regime, was suppressed.

No freely organised 'civil society' emerged and the state controlled the media and mass organisations for youth, for women, for workers and for some of the professions. One event had a crucial impact on the political climate during Angola's socialist era: the failed coup attempt by Nito Alves and his followers on 27 May 1977. Alves was a minister in President Agostinho Neto's government but also had his own constituency of supporters in Luanda's musseques (slums). The nitista crisis was fuelled by personal ambitions but also by ideological battles within the ruling socialist camp. Some leaders were loyal to the 'bureaucratic' line practised in the USSR while others preferred a more 'revolutionary' Chinese approach. The coup itself was bloodily repressed and it is alleged that thousands of supposed sympathisers were jailed or killed in the following days, weeks and months. The episode had a profound effect on the President, and his regime became ever more authoritarian and repressive. Angola's population lost its innocence and henceforth lived in fear.

Subsequent wars By the end of the 1970s, UNITA took over from the FNLA as the main civil war opponent of the MPLA government. A rapprochement had been achieved between the MPLA and President Mobutu of Zaire. The FNLA's cadres, led by Mobutu's protégé Holden Roberto, were gradually integrated into Angolan society as the free-market acolytes of the one-party state. The FNLA army, once a foreign-armed force with thousands of recruits, disintegrated without being formally disarmed or demobilised. Agostinho Neto died of cancer in 1979 and was succeeded as President by José Eduardo dos Santos, a young petroleum engineer trained in the Soviet Union. By this time the superpower conflict in Vietnam had ended and Angola became the seat of a new war by proxy between the United States and the Soviet Union. Each side was not so much defending a specific interest in Angola as playing out geo-political rivalry. The regional allies of the US continued to be Zaire and South Africa, while Congo-Brazzaville aligned itself with the Soviet Union.

Cuba stepped up both military and civilian support to the MPLA government and contributed significantly to the rehabilitation of social sectors such as health and education. Diamonds, and more especially oil, provided the MPLA with the necessary revenue to function as a government. Foreign income also funded the lifestyle of the ruling elite and financed the ongoing war against UNITA. During the war years economic links between the coastal cities and the agrarian hinterland weakened almost to the point of extinction. Sometimes backed by South African forces, UNITA spasmodically occupied parts of the country, which became inaccessible to both government and merchants. The cities, especially Luanda, survived on imported food rather than home produce. Consumer goods were paid for by oil royalties. The neglected countryside was left to its own subsistence strategies. Over the years many people fleeing the war migrated to the towns. The lack of opportunities in the rural areas made prospects in the urban centres seem more attractive despite the poverty of the great slums. The city of Luanda grew to an estimated population of four million. The 'second Angolan war' reached its peak in the mid-1980s.

One of its enduring ironies concerned the dollar income generated by American oil companies, which paid for Cuban troops to protect the Angolan government and its oil installations from attacks by South African forces working for UNITA and partly financed by the US. In this phase of the war the battle for the small but strategic town of Cuito Cuanavale was a turning point. In 1987-88, South African and UNITA forces were pushed back by MPLA and Cuban troops after a long siege. The South Africans conceded that no military solution to the security of their northern border was possible and they started to explore political alternatives. The ensuing peace initiatives, orchestrated by a Troika of Portugal, America and Russia, finally resulted in the Bicesse Accords of May 1991 between the MPLA and UNITA. The peace was followed by the holding under UN auspices of Angola's first and only general election. Savimbi expected to gain power through the ballot box in September 1992. When he failed to do so he rejected the voting results and returned to war. The 'third Angolan war' was even more brutal than its predecessors.

Whole cities were reduced to ruins, hundreds of thousands of people were killed or died from war-related deprivation and disease, and millions were displaced, some for the second or even the third time. Extended talks in Lusaka finally resulted in another peace agreement, the Lusaka Protocol, signed in October 1994, but even then the war was not over. Despite international sanctions against UNITA's supply networks, Savimbi was reluctant to surrender the military option. After four years of neither peace nor war, the war erupted again with full ferocity in December 1998. The Angolan government, on paper a 'government of national unity and reconciliation' in which some UNITA dissident politicians participated under MPLA domination, pursued an offensive that culminated in the assassination of Jonas Savimbi in February 2002. On 4 April 2002, the Luena Memorandum marked the end of four decades of war and the ultimate defeat of UNITA. In October 2002, UNITA declared itself a fully disarmed and democratic political party and UN sanctions against it were lifted.

Peace has characterised mainland Angola since April 2002, but in Cabinda, the enclave between the two Congo republics which accounts for sixty per cent of Angola's oil production, a war has continued unabated. The government has tried to replicate the strategy of scorched earth and starvation that had proved successful against UNITA. Many Cabindans nevertheless still support the rival movements demanding independence. The Angolan government, determined to preserve major economic assets, could never offer more than some form of provincial autonomy for the enclave. In October 2002, a major offensive against the Liberation Front of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) led to serious accusations of human rights abuses. Towards the end of 2003, after some FLEC defeats and defections, the Luanda government signalled that it was prepared to talk peace or even consider a referendum. So far, however, the silencing of the guns in mainland Angola has not reached Cabinda and the conflict remains unresolved. Peace in Angola remains incomplete. The physical and psychological scars of war are still evident. The democratic deficit has not been remedied. The regime is still marked by its predatory history.

Angola Fact Sheet September 26, 2016 More information about Angola is available on the Angola Page and from other Department of State publications and other sources listed at the end of this fact sheet. U.S.-ANGOLA RELATIONS The United States established diplomatic relations in 1993 with Angola, which had become independent from Portugal in 1975. Post-independence, Angola saw 27 years of civil war among groups backed at various times by countries that included the United States, the Soviet Union, Cuba, China, and South Africa. Angola has had two presidents since independence. The first president came to power in 1975; upon his 1979 death, the second president assumed power. Multiparty elections were held in 1992 under a process supervised by the United Nations, but the results were disputed and civil war continued until the 2002 death of one holdout guerilla leader. A new constitution was adopted in 2010 and elections were held in 2012. Angola has a strong and capable military.

Although the country is sub-Saharan Africa's second-largest oil producer and has great agricultural potential, two-thirds of the population live in poverty. U.S. foreign policy goals in Angola are to promote and strengthen Angola’s democratic institutions, promote economic prosperity, improve health, and consolidate peace and security, including maritime security. The United States has worked with Angola to remove thousands of landmines and help war refugees and internally displaced people return to their homes. In 2009 Secretary Clinton declared Angola a “strategic partner” of the United States, one of three that the Obama Administration has identified on the African continent (the other two are Nigeria and South Africa). The U.S. – Angola Strategic Partnership Dialogue (SPD) was formalized with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in Washington in July 2010. Secretary Kerry and Foreign Minister Chikoti met for the first high level Strategic Dialogue in December 2014 in Washington, D.C. Secretary Kerry met President dos Santos during his visit to Luanda in May 2014. U.S. Assistance to Angola U.S.

assistance seeks to focus on preventing major infectious diseases, strengthening health systems, increasing access to family planning and reproductive health services, and building capacity within nongovernmental organizations working in health advocacy and health service delivery. U.S. assistance also promotes stabilization and security sector reform. Bilateral Economic Relations Angola is the third-largest trading partner of the United States in sub-Saharan Africa, mainly because of its petroleum exports. U.S. imports from Angola are dominated by petroleum, with some diamonds. U.S. exports to Angola include machinery, aircraft, poultry, and iron and steel products. Angola is a partner country with Power Africa. Angola is eligible for preferential trade benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act. The United States and Angola have signed a trade and investment framework agreement, which seeks to promote greater trade and investment between the two countries. Angola's Membership in International Organizations Angola and the United States belong to a number of the same international organizations, including the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and World Trade Organization. Angola also is an observer to the Organization of American States and is currently on the United Nations Security Council. They also serve as the chair of the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region. Bilateral Representation The U.S.

Ambassador to Angola is Helen La Lime . Other principal embassy officials are listed in the Department's Key Officers List . Angola maintains an embassy in the United States at 2100-2108 16th St., NW, Washington, DC 20009 (tel. 202-785-1156). More information about Angola is available from the Department of State and other sources, some of which are listed here: Angola: History History History History until Independence The first inhabitants of the area that is now Angola are thought to have been members of the hunter-gatherer Khoisan group. Bantu-speaking peoples from West Africa arrived in the region in the 13th cent., partially displacing the Khoisan and establishing a number of powerful kingdoms. The Portuguese first explored coastal Angola in the late 15th cent., and except for a short occupation (1641–48) by the Dutch, it was under Portugal's control until they left the country late in the 20th cent. Although they failed to discover the gold and other precious metals they were seeking, the Portuguese found in Angola an excellent source of slaves for their colony in Brazil.

Portuguese colonization of Angola began in 1575, when a permanent base was established at Luanda. By this time the Mbundu kingdom had established itself in central Angola. After several attempts at subjugation, Portuguese troops finally broke the back of the kingdom in 1902, when the Bié Plateau was captured. Construction of the Benguela railroad followed, and white settlers arrived in the Angolan highlands. The modern development of Angola began only after World War II. In 1951 the colony was designated an overseas province, and Portugal initiated plans to develop industries and hydroelectric power. Although the Portuguese professed the aim of a multiracial society of equals in Angola, most Africans still suffered repression. Inspired by nationalist movements elsewhere, the native Angolans rose in revolt in 1961. When the uprising was quelled by the Portuguese army, many fled to Congo (Kinshasa) and other neighboring countries. In 1962 a group of refugees in the Congo, led by Holden Roberto, organized the Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA).

It maintained supply and training bases in the Congo, waged guerrilla warfare in Angola, and, while developing contacts with both Western and Communist nations, obtained its chief support from the Organization of African Unity (OAU). Angola's liberation movement comprised two other guerrilla groups as well. The Marxist-influenced Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA), founded in 1956, had its headquarters in Zambia and was most active among educated Angolan Africans and mestiços living abroad. The MPLA led the struggle for Angolan independence. The third rival group was the União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA), which was established in 1966 under the leadership of Jonas Savimbi . As a result of the guerrilla warfare, Portugal was forced to keep more than 50,000 troops in Angola by the early 1970s. In 1972 the heads of the FNLA and MPLA assumed joint leadership of a newly formed Supreme Council for the Liberation of Angola, but their military forces did not merge.

That same year the Portuguese national assembly changed Angola's status from an overseas province to an "autonomous state" with authority over internal affairs; Portugal was to retain responsibility for defense and foreign relations. Elections were held for a legislative assembly in 1973. In Apr., 1974, the Portuguese government was overthrown in a military uprising. In May of that year the new government proclaimed a truce with the guerrillas in an effort to promote peace talks. Later in the year Portugal seemed intent on granting Angola independence; however, the situation was complicated by the large number of Portuguese and other Europeans (estimated at 500,000) resident there, by continued conflict among the African liberation movements, and by the desire of some Cabindans for their oil-rich region to become independent as a separate. Postcolonial History Portugal granted Angola independence in 1975 and the MPLA assumed control of the government in Luanda; Agostinho Neto became president. The FNLA and UNITA, however, proclaimed a coaliton government in Nova Lisboa (now Huambo), but by early 1976 the MPLA had gained control of the whole country.

Most of the European population fled the political and economic upheaval that followed independence, taking their investments and technical expertise with them. When Neto died in 1979, José Eduardo dos Santos succeeded him as president. In the 1970s and 80s the MPLA government received large amounts of aid from Cuba and the Soviet Union, while the United States supported first the FNLA and then UNITA. In Cabinda, independence forces that had fought against the Portuguese now fought against the Angolan government. Although the FNLA faded in importance, UNITA obtained the support of South Africa, which was mounting its own campaigns against the Southwest Africa People's Organization (SWAPO), a Namibian liberation group based in Angola. In the late 1980s the United States provided military aid to UNITA and demanded the withdrawal of Cuban troops and an end to Soviet assistance. As a result of negotiations among Angola, South Africa, Cuba, and the United States, the withdrawal of Cuban troops began in 1989. Also in the late 1980s, Marxist Angola implemented programs of privatization under President dos Santos.

A cease-fire between the ruling MPLA and UNITA was reached in 1991, and the government agreed to make Angola a multiparty state. However, when dos Santos won UN-supervised elections held in Sept., 1992, UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi charged fraud and refused to accept the results. In Nov., 1992, bitter fighting broke out between rebel UNITA troops and government forces, destroying many cities and much of the country's infrastructure. Despite initial victories that gave UNITA control of some two thirds of Angola, the MPLA eventually gained the upper hand in the renewed warfare. In Nov., 1994, with UNITA on the verge of defeat, dos Santos and Savimbi signed the Lusaka protocol, a new agreement on ending the conflict. The two sides committed to the integration of several thousand UNITA troops into the government armed forces as well as the demobilization of thousands more from both sides. UN peacekeeping troops began arriving in June, 1995, to supervise the process. Troop integration, however, was suspended in 1996, and UNITA's demobilization efforts lagged.

A new government of national unity was formed in 1997, including several UNITA deputies; Savimbi had declined a vice presidency in 1996. With renewed fighting in 1998, Angola's ruling MPLA put the country's coalition government on hold, saying that UNITA had failed to meet its peace-treaty obligations. It suspended all UNITA representatives from parliament and declared that it would no longer deal with Savimbi, instead recognizing a splinter group, UNITA Renovada. In 1999 the United Nations voted to pull out all remaining troops stationed in the country, while continuing humanitarian relief work with over a million refugees. UNITA was able to finance its activities, including an estimated 30,000 troops stationed in neighboring Zambia and Congo (Kinshasa), with some $500 million a year in diamond revenues from mines it controlled in the country's northeast. Fighting continued, with Angola's army inflicting several defeats on UNITA beginning in late 1999, weakening UNITA's still sizable forces.

International restrictions (2001) on sales of diamonds not certfied as coming from legitimate sources also hurt UNITA, and the death of Savimbi in battle in 2002 was a severe blow to the rebels, who subsequently signed a cease-fire agreement and demobilized. UNITA subsequently reconstituted itself as a political party. Also in 2002 Angolan government forces gained the upper hand against Cabindan separatists; a peace agreement for the province was signed in 2006. As many as one million people died in the Angolan civil war, and the country's infrastructure was slow to recover from the effects of the fighting. Parliamentary elections scheduled for 2007 were postponed late in 2006 until mid-2008, and the presidential election was then set for 2009. In Mar., 2007, there was an apparent attack on the leader of UNITA, Isaias Samakuva; UNITA accused the government of trying to assassinate him.

When the parliamentary elections were finally held in Sept., 2008, they were marred by procedural irregulaties and difficulties but were otherwise generally transparent, and the MPLA won a landslide victory, with more than 80% of the vote. In 2009 the presidential election (scheduled for Sept., 2009) was again postponed; a new constitution approved by the National Assembly in Jan., 2010, abolished direct election for the president. In the legislative elections of Aug., 2012, the MPLA won 72% of the vote, which thus resulted in the election of dos Santos as president. UNITA and other opposition parties unsuccessfully challenged the result in the courts. Sections in this article: Milestones: 1969–1976 - Office of the Historian Milestones: 1969–1976 The Angola Crisis 1974–75 After a successful military coup in Portugal that toppled a long-standing authoritarian regime on April 25, 1974, the new rulers in Lisbon sought to divest the country of its costly colonial empire.

The impending independence of one of those colonies, Angola, led to the Angolan civil war that grew into a Cold War competition. The Angola crisis of 1974–1975 ultimately contributed to straining relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. Cuban and Angolan soldiers are shown during a weapon practice session at a training center. (AP Photo) Three main military movements had been fighting for Angolan independence since the 1960s. The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) was a Marxist organization centered in the capital, Luanda, and led by Agostinho Neto. The National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), led by Holden Roberto, was based in the north of the country and had strong ties to the U.S. ally, Mobutu Sese Seko, in neighboring Zaire. The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), an offshoot of the FNLA, was led by Jonas Savimbi and supported by the country’s largest ethnic group, the Ovimbundu.

Following the Portuguese coup, these three revolutionaries met with representatives of the new Portuguese Government in January 1975 and signed the Alvor Agreement that granted Angolan independence and provided for a three-way power sharing government. However, trust quickly broke down among the three groups, and the country descended into civil war as each vied for sole power. The crisis in Angola developed into a Cold War battleground as the superpowers and their allies delivered military assistance to their preferred clients. The United States supplied aid and training for both the FNLA and UNITA while troops from Zaire assisted Holden Roberto and his fighters. China, also, sent military instructors to train the FNLA. The Soviet Union provided military training and equipment for the MPLA. During the summer of 1975, the Soviet-supported MPLA was able to consolidate power in Luanda and oust the U.S.-supported FNLA from the capital, but the FNLA continued to attack. The remaining Portuguese troops failed to stem the violence. When MPLA leader Neto announced November 11, 1975 as the day of Angolan independence, Lisbon decided to withdraw its troops on that day. The MPLA also had long-established relations with Fidel Castro’s Cuba.

Before November 11, the MPLA had negotiated with Castro for Cuban assistance. At the same time, UNITA, which enjoyed U.S. support, approached the Apartheid government in South Africa for military reinforcement. Pretoria, with the aim to end the use of Angola as a base for rebels fighting for the independence of South Africa-occupied Namibia, contributed forces that entered southern Angola in October and made rapid progress toward the capital. In response, Castro sent Cuban Special Forces to halt the South African advance and succeeded in drawing attention to the fact that the United States had provided support to a group that now accepted assistance from an Apartheid government. The U.S. Government had encouraged the South African intervention, but preferred to downplay its connection with the Apartheid regime. However, once Pretoria’s involvement became widely known, the Chinese withdrew its advisers from the region, and the Ford Administration was faced with domestic resistance to the U.S. role in the Angolan conflict. President Gerald Ford had requested Congressional approval for more money to fund the operation in Angola. However, many members of Congress were wary of intervening abroad after the struggle in Vietnam, others wished to avoid the South Africa connection, and still others did not believe the issue was important.

In the end, Congress rejected the President’s request for additional funds. South Africa withdrew its forces in the spring of 1976 and the MPLA remained as the official government of Angola. Still, Jonas Savimbi and UNITA continued an insurgency until his death in 2002. During the period of the Angolan crisis, the United States and the Soviet Union were still enjoying a brief thaw in their relations, in an era referred to as détente . During this time, Washington and Moscow had reached a series of agreements that aimed to reduce tensions between the two superpowers. However, by 1974, strains on bilateral relations had already compromised U.S. support for détente and the crisis in Angola served to accelerate this trend. From the U.S. point of view, one of the aims of détente was to draw the Soviet Union further into the international system so that Washington could induce Moscow to show restraint in its dealings with the Third World. The Ford Administration believed that Cuba had intervened in Angola as a Soviet proxy and as such, the general view in Washington was that Moscow was breaking the rules of détente. The appearance of a Soviet success and a U.S.

loss in Angola on the heels of a victory by Soviet-supported North Vietnam over U.S.-supported South Vietnam continued to erode U.S. faith in détente as an effective Cold War foreign policy. The U.S. failure to achieve its desired outcome in Angola raised the stakes of the superpower competition in the Third World. Subsequent disagreements over the Horn of Africa, and Afghanistan contributed to undoing the period of détente between the Soviet Union and the United States. Additionally, the Angola crisis also ended a recent thaw in U.S.-Cuban relations. Angolan Civil War (1975-2002) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed Angolan Civil War (1975-2002) Angolan Soldier in front of Soviet Missiles Image Ownership: Public Domain The Angolan Civil War, beginning at the time of the country's independence from Portugal in 1975, was a 27-year struggle involving the deaths of over 500,000 soldiers and civilians.

Initiated at the height of the Cold War, pro- and anti- communist forces in Angola set the stage for a proxy fight between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) . Though the fighting officially ended in 2002, Angola remains in economic and social turmoil with a massive refugee crisis and millions of landmines impeding farming practices. Rich in diamonds and oil, Angola was one of the last African nations to receive independence from a European power. On April 25, 1974, a Portuguese military coup d’état protesting the country’s colonial practices successfully overthrew the regime. The combined forces of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), and the National Union for Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) created a transitional government with the Alvor Accord of 1974. Within a year the government had disintegrated, and with aid from the USSR and the Cuban military, the Marxist-oriented MPLA under the leadership of José dos Santos had wrested control of most of Angola.

Indirectly and through proxies, governments from the United States, Brazil and South Africa funded UNITA, providing munitions, intelligence reports, and mercenaries. Heavy fighting continued until 1991 when a temporary agreement known as the Bicesse Accords was reached. Calling for an immediate ceasefire and the removal of both Cuban and South African troops, the agreement mandated a new national government and army, along with Angola’s first multi-party elections. A year later, MPLA candidate José dos Santos won 49% of the popular vote in the election compared to 40% for UNITA candidate Dr. Jonas Savimbi . When Savimbi disputed the outcome, UNITA resumed guerilla war against the MPLA. In 1993 the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 864 placing an embargo on petroleum and munitions shipments to UNITA. UNITA continued military operations until Savimbi was killed in an ambush in February of 2002. Officially demobilized that August under less-radical leadership, UNITA has since been a formidable political party in Angolan politics.

Though a country rich in natural resources, Angola was economically and politically devastated with runaway inflation of the country’s currency (the kwanza), a national crisis of amputees from the millions of landmines, and political fallout from the millions of refugees displaced from the fighting. Sources: Kevin Shillington, Encyclopedia of African History (New York: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2005); Fernando Andresen Guimaraes, The Origins of the Angolan Civil War: Foreign Intervention and Domestic Political Conflict (London: Macmillan Press, 1997); John A. Marcum, The Angolan Revolution, Vol. 2: Exile Politics and Guerilla Warfare (1962-1976) (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1978). Contributor(s): BBC ON THIS DAY | 11 | 1975: Divided Angola gets independence 1975: Divided Angola gets independence The southern African state of Angola has gained its independence from former colonial power Portugal.

The leader of one of the country's rival factions, Dr Agostinho Neto, of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), has been proclaimed the country's first president. In the capital, Luanda, huge crowds cheered and soldiers fired shots into the air as the new country's flag was raised at midnight. However, the main groups vying for power held separate independence ceremonies. The MPLA held a huge ceremony at a stadium in the capital, Luanda, attended by a representative from the Soviet Union. 'Slave pool' In a speech, Dr Neto was critical of the Portuguese for not recognising the MPLA as the "sole legitimate representative" of the Angolan people. Meanwhile, the rival Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita) announced it had joined forces with another liberation movement to form a national council which would act as Angola's government. Angola's independence ends nearly 500 years of Portuguese rule. Initially the Portuguese used Angola as a "slave pool" for its more lucrative colony in Brazil and mined Angola's precious gemstones and metals. Resistance to Portuguese rule was widespread by the mid-20th century but was complicated by clashes between the various African communities.

Angola country profile - BBC News BBC News Read more about sharing. Close share panel One of Africa's major oil producers, Angola is striving to tackle the physical, social and political legacy of a 27-year civil war that ravaged the country after independence. Following the withdrawal of the Portuguese colonial masters in 1975, the rival former independence movements competed for power until 2002. Much of Angola's oil wealth lies in Cabinda province, where a decades-long separatist conflict simmers. The government has sent thousands of troops to subdue the rebellion in the enclave, which has no border with the rest of Angola. Human rights groups have alleged abuses against civilians.

Read more country profiles - Profiles by BBC Monitoring FACTS Area 1.25m sq km (481,354 sq miles) Major languages Portuguese (official), Umbundu, Kimbundu, Kikongo Major religion Christianity Life expectancy 50 years (men), 53 years (women) Currency kwanza President: Jose Eduardo dos Santos Image copyright Getty Images Jose Eduardo dos Santos, of the ruling MPLA, has been in power since 1979, and is Africa's second-longest serving head of state after Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang. He keeps tight control over all aspects of Angola's political life. Many Angolans credit the president for leading the country to recovery after the end of its 27-year civil war in 2002, and for turning the country's formerly socialist economy into one of the world's fastest-growing - mainly on the back of Angola's prodigious oil wealth. Some, however, accuse him of authoritarianism, staying in office for too long and failing to distribute the proceeds from the oil boom more widely. In 2008, his party won the country's first parliamentary elections for 16 years.

A new constitution approved in 2010 substituted direct election of the president with a system under which the top candidate of the largest party in parliament becomes president. It also strengthened the presidency's powers, prompting the Unita opposition to accuse the government of "destroying democracy". He appointed his daughter Isabel as chief executive of the state-run oil firm Sonangol in 2016, prompting suspicions that he is establishing a dynasty at a time he is winding down his own career. Isabel has been ranked by Forbes magazine as the richest woman on the continent with a fortune of around $3 billion. MEDIA Image copyright Getty Images Social media appeared to be under threat at the end of 2015 when President dos Santos called for their stricter regulation, at a time when the government was cracking down on political dissident and activism. For many urban Angolans, the internet has become the primary medium for expression of political anger because of the dangers of protesting on the streets. The state controls all media with nationwide reach, including radio, the most influential medium outside the capital.

Some key dates in Angola's history: Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The Angolan civil war involved forces from Cuba, pictured, as well as from South Africa 1300s - Kongo kingdom consolidates in the north. 1483 - Portuguese arrive. 17th and 18th centuries - Angola becomes a major Portuguese trading arena for slaves. Between 1580 and 1680 a million plus are shipped to Brazil. 1885-1930 - Portugal consolidates colonial control over Angola, local resistance persists. 1950s-1961 - Nationalist movement develops, guerrilla war begins. 1974 - Revolution in Portugal, colonial empire collapses. 1975 - Portuguese withdraw from Angola without formally handing power to any movement. MPLA is in control of Luanda and declares itself government of independent Angola. Unita and FNLA set up a rival government in Huambo. Civil war begins, dragging on until 2002. 1979 - Jose Eduardo dos Santos becomes country's leader. 1987 - South African forces enter southeast Angola to thwart MPLA and Cuban offensive against Unita. They withdrew the next year.

1991 - Government, Unita sign peace accord in Lisbon. 1992 - Disputed elections. Fighting flares again. 1998 - Luanda launches offensive against Unita - thousands killed in next four years of fighting. 2002 - Unita leader Jonas Savimbi is killed in battle and a formal ceasefire is signed. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The civil war came to an end following the killing of rebel leader Jonas Savimbi

Question: From which country did Angola achieve independence in 1975?
Answer: Portugal