Angola. Early history. Independence and civil war

The southwest African nation of Angola became independent in November 1975. Until that time, parts had been ruled by Portugal almost continuously since the early 1 500's. From the 1 960's to the early 1 990's, the Angolans were plagued by violent revolution and civil war.

Early history. Angola's history started long before the Portuguese arrived on its shores. As early as 50,000 B.C., people are known to have lived in what is now Angola. Bantu-speaking groups settled there about 2,000 years ago. The Portuguese came in the early 1 500's, and by the early 1 600's they were taking great numbers of the local people as slaves for their colony in Brazil.

During the 1 800's, the slave trade declined, and the Portuguese began to plant corn, sugar cane, and tobacco in Angola. In the late 1 920's, after the Portuguese dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar came to power, Portugal started to improve the region's economy, and thousands of Portuguese moved to Angola to start businesses.

Angola lies on the southwest coast of Africa. Cabinda, in the northwest, is part of Angola, even though it is separated from the rest of the country by the Congo River and a narrow strip of Congo (Kinshasa)

Independence and civil war. During the 1950's, many Angolans began to demand freedom from Portuguese rule, and in 1956, they organized the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). In Luanda in 1961, MPLA members began a revolt that spread quickly throughout the country and soon developed into a bloody guerrilla war. A Portuguese army, together with a large number of Angolans, put down the uprising, but the MPLA rebels set up bases in neigh-boring countries.

Other rebel groups began to spring up, and in 1962, northern rebels organized the Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA). Four years later, southern rebels formed the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).

Then in 1975, Portuguese military officers who had overthrown the Portuguese government decided to give Angola its independence. At first, the Angolans agreed to set up a government with representatives from all three rebel groups, but each group wanted to head the government and a civil war began.

The FNLA and UNITA united against the MPLA, who received considerable aid from the Communist countries of Cuba and the Soviet Union. When the MPLA finally won the war in April 1 976, it formed a Marxist government—that is, one based on the ideas of the German thinker Karl Marx, who developed the philosophy of Communism. But the government denied it was a Communist dictatorship.

Angola's new government faced major problems. UNITA, aided by South Africa, continued to wage guerrilla war against it. Meanwhile, Cuban troops helped the government fight the UNITA rebels. Then in late 1988, South Africa stopped aiding the UNITA rebels, and all Cuban troops were withdrawn by mid - 1991. In June 1 989, the government and UNITA announced a cease-fire.

In 1 991 , the MPLA legalized all political parties. In multiparty elections held in 1992, the leader of the MPLA became president. But UNITA protested that the elections were fraudulent, and civil war erupted once again.

In 1 994, the warring parties signed a peace treaty. The United Nations peacekeeping force helped maintain the peace through the mid-1 990's. However, the cease-fire has been broken many times. In 1998 and 1999, violence increased and the peace agreement broke down.