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14
General Information
Spend your time at the Slave Museum to revive Angola's history
Agostinho Neto and José Eduardo Dos Santos
Portugal expanded its territory behind the colony of
Benguela in the 18th century, and started their at-
tempt to occupy other regions in the mid-19th cen-
tury. The Portuguese only gained full administrative
control of the interior in the beginning of the 20th
century. In 1951, Portugal renamed the colony as
the Overseas Province of Angola, also called Por-
tuguese West-Africa. When the Portuguese regime
refused to concede to the nationalists' demands
for independence, three independence movements
emerged:
Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola
MPLA: the Popular Movement for the Liberation
of Angola with a base among Kimbundu and the
mixed-race intelligentsia of Luanda, and links to
communist parties in Portugal and the Eastern
Bloc
Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola -
FNLA: the National Liberation Front of Angola
with an ethnic base in the Bakongo region of
the north and links to the United States and the
Mobutu regime in Zaire
União Nacional para a Independência Total de
Angola - UNITA, the National Union for Total
Independence of Angola led by Jonas Malheiro
Savimbi with an ethnic and regional base in the
Ovimbundu heartland in the center of the country
After a 14 year independence guerrilla
war and the overthrow of fascist Por-
tugal's government by a military coup,
Angola's nationalist parties began to
negotiate for independence in January
1975. Independence was to be declared in Novem-
ber 1975. Almost immediately, a civil war broke out
between MPLA, UNITA and FNLA, exacerbated by
foreign intervention. South African troops struck an
alliance of convenience with UNITA and invaded
Angola in August 1975 to ensure that there would
be no interference (by a newly independent Ango-
lan state) in Namibia, which was then under South
African control. Cuban troops came to the support
of the MPLA in October 1975, enabling them to
control the capital, Luanda, and hold off the South
African forces. The MPLA declared itself to be the
de facto government of the country when independ-
ence was formally declared in November, with Ago-
stinho Neto as the first President.
In 1976, the FNLA was defeated by a combination
of MPLA and Cuban troops, leaving the Marxist
MPLA and UNITA (backed by the United States and
South Africa) to fight for power. The conflict raged
on, fuelled by the geopolitics of the Cold War and by
the ability of both parties to access Angola's natural
resources. The MPLA drew upon the revenues of
off-shore oil resources, while UNITA accessed al-
luvial diamonds that were easily smuggled through
the region's very porous borders (LeBillon, 1999).
In 1991, the factions agreed to turn Angola into a
multiparty state, but after the current president José
Eduardo dos Santos of MPLA won UN supervised
elections, UNITA claimed there was fraud and fight-
ing broke out again.