Angolan War of Independence

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Angolan War of Independence
Part of The Portuguese Colonial Wars
Portuguese troops on patrol in Angola
Date February 4, 1961 - 1974[1] Location Angola Result Alvor Agreement, Angolan independence[2]
Belligerents
National Liberation Front of Angola National Union for the Total Independence of Angola Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola Eastern Revolt Active Revolt Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda	Portugal  South Africa
Commanders
Holden Roberto Jonas Savimbi Agostinho Neto Mário Pinto de Andrade Daniel Chipenda
Strength
18,000	8,000 regulars, 3,000 South Africans
Casualties and losses
50,000	2,000

The Angolan War of Independence (1961–1974)^[1] began as an uprising against forced cotton harvesting, became a multi-faction struggle for control of Angola with 11 separatist movements^[2], and ended in 1975 when the Angolan government, UNITA, the MPLA, and the FNLA signed the Alvor Agreement, after a leftist military coup at Lisbon in April 1974. It was essentially a guerrilla war in which the Portuguese Armed Forces fought against several independentist armed groups dispersed by some sparsely populated areas of the vast Portuguese-administered Angolan countryside. Several atrocities were committed by all forces involved in the conflict.

Contents 1 Historical background of the territory 2 Civil disobedience (1948-1959) 3 1960s 4 1970-1975 4.1 "Death Road" 5 Foreign influence 6 Aftermath 7 See also 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Historical background of the territory

Main article: History of Angola

In 1482, Kingdom of Portugal's caravels commanded by Portuguese navigator Diogo Cão arrived in the Kingdom of Congo. Other expeditions followed, and close relations were soon established between the two kingdoms. The Portuguese brought firearms and many other technological advances, as well as a new religion (Christianity); in return, the King of the Congo could offer plenty of slaves, ivory, and minerals.

Portuguese explorer Paulo Dias de Novais founded Luanda in 1575 as "São Paulo de Loanda". Novais settled with a hundred families of colonists and four hundred soldiers. Luanda was granted the status of city in 1605.

Angola had the status of a Portuguese colony from 1655 until the Assembly of the Republic passed a law giving all Portuguese colonies provincial status on June 11, 1951.^[3][4]

[edit] Civil disobedience (1948-1959)

Main article: 1950s in Angola

The Portuguese Colonial Act, passed on June 13, 1933 recognized the supremacy of Portuguese over native people, and, even if the natives could pursue all studies including university, the de facto situation was of clear disadvantage due to deep cultural and social differences between most of the traditional indigenous communities or tribes and the ethnical Portuguese who used to live in the littoral of Angola. In the 1950s, a new wave of Portuguese settlement in all Portuguese Africa, including the overseas province of Angola, was encouraged by the ruling government's authorities of António de Oliveira Salazar.^[5] A new law passed in the Portuguese Assembleia da República giving all Portuguese colonies provincial status on June 11, 1951. By this law the Portuguese territory of Angola started to be officially called Província de Angola (Province of Angola).^[3][4]

Viriato da Cruz and others formed the Movement of Young Intellectuals, an organization that promoted Angolan culture, in 1948. Nationalists sent a letter to the United Nations calling for Angola to be given protectorate status under UN supervision. In 1953 Angolan separatists founded the Party of the United Struggle for Africans in Angola (PLUA), the first political party to advocate Angolan independence from Portugal. Two years later Mário Pinto de Andrade and his brother Joaquim formed the Angolan Communist Party (PCA). In December 1956 PLUA merged with the PCA to form the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). The MPLA, led by da Cruz, Mário Andrade, Ilidio Machado, and Lúcio Lara, derived support from the Mbundu people and in Luanda.^[6][7][8][9]

In 1954, Congolese-Angolan nationalists formed the Union of Peoples of Northern Angola, which advocated the independence of the historical Kingdom of Congo, which included other territories outside the Portuguese overseas province of Angola.^[10]

[edit] 1960s

Main articles: 1960s in Angola and Portuguese Colonial War

On 4 January 1961 Angolan peasants in the region of Baixa de Cassanje, Malanje, boycotted the COTONANG's cotton fields where they worked, demanding better working conditions and remuneration. COTONANG was owned by Portuguese, British and German investors. Challenging the authorities, the peasants burned their identification cards and attacked Portuguese traders. The Portuguese military responded to the rebellion by bombing villages in the area (allegedly using napalm),^{[citation needed]} killing up to 7,000 indigenous Africans. On February 4, 250 independentist MPLA militants in Luanda stormed a police station and São Paulo prison, killing seven policemen. Forty of the MPLA attackers died, and none of the prisoners was freed. The government held a funeral for the deceased police officers on February 5. During the funeral Portuguese citizens became enraged and massacred Africans in Luanda.^{[citation needed]} Separatist militants attacked a second prison on February 10 and the Portuguese reaction was equally brutal. John Marcum reported, "the Portuguese vengeance was awesome. The police helped civilian vigilantes organize nightly slaughters in the [Luanda slums]. The whites hauled Africans from their flimsy one-room huts, shot them and left their bodies in the streets. A Methodist missionary... testified that he personally knew of the deaths of almost three hundred."^[11] Within the next few weeks the government pushed the MPLA out of Luanda, northeast into the Dembos region where the MPLA established the '1st Military Region'. UPA leader Holden Roberto launched an incursion into Angola on March 15, leading 4,000 to 5,000 militants. His forces took farms, government outposts, and trading centers, killing everyone they encountered. At least 1,000 whites and an unknown number of natives were killed.^[12][9][13] Commenting on the incursion, Roberto said,

“

This time the slaves did not cower. They massacred everything.[14]

”

The Portuguese took control of Pedra Verde, the UPA's last base in northern Angola, on September 20. In the first year of the war 2,000 Portuguese and 50,000 Africans died while between 400,000 and 500,000 refugees went to Zaire. UPA militants joined the refugees and continued to launch attacks from the safety of Zaire.^[9][13]

A UPA patrol took 21 MPLA militants prisoner and then executed them on October 9, 1961 in the Ferreira incident, sparking further violence between the two groups.^[13]

In 1962 the MPLA held a party congress in Leopoldville. Viriato da Cruz, found to be "slow, negligent, and adverse to planning," was replaced by Agostinho Neto. In addition to the change in leadership the MPLA adopted and reaffirmed its policies for an independent Angola; democracy, multiracialism, national liberation of the entire colony, non-alignment, no foreign military bases in Angola, and nationalization.^[6]

Neto met Marxist leader Che Guevara in 1965 and soon received funding from the governments of Cuba, German Democratic Republic, and the Soviet Union.^[15]

In May 1966 Daniel Chipenda, then a member of MPLA, established the Eastern Front, significantly expanding the MPLA's reach in Angola. When the EF collapsed, Chipenda and Neto each blamed the other's factions.^[13]

UNITA carried out its first attack on December 25, 1966, preventing trains from passing through the Benguela railway at Teixeira de Sousa on the border with Zambia. UNITA derailed the railway twice in 1967, angering the Zambian government which exported copper through the railway. President Kenneth Kaunda responded by kicking UNITA's 500 militant forces out of Zambia. Savimbi moved to Cairo, Egypt where he lived for a year. He secretly entered Angola through Zambia and worked with the Portuguese military against the MPLA.^[6][15]

During the late 1960s the FNLA and MPLA fought each other as much as they did the Portuguese with MPLA forces assisting the Portuguese in finding FNLA hideouts.^[15]

[edit] 1970-1975

Angola
This article is part of the series: History of Angola
Precolonial history (Paleolithic era to 1483)
Colonization (1483 to ?)
Dutch occupation of Angola (1641 to 1648)
Colonial history (1648 to 1951)
1900s (1900s)
1910s (1910s)
1920s (1920s)
1930s (1930s)
1940s (1940s)
1950s (1950s)
War of Independence (1961 to 1975)
1960s (1960s)
1970-1975 (1970s)
Civil War (1975 to 2002)
1970-1975 (1970s)
1980s (1980s)
1990s (1990s)
2000s (2000s)

The MPLA began forming squadrons of 100 to 150 militants in 1971. These squadrons, armed with 60mm and 81mm mortar, attacked Portuguese outposts. The Portuguese conducted counter-insurgency sweeps against MPLA forces in 1972 and 1973, destroying the MPLA's camp. Additionally, South African Defence Forces engaged the MPLA forces in Moxico in February 1972, destroying the Communist presence and the Eastern Front. Neto, defeated, retreated with 800 militants to the Republic of the Congo. Factions in the MPLA jockeyed for power and the Soviet Union allied with the Chipenda faction in 1972. In 1973 Chipenda left the MPLA, founding the Eastern Revolt with 1,500 former MPLA followers. Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere convinced the People's Republic of China, which had begun funding the MPLA in 1970, to ally with the FNLA against the MPLA in 1973. Roberto visited the PRC in December and secured Chinese support. The Soviet Union cutoff aid to the MPLA completely in 1974 when Revolta Activa split off from the mainstream MPLA. In November the Soviet Union resumed aid to the MPLA after Neto reasserted his leadership.^[15][13]

South African Defence Forces engaged the MPLA forces in Moxico in February 1972, destroying the Communist presence and the Eastern Front. Differing factions in the MPLA then jockeyed for power. 1,000 FNLA fighters mutinied on March 17 in Kinkuzu, but the Zairian army put down the rebellion on behalf of Roberto. Roberto visited the People's Republic of China in December 1973, gaining Chinese support for the FNLA. South African forces invaded Angola on October 23, 1975.^[16]

Leftist military officers overthrew the Caetano government in Portugal in the Carnation Revolution on April 25, 1974. The MPLA, FNLA, and UNITA each negotiated peace agreements with the transitional Portuguese government and began to fight each other for control of Luanda and the country. Holden Roberto, Agostinho Neto, and Jonas Savimbi met in Bukavu, Zaire in July and agreed to negotiate with the Portuguese as one political entity. They met again in Mombasa, Kenya on January 5, 1975 and agreed to stop fighting each other, further outlining constitutional negotiations with the Portuguese. They met for a third time, with Portuguese government officials, in Alvor, Portugal from January 10-15 and signed what became known as the Alvor Agreement, granting Angola independence on November 11 and establishing a transitional government.^[1]

The agreement ended the war for independence while marking the transition to civil war. The Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda and Eastern Revolt never signed the agreement as they were excluded from negotiations. The coalition government the Alvor Agreement established soon fell as nationalist factions, doubting one another's commitment to the peace process, tried to take control of the colony by force.^[1][9]

The parties agreed to hold the first assembly elections in October 1975. From January 31, 1975 until independence a transitional government consisting of the Portuguese High Commissioner Rosa Coutinho and a Prime Ministerial Council would rule. The PMC consisted of three representatives, one from each Angolan party, and a rotating Premiership among the representatives. Every decision required two-thirds majority support. The twelve ministries were divided equally among the Angolan parties and the Portuguese government, three for each. Author Witney Wright Schneidman criticized this provision in Engaging Africa: Washington and the Fall of Portugal's Colonial Empire for ensuring a "virtual paralysis in executive authority." The Bureau of Intelligence and Research cautioned that an excessive desire to preserve the balance of power in the agreement hurt the transitional Angolan government's ability to function.^[1][9][17]

The Portuguese government's main goal in negotiations was preventing the mass emigration of white Angolans. Paradoxically, the agreement only allowed the MPLA, FNLA, and UNITA to nominate candidates to the first assembly elections, deliberately disenfranchising Bakongo, Cabindans, and whites. The Portuguese reasoned that white Angolans would have to join the separatist movements and the separatists would have to moderate their platforms to expand their political bases.^[17]

The agreement called for the integration of the militant wings of the Angolan parties into a new military, the Angolan Defense Forces. The ADF would have 48,000 active personnel, made up of 24,000 Portuguese and 8,000 MPLA, FNLA, and UNITA fighters respectively. Each party maintained separate barracks and outposts. Every military decision required the unanimous consent of each party's headquarters and the joint military command. The Portuguese forces lacked equipment and commitment to the cause while Angolan nationalists were antagonistic of each other and lacked training.^[1][17]

The treaty, which FLEC never agreed to, described Cabinda as an "integral and inalienable part of Angola." Separatists view the agreement as a violation of Cabindan right to self-determination.^[18] By August 1975 the MPLA had taken control over Cabinda.^[19]

All three parties soon had forces greater in number than the Portuguese, endangering the colonial power's ability to keep the peace. Factional fighting renewed, reaching new heights as foreign supplies of arms increased. In February the Cuban government warned the Eastern Bloc the Alvor Agreement would not succeed. By spring the African National Congress and SWAPO were echoing Cuba's warning.^[20] Leaders of the Organization of African Unity organized a peace conference moderated by Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta with the three leaders in Nakuru, Kenya in June. The Angolan leaders issued the Nakuru Declaration on June 21,^[21] agreeing to abide by the provisions of the Alvor Agreement while acknowledging a mutual lack of trust led to violence. Many analysts have criticized the transitional government in Portugal for the violence that followed the Alvor Agreement in terms of a lack of concern about internal Angolan security and favoritism towards the MPLA. High Commissioner Coutinho, one of the seven leaders of the National Salvation Junta, openly gave Portuguese military equipment to MPLA forces.^[1][2][17]

Edward Mulcahy, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs in the United States State Department, told Tom Killoran, the U.S. Consul General in Angola, to congratulate the PMC rather than the FNLA and UNITA on their own and Coutinho for Portugal's "untiring and protracted efforts" at a peace agreement.^[17][22] Secretary of State Henry Kissinger considered any government involving the pro-Soviet, Communist MPLA, to be unacceptable and President Gerald Ford oversaw heightened aid to the FNLA.^[6]

In July the MPLA violently forced the FNLA out of Luanda and UNITA voluntarily withdrew to its stronghold in the south. There MPLA forces engaged UNITA and UNITA declared war. By August the MPLA had control of 11 of the 15 provincial capitals, including Cabina and Luanda. South Africa intervened on October 23, sending 1,500 to 2,000 troops from Namibia into southern Angola. FNLA-UNITA-South African forces took five provincial capitals, including Novo Redondo and Benguela in three weeks. On November 10 the Portuguese left Angola. Cuban-MPLA forces defeated South African-FNLA forces, maintaining control over Luanda. On November 11 Neto declared the independence of the People's Republic of Angola.^[1] The FNLA and UNITA responded by proclaiming their own government based in Huambo.^[2] By mid-November the Huambo government had control over southern Angola and began pushing north.^[19]

[edit] "Death Road"

Main article: Battle of Quifangondo

An anti-Communist force made up of 1,500 FNLA fighters, 100 Portuguese Angolan soldiers, and two battalions of the Zairian army passed near the city of Quifangondo, only 30km north of Luanda, at dawn on November 10. The force, supported by South African aircraft and three 140mm artillery pieces,^[23] marched in a single line along the Bengo River to face an 800-strong Cuban force across the river. The Cubans and MPLA fighters bombarded the FNLA with mortar and 122mm rockets, destroying most of the FNLA's armored cars and six Jeeps carrying antitank rockets in the first hour of fighting. Witnesses estimated the Cuban-led force shot 2000 rockets at the FNLA. Cubans then drove forward, launching RPG-7 rocket grenades, shooting with anti-aircraft guns, killing hundreds. The South Africans, with their aged World War II-era guns were powerless to intervene, and subsequently retreated via Ambrizete to SAS President Steyn, a South African navy frigate. The Cuba-MPLA victory in Nshila wa Lufu (Death Road), largely ended the FNLA's importance in the conflict.^[24]

[edit] Foreign influence

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2008)

The situation of the Portuguese in their overseas province of Angola soon became a matter of concern for a number of foreign powers, or a reason for interest and involvement of others. The USA, for example, were concerned with the possibility of a Marxist regime being established in Luanda and they started supplying weapons and ammunition on the UPA, which meanwhile grew considerably and was re-named into Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola (FNLA). The leaders of the FNLA were, however, not satisfied with the US support, consequently FNLA's Jonas Savimbi, established good connections to People's Republic of China, from where even larger shipments started arriving. Despite their support for the FNLA-rebels, concerns about the support for the Marxists from Cuba and the USSR caused the USA to grant the company Aero Associates, from Tucson, Arizona, a permission to sell seven Douglas B-26 Invader bombers to Portugal in the early 1965. The aircraft were flown to Africa by John Richard Hawke – reportedly a former RAF-pilot – who on the start of one of the flights to Angola flew so low over the White House, that the USAF forced him to land and he got arrested. In May 1965 Hawke was indicted for illegally selling arms and supporting the Portuguese, but was imprisoned for less than a year [2]. The B-26s were not to see deployment in Angola until several years later.

Meanwhile, in 1966 a strong fraction within the FNLA – led by Jonas Savimbi – split and formed a new movement, the União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA). UNITA had its main base in distant south-eastern Angolan provinces, where the Portuguese and FNLA influence were for all practical purposes very low, and where there was no guerrilla war at all. Besides, the UNITA was right from the beginning far better organized and disciplined than either the MPLA or the FNLA. Its fighters also showed a much better understanding of guerrilla operations, and became especially active along the Benguela railway, repeatedly causing damage – not only to the Portuguese but also to Congo and Zambia, both of which used the railway for transportation of their exports to Angolan ports.

Aside from the USA, two other African nations became involved in this war as well. These were Rhodesia and South Africa, both of which were ruled by the white minority, and the regimes of which were concerned about their own future in the case of a Portuguese defeat. Rhodesia and South Africa initially limited their participation on shipments of arms and supplies. However, by 1968 the South Africans begun providing Alouette III helicopters with crews to the Portuguese Air Force (FAP), and finally several companies of South Africa Defence Forces (SADF) infantry were deployed in southern central Angola. However, contemporary reports about them guarding the iron mines of Cassinga were never confirmed.

Finally, there were reports that a number of Rhodesian pilots were recruited to fly FAP helicopters: however, when the first Portuguese unit was equipped with Aerospatiale Puma helicopters, in 1969, its crews were almost exclusively South African: Rhodesian pilots were considered too valuable by the RRAF/RhAF to be deployed in support of the Portuguese, while the SADF has had pilots and helicopters operating out of “Centro Conjunto de Apoio Aéreo” (CCAA – Joint Air Support Centre), set up in Cuito Cuanavale, in 1968.

In the late 1960s also the USSR became involved in the war in Angola, albeit almost exclusively via the MPLA. Namely, while the FNLA received only very limited arms shipments from the USA, and the UNITA was getting hardly any support from outside the country, the Marxist MPLA developed very close relations with Moscow and was soon to start receiving significant shipments of arms via Tanzania and Zambia. Long before Angola officially became independent, in 1969, the MPLA agreed with the USSR that in exchange for arms and supplies delivered to it the Soviets would – upon independence – be granted rights for establishing bases in the country. Consequently, by the early 1970s the MPLA developed into the strongest Angolan anti-colonial movement and the most powerful political party.

[edit] Aftermath

Portuguese Armed Forces' military officers overthrew the Marcelo Caetano government in Lisbon in the Carnation Revolution on April 25, 1974. Eventually, in July 1975 Angola was offered independence. This offer, however, only caused the outbreak of a fully-developed civil war between the MPLA, FNLA, and the UNITA, which immediately started fighting against each other - instead of the Portuguese. Within the shortest period of time it was perfectly clear that Angola would fell into anarchy as soon as the Portuguese would leave. The MPLA came out as the strongest power, and its leadership were to participate in the final negotiations with the Portuguese, according to which Angola was to become officially independent on 11 November 1975. As soon as this agreement became known in the public a mass exodus began: over 300,000 people left Angola by November, most of them evacuated aboard TAP Boeing 707 aircraft. The Royal Air Force also lent a hand sending Vickers VC10 airliners to evacuate about 6,000 additional refuges as well. At this stage the Angolan Civil War had started and spread out across the newly-independent country. The devastating civil war lasted several decades and claimed millions of lives and refugees in independent Angola.^[25]

The former colony became worse off after independence than it had been during Portuguese rule. The deterioration in central planning effectiveness, economic development and growth, security, education and health system efficiency, was rampant. Like the other newly-independent African territories involved in the Portuguese Colonial War, Angola, sank at the bottom of human development and GDP per capita world tables. After a few years, the former colonies had reached high levels of corruption, poverty, inequality and social imbalances. A level of economic development comparable to what had existed under Portuguese rule became a major goal for the governments of the independent territory. The sharp recession and chaos in many areas of Angolan life, eroded the initial impetus of nationalistic fervor. There were also eruptions of black racism in the former overseas province, through the use of hatred against both white and mulatto Angolans.^[26]

[edit] See also

• Portuguese Colonial War

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• OnWar timeline